Wednesday round-up
on Jan 23, 2013 at 9:31 am
Yesterday’s Court coverage continued to focus on the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. UPI has coverage, with commentary coming from Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times and Geoffrey R. Stone at the Huffington Post. Ian Simpson of Reuters (via the Chicago Tribune) covers yesterday’s protests of the decision at the Court, while Ashley Killough of CNN covers an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicating that a majority of Americans oppose overturning the decision. In Roe miscellany, the Los Angeles Times posts an archival image of its original story on the decision, Jacob Remes at ACSblog salutes (among others) Sarah Weddington, who successfully argued Roe at the age of twenty-six, and the PBS NewsHour examines Roe’s impact on the Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey upholding the constitutional right to abortion.
The Court issued a unanimous opinion yesterday in Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, holding that the 180-day statutory time limit for a hospital to appeal a final Medicaid reimbursement is not “jurisdictional,” but is also not subject to equitable tolling. Lyle Denniston covers the opinion for this blog, while Howard Wasserman of PrawfsBlawg notes that the Court “now seems to be going out of its way to find provisions (properly) non-jurisdictional.” Terry Baynes of Reuters also has coverage.
After granting several new cases on Friday (which Marissa covered in Monday’s round-up), yesterday the Court issued additional orders – mostly denials of certiorari – from the Justices’ January 18 Conference. Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor covers the Court’s denial of cert. in a case involving a robbery of a church; the petitioners had challenged the trial judge’s reference to God’s “vengeance” during sentencing. Greg Stohr of Bloomberg, Lawrence Hurley and Jeremy P. Jacobs of E&E, Jonathan Stempel of Reuters (via the Chicago Tribune), the Associated Press (via NPR), and UPI cover the Court’s denial in Arasco v. EPA, a case challenging federal limits on sulfur dioxide emissions. The Court also refused to hear a case stemming from criminal attacks on several ships off the Somali coast which sought to challenge the definition of “piracy” at sea used by lower courts. Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor, UPI, the Associated Press (via NPR), and Eugene Kontorovich of the Volokh Conspiracy all have coverage. Finally, Reuters (via the Chicago Tribune) covers the Court’s refusal to hear a case about whether Sears “improperly fired a former supervisor who objected to how the retailer handled a sexual harassment probe she helped conduct.”
The first set of briefs in the same-sex marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry (the challenge to California’s Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (the challenge to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act), were filed yesterday. Lyle Denniston of this blog discusses the brief filed in Perry by supporters of Proposition 8 here, and the brief filed in Windsor by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group here. Amy Howe of this blog posts the briefing schedule for the same-sex marriage cases. Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News and Jonathan Stempel of Reuters also have coverage of the filings. Meanwhile, with the briefing in the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases underway, Greg Sargent of The Washington Post and Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed press the President to take a position on whether he believes laws banning same-sex marriage are constitutional. And at Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports that the President’s references to gay rights in his inaugural address have “raised hope” that the administration will adopt such a position.
Finally, Justice Sotomayor continues to promote her new memoir, My Beloved World. Reed Johnson of the Los Angeles Times reports on Sotomayor’s salsa dance during an interview on Univision (video), while the Daily Report’s ATLaw blog previews Oprah’s interview of Sotomayor, to be published in the forthcoming issue of O Magazine. And the Justice appeared on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show on Monday evening (video). (Hat tip to Howard Bashman.)
Briefly:
- Comparing the Court’s recent history to that of President Obama, the editorial board of The New York Times argues that the Court has “regularly ruled as if justice and prosperity are unrelated or even antithetical.”
- Brian Lawson of Al.com reports that Alabama has filed a cert. petition asking the Court to overturn a lower court decision blocking the state from implementing a law criminalizing the harbor and transport of undocumented immigrants.
- At the ABA Journal, Debra Cassens Weiss reports on the return of Bond v. United States, in which the Court last week granted review for a second time.
- Almost two years on, Jennifer Medina of The New York Times reports on California’s attempts to comply with the Court’s decision in Brown v. Plata upholding an order to reduce the state’s prison population.
- Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal covers the Court’s grants from last Friday, including the Allen Stanford cases.
- John Council of the Texas Lawyer profiles Brian Lauten, who represents the respondent in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, in which the Court granted cert. on Friday.
- Ruthann Robson of Constitutional Law Prof Blog, Elizabeth Tenety of The Washington Post, and Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal add to coverage of Justice Scalia’s choice of headwear at Monday’s presidential inauguration.
- Alison Frankel of Reuters reports on the “distinct trend in recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, in which the court has time and again agreed to hear securities cases in order to clarify just what Congress intended.”
- A documentary about the life of Anita Hill is making the rounds at the Sundance Film Festival. Ben Fulton of The Salt Lake Tribune and Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star have coverage. (Thanks to Howard Bashman for these two links.)
