Wednesday round-up
on Jan 18, 2012 at 10:52 am
With the Court having granted three cases from its January 13 Conference on Friday, yesterday’s coverage of the Court largely focused on the cases in which the Court denied review in its order list. Lyle Denniston summarized the order list for this blog; other coverage comes from Greg Stohr of Bloomberg and the Associated Press, who report on the cert. denials in cases involving prayers at government meetings, Maryclaire Dale at the Associated Press and Warren Richey at the Christian Science Monitor, who cover the Court’s decision not to review three First Amendment cases involving minors and controversial Internet speech, and Nina Totenberg of NPR and James Vicini of Reuters, who have additional coverage of the order list.
The Court also denied cert. in Applebee’s International Inc. v. Fast, a case concerning restaurants’ practice of paying employees a reduced minimum wage by factoring in money made in tips. (Disclosure: Goldstein &Russell P.C. represents the respondents in this case). Tiffany Hsu at the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press both provide coverage. Renzi v. United States, a case brought by former U.S. Representative Rick Renzi seeking to block his trial on charges of extortion and other crimes, was also denied, as was Standard Investment Chartered, Inc. v. National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., a challenge to the legal immunity of private organizations that oversee the country’s financial markets. (Disclosure: Goldstein and Russell P.C. represents the petitioner in the second case). Coverage of the former comes from the Associated Press and Joe Palazzolo at the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, while coverage of the latter comes from Greg Stohr at Bloomberg, Dan Jamieson at Investment News, and James Vicini at Reuters.
On Tuesday’s order list, the Court also asked the Solicitor General to file briefs expressing the views of the United States in two cases, one of which tests the immunity of a foreign government’s central bank in an attempt in U.S. courts to seize the assets of the bank. Greg Storh at Bloomberg provides coverage of the case. Yesterday the Court also heard oral arguments in two cases: Filarsky v. Delia and United States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC. JURIST provides coverage of the arguments in both cases, and transcripts can be found here.
Finally, Tim Craig at the Washington Post’s blog the D.C. Wire and Zoe Tillman at the Blog of the Legal Times both report that the District of Columbia will join several other states on an amicus brief supporting the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Ilya Shapiro at Cato@Liberty discusses the Cato Institute’s amicus brief in the health care cases addressing whether the Act’s Medicaid expansion is a proper exercise of Congress’s Spending Clause.
Briefly:
- The Washington Post (via the Associated Press) and the Blog of the Legal Times both provide coverage of a death penalty protest at the Court yesterday that resulted in fourteen arrests.
- Greg Stohor of Bloomberg reports that Qwest’s cert. petition seeking review of an $18 million punitive damage award in a case involving a utility pole accident has been dismissed because the case was settled.
- At NPR’s Tell Me More, host Michel Martin discusses last week’s ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC with the Washington Post’s Eva Rodriguez.
- At Law.com, Joshua Engel discusses United States v. Jones, including the possibility that, even if the Court permits police to use GPS devices without a warrant, state courts applying state constitutions “may continue to restrict the use of these devices.”
- Sentencing Law and Policy’s Douglas Berman discusses the petitioner’s merits brief in the upcoming case Southern Union Co. v. United States.
- The Federal Evidence Review discusses Perry v. New Hampshire and the role of jury instructions regarding the fallibility of eyewitness identification.
Correction 1/19/2012: Michel Martin discussed Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC on NRP’s Tell Me More, not Morning Edition as originally reported.
