Wednesday round-up

CONOR MCEVILY MAR 6, 2013 10:41 AM

Coverage of the Court yesterday continued to focus on the Court’s recent decisions as well as cases pending this Term.  At The Conglomerate, David Zaring covers the two securities law decisions issued last week:  Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust and Gabelli v. Securities and Exchange Commission.  At Cato@Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the amicus brief filed in United States v. Windsor in which a group of federalism scholars urges the Court to strike down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act on the ground that it is “not a constitutional exercise of any enumerated federal power.”  (Sarah covered this brief in yesterday’s round-up.)  And PolitiFact.com examines the Chief Justice’s assertion during the oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder that Massachusetts (which is not covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act) “has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout.”

Retired Justice O’Connor was in the news yesterday.  On NPR’s “Fresh Air,” she discusses her experience as the first female Justice on the Court (thanks to Howard Bashman for the link), while at the Constitutional Law Prof Blog Ruthann Robson links to the Justice’s recent appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show.  And last night the Justice appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Briefly:

• In his “Relist watch” feature for this blog, John Elwood reports on the cases from the Court’s March 1 Conference that were relisted for re-consideration at the March 15 Conference.
• Also at this blog, the “SCOTUSblog on camera” feature continues with Part 2 of Fabrizio di Piazza’s interview with Nina Totenberg, in which she discusses the process of learning how the Court works and conveying its subtleties.  (Part 1 of the interview is available here.)
• The Associated Press (via ABC News) reports that Mary Ann Bertles Stewart, the widow of the late Justice Potter Stewart, has died in Vermont at the age of ninety-three.
• Jacob Gershman of The Wall Street Journal Law Blog discusses an upcoming article in the University of Chicago Law Review (also highlighted by Adam Liptak of The New York Times in his recent Sidebar column, to which Sarah linked yesterday) on the Court’s use of the “floodgate” metaphor.
• At this blog Lyle Denniston reports that the Obama administration – “sending its strongest signal yet that it will eventually go to the Supreme Court to try to salvage a wider range of war crimes prosecutions” – has asked the en banc D.C. Circuit to review its claim that Congress has the power to make new terrorism crimes retroactive.

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