Thursday round-up
on Apr 27, 2017 at 7:20 am
Yesterday the court heard oral argument in Maslenjak v. United States, which asks whether a naturalized U.S. citizen can be stripped of her citizenship in a criminal proceeding based on an immaterial false statement. Amy Howe analyzes the argument for this blog. In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports that several of the “justices seemed taken aback” by the idea “that the government may revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings.” Additional coverage of the argument comes from Jess Bravin in The Wall Street Journal, who reports that “[s]kepticism over the Trump administration’s broad view of government power didn’t translate into sympathy for Divna Maslenjak, the Bosnian Serb immigrant who filed the appeal.”
On Tuesday, the court heard argument in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, a civil procedure case involving a court’s specific jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants sued by out-of-state plaintiffs. Ronald Mann analyzes the argument for this blog. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the respondents in this case.]
Briefly:
- At the ACS blog, Brian Stull weighs in on Davila v. Davis, a case that was argued on Monday in which the justices will decide whether ineffective assistance of counsel in a state habeas proceeding excuses a defendant’s failure to raise an underlying claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel; he draws on statistics and analysis to argue that a ruling for the inmate would not open the floodgates to additional litigation.
- In a column for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse discusses Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, a high-profile religion case, arguing that “the controversy in the case longer exists, because the state now agrees with Trinity Lutheran’s position,” and that “the court’s next move” will “tell us something important about the newly reconstituted Roberts court, specifically whether its commitment lies with consensus or with the regained power of five votes.”
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