Monday Round-Up: Afternoon Edition
on Oct 5, 2009 at 4:49 pm
This morning, the Court issued orders denying certiorari in a number of cases and inviting the government’s views in four.  A round-up of the coverage on these orders is below.
NOTE: A correction has been made to the entry on St. James Parish v. Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
The Court denied cert. in the following cases, among others:
Barr v. LaFon: The Court refused to hear an appeal by a group of students challenging a school policy barring any depiction of the Confederate flag. The students had argued that the school’s refusal to allow them to wear Confederate flag tee-shirts frustrated their freedom of expression. The Christian Science Monitor discusses the case.
Choose Life Illinois, Inc. v. White: The LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Herald, UPI, and the AP all have pieces on the Court’s decision not to take up a free speech claim from a pro-life group. The group, Choose Life Illinois, had argued in its petition that the state’s refusal to issue a “Choose Life†specialty license plate amounted to discrimination.
Department of the Interior et al. v. Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp.: The Court’s denial of cert. in this case, which prevents the Department of the Interior from imposing price-based limits on royalty waivers for some deepwater energy producers, is covered by the New York Times, Reuters, and the AP.
Family Dollar, Inc. v. Morgan: The Court declined an appeal of a multimillion-dollar verdict in favor of store managers who were denied overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Reuters has an article on the case. [Note: Howe & Russell represented the respondents in the case.]
Florida Association of Professional Lobbyists, Inc. et al. v. Division of Legislative Information Services of the Florida Office of Legislative Services et al.: Election Law Blog and the Miami Herald both report on the Court’s denial of this challenge to Florida’s lobbying ethics law.
Frazier v. Smith: The Court refused to hear a case challenging a Florida law which requires all public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Lawyers for the teenager challenging the law had asked the Court to decide whether students had a constitutional right to refuse to repeat the Pledge.  The Christian Science Monitor, the AP, and Education Week News cover the Court’s decision.
Greenwell v. Parsley: A sheriff’s deputy who was fired when he announced that he would run against his boss in upcoming elections had his petition for certiorari denied today. The deputy had argued that his First Amendment rights were implicated by the firing. The LA Times, the AP, and the Louisville Courier-Journal report on this development.
Holmes v. Louisiana: The Court declined to hear an appeal from a death row inmate who has claimed that developmental disabilities caused by fetal alcohol syndrome should disqualify her from execution. CNN, UPI, and the AP all have coverage of the case.
Knight v. Chicago Tribune Co. et al.: A former prosecutor who accused the Chicago Tribune of libel, contending that the paper defamed him with allegations that he framed a man on rape charges, had his appeal denied by the Court today. The AP has coverage of the decision.
Mikos v. United States: The LA Times, the Chicago Sun Times, NBC Chicago, and the AP report on the news that the Court will not hear an appeal of the conviction of a doctor who allegedly shot a nurse to prevent her from testifying against him in a Medicare fraud case. The defense has contended that prosecutors encouraged the jury to focus on the doctor’s failure to testify on his own behalf.
Nacchio v. United States: The AP, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, WSJ Law Blog, the New York Times, the Denver Post, and the Huffington Post all have coverage of the Court’s refusal to hear former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio’s appeal of his conviction for insider trading. Nacchio’s attorneys had argued that he was not given a fair trial.
Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp. v. New York Times Co. et al.: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn. lost its appeal today when the Court refused to delay the release of legal documents from child sex-abuse lawsuits against priests. The Diocese had argued that compelling disclosure of the records threatened its First Amendment rights. The New York Times, a respondent in the case, has a report on the decision, as do NPR, the Hartford Courant, the AP, and UPI.
St. James Parish v. Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles: The Court let stand a decision by California courts that a parish splitting off from the Episcopal Church may not be able to take parish property with it. The LA Times, the New York Times, the AP, the Houston Chronicle, and Glendale News Press discuss the decision.
Young v. Presley: A man claiming to be Elvis Presley’s first-born son, and demanding rights to the Presley family estate, had his appeal denied today. Fox News covers the Court’s denial of his petition.
In this morning’s orders, the Court also solicited the federal government’s views on four pending writs of certiorari. In Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. San Francisco, the Court sought the Obama Administration’s opinion on whether it should grant cert.; ACSblog covers that development. The Wall Street Journal also has a discussion of the Court’s decision to request the government’s views in three other cases: Williamson v. Mazda Motor, Costco Wholesale v. Omega, and Missouri Gas Energy v. Schmidt.
