Monday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Jan 17, 2011 at 9:50 am

The Court is off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day after a quiet weekend in the news.

Michael Kirkland of the United Press International connects the outcome of Snyder v. Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church funeral protest case, to the national discussion of violent political rhetoric sparked by the Tucson shootings. He argues that a broad ruling against the church “could open the gates for civil suits against violent speech that incites crime,” but he notes that “the most likely result is that the justices will defend court action that creates a limited buffer zone between church protests and funerals, but will find their speech protected.”

Briefly:

• Sentencing Law and Policy has continuing coverage of Alabama’s Friday execution of Leroy White after a brief Court stay.
• At Balkinization, Jack Balkin discusses the role that the health insurance industry might play as amici in the challenges to the constitutionality of the individual mandate.  In particular, he broaches the question whether, “if the insurance industry tells the federal appellate courts or the Supreme Court that striking down the individual mandate is economically unsustainable,” those courts might “be even more drawn to the mainstream view that the mandate is perfectly constitutional.”