Friday round-up

In the latest entry to the Supreme Court’s coronavirus docket, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn filed an emergency request Thursday asking the justices to grant it relief from attendance limits at church services ordered by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). Amy Howe explains the dispute.

The justices meet Friday for their private weekly conference to decide whether to take up any new cases. Among the noteworthy petitions slated to be discussed are a case involving the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel and a case asking whether the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement extends to the home.

Here’s a round-up of other Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:

• Alito’s politically charged address draws heat (Josh Gerstein, Politico)
• Justice Alito Responds to Liberal Critics, Says Covid-19 Is ‘Constitutional Stress Test’ (Jess Bravin, The Wall Street Journal)
• Harvard Victory Pushes Admissions Case Toward a More Conservative Supreme Court (Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times)
• First Amendment News 277: Contra-Justice Thomas, the originalist debate continues — a review of Wendell Bird’s ‘Criminal Dissent’ (Ronald K. L. Collins)
• Respect Jurors (Francis Miles, American Constitution Society)
• Religious Liberty Should Prevail (Richard Epstein, Ricochet)
• Pack the Court: A Dose of Therapeutics for the Current Malaise (Martin London, New York Law Journal)
• Why Walmart should sell booze in Texas (Dallas Morning News editorial on pending cert petition in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission)
• A world without ACA is nothing to fear (Tim McGhee, An American Blog)

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!