Academic Round-up

Northwestern Law Review‘s Colloquy has posted Part II of the Essay that I discussed last week by Professors Kathryn Watts and Amy Wildermuth regarding the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, see here. In the second part, Professors Watts and Wildermuth argue that the other major contribution of the decision will be the way courts review agency inaction when an agency is charged with rulemaking.

Professor Stephen F. Smith of the University of Virginia School of Law has posted “The Supreme Court and the Politics of Death” on SSRN, see here. I saw Professor Smith present an early version of this paper at a conference awhile back, and it is quite interesting and provocative. In particular, he argues that the Court’s jurisprudence on the Sixth and Eighth Amendments have been important weapons in countering the politics of death and promoting the fairness and rationality of the capital sentencing process.

Professors Ryan Schoen and Paul Wahlbeck have posted “The Discuss List and Agenda Setting on Supreme Court” on SSRN, see here. Scholars have examined a number of aspects of the Supreme Court’s agenda setting process, but the role of the discuss list has been largely ignored. Among other things, this paper examines the number of cases each Justice added to the discuss list between the 1985 and 1993 Terms.