Thursday round-up
The Court is expected to issue one or more opinions this morning. The full list of undecided cases is available here; we will be live-blogging beginning at 9:45 a.m. The Justices will also be meeting later today for their second-to-last Conference of the Term. Our list of “Petitions to watch†for that Conference is available here.
Here’s yesterday’s Court coverage, in brief:
- On Wednesday the Court stayed the execution of a Texas man pending the disposition of his petition for certiorari. Reuters and the Associated Press (via NPR) have coverage.
- Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the keynote speaker at a forum at Wayne State University Law School sponsored by the Judicial Selection Task Force, a non-partisan initiative formed to explore alternate methods to select state judges. The South End, the Wayne State University student newspaper, has coverage. (Thanks to How Appealing for the tip.)
- The editorial board of the New York Times considers the legacy of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company, Inc., the 2009 decision in which the Court held that it was unconstitutional for a state supreme court justice to sit on a case involving the financial interests of a major donor to the judge’s election campaign. The board suggests that the Court’s message about “the need for states to adopt more rigorous rules for recusal . . . has largely gone unheeded.â€
- Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle discusses the denial of certiorari on Monday in a case challenging the inclusion of the words “under God†in the Pledge of Allegiance. Egelko reports that Michael Newdow, who instigated the lawsuit and who has raised several challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance since 2000, says “that he isn’t giving up and plans to file one or more lawsuits this year in hopes of winning a favorable ruling that would eventually reach the high court.â€
- Here at SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston reports that the Court has appointed Baker Botts associate Evan A. Young to defend the Fifth Circuit decision in Setser v. United States, a decision the federal government no longer supports.
- Also at SCOTUSblog, Briggs Matheson discusses Monday’s decision in United States v. Jicarilla Apache, in which the Court held that the fiduciary exception to the attorney-client privilege does not apply to the general trust relationship between the United States and the Indian tribes.
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