Friday round-up

ALLISON TRZOP JUN 14, 2013 10:38 AM

Yesterday’s four opinions continue to gain attention. On Thursday, the Court released decisions in American Trucking Associations v. Los Angeles, Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, United States v. Davila, and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.

The Court’s decision in Myriad, holding that natural isolated DNA is not patentable, garnered the most coverage. Dan Stein gathered early coverage of the decision in yesterday’s evening round-up; other coverage comes from this blog’s Tom Goldstein, who spoke with Bloomberg Law about the case in a video interview, Nina Totenberg of NPR, who reports that the decision has “enormous implications for the future of personalized medicine and in many ways is likely to shape the future of science and technology,” Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal, Lori Andrews for the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law Institute for Science, Law & Technology blog, Bill Mears of CNN, Daniel Fisher of Forbes, Ed Mannino on his eponymous blog, Chantal Valery of Agence France-Presse, and Jaclyn Belczyk of JURIST.

Also at JURIST, Jaclyn Belczyk covers Tarrant Regional Water District, in which the Court unanimously held that the Red River Compact — a congressionally sanctioned agreement which allocates rights to the water of the Red River among Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana — does not preempt the Oklahoma water laws at issue in this case. Other coverage comes from Thomas Merrill for this blog, Richard Wolf of USA Today, and Jeremy P. Jacobs of Greenwire.

Also at Greenwire, Jeremy P. Jacobs reports on American Trucking Associations, in which the Court overturned part of the anti-smog program at the Port of Los Angeles. At PrawfsBlawg, Rick Hills argues that the Court “punted” in the case, by ducking what he characterized as the central question: “When can a governmental actor condition a private firm’s access to a government-owned facility on compliance with the government’s rules?” Other coverage of the ATA case comes from Jaclyn Belczyk of JURIST, who also covers Davila for JURIST; Rory Little reports on Davila for this blog.

Briefly:

• Jessica Gresko of the Associated Press reports on the most recent efforts by the Oyez Project — which will soon include the option to search the Court’s oral argument transcripts — to make audio recordings of oral arguments accessible to the public. 
• At The Root, Jenée Desmond-Harris offers a “refresher look” at the facts and issues in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court is considering a challenge to the University of Texas’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions process; she also provides a similar “refresher look” for Shelby County v. Holder, the challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
• At ACS blog, Adam Winkler predicts that in the four “potentially landmark” rulings yet to come this Term — including the same-sex marriage cases, Fisher, and Shelby County — “[t]he conservative justices will be bold and assertive, while the liberal justices will be hesitant and incremental.”
• And JURIST’s Elizabeth LaForgia has more on a federal judge’s recent ruling that the protest ban on the marble plaza in front of the Supreme Court is unconstitutional.

Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, represented the American Association of Law Schools as an amicus in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin and were among the counsel to Representative F. James Sensenbrenner et al., who filed an amicus brief in support of the respondent in Shelby County v. Holder. Tejinder Singh of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by international human rights advocates in support of the respondents in Hollingsworth v. Perry; Kevin Russell of Goldstein & Russell, P.C., was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by former senators in support of Edith Windsor in United States v. Windsor.

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