Monday round-up

JOSHUA MATZ OCT 24, 2011 10:41 AM

Coverage of the challenges to the Affordable Care Act continues to dominate the news.  As Lyle Denniston reported for this blog, the Court has reacted to intense interest by creating a special page for all ACA-related filings.  At CATO@Liberty Ilya Shapiro discusses possible timing for the Court’s review, while Politico discusses possible issues on which the Court could grant certiorari.  And at The Hill, Sam Baker explores the possibility that the Anti-Injunction Act, which bars courts from enjoining taxes before they take effect, will pose a procedural hurdle to review of the individual mandate.  Finally, at Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost suggests that the federal government in its ACA briefs is trying to appeal to Justice Kennedy by citing to his five-to-four opinion in Turner Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1997), in which he emphasized judicial deference to Congress when dealing with regulation of national industries.

Sunday marked Justice Thomas’s twentieth year on the Supreme Court.  In an op-ed for the New York Times, Lincoln Caplan discusses the Justice’s tenure and jurisprudence, as do John Yoo for Wall Street Journal, Juan Williams for FOX, and Ian Millhiser for ThinkProgress.

Several commentators previewed upcoming cases.  On this blog, Orin Kerr previewed the search-related issue presented in United States v. Jones, in which the Court will decide whether the installation and/or use of a GPS device on a suspect’s car violates the Fourth Amendment.  (The Electronic Privacy Information Center has created a Jones case page with links to a lot of useful resources.)  At ACSblog, Marco Simons discusses Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the Court will consider whether corporations can be sued under the Alien Tort Statute; he argues that “[i]n the year since it was decided, Kiobel has come under serious attack, and upholding the decision would be an embarrassment.”  Finally, The Press Enterprise previews National Meat Association v. Harris, a preemption case involving the Federal Meat Inspection Act.

In Brief:

• At Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger notes that, apparently for the first time, the record in a case consists only of a single DVD; the case is Wetzel v. Lambert, a habeas case that the Court will consider at its Conference on Friday.
• In the New York Times, Adam Liptak reports on recent criticism of the Court (as well as the federal judiciary more generally) by Republican presidential candidates.  The AP also provides coverage.
• In an op-ed in the New York Times, Joe Nocera describes the failed nomination of Robert Bork as, “in some ways, . . . the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics.”
• At Naked Philadelphian, Laura Goldman reports on a speech delivered by Justice Breyer at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
• Justice Stevens reviews The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, by the late William Stuntz, in the New York Review of Books.  [Disclosure: the author of this post worked as a research assistant for Professor Stuntz on this book.]
• At The New Republic, Eric Posner reviews a recent book by Kevin J. McMahon, Nixon’s Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences.
• At UPI, Michael Kirkland reports on the petition in The Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, in which a church is seeking review of the Second Circuit’s decision holding that a school district can prohibit worship services on school property.

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