Friday round-up

Amy Howe analyzes yesterday’s argument in Gamble v. United States, which asks whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause that allows a defendant to be prosecuted for the same crime in both federal and state court, for this blog, in a post that was first published at Howe on the Court. At Fox News, Bill Mears reports that “[t]he justices raised tough questions Thursday about being tried twice for the same crime in different jurisdictions – ‘a double whammy,’ as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it – yet a majority seemed inclined to preserve what the Trump administration calls 170 years of precedent allowing an exception to the double jeopardy provision.” At The Daily Caller, Kevin Daley reports that “[t]he case is carefully followed in Washington because of its potential ramifications for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.” But Adam Liptak reports for The New York Times that “the justices gave no indications on Thursday that they were focused on such issues.” Additional coverage of the argument comes from Nina Totenberg at NPR, Ariane de Vogue at CNN, Mark Sherman at AP, Lawrence Hurley at Reuters, Jess Bravin for The Wall Street Journal, Richard Wolf for USA Today, and Robert Barnes for The Washington Post.

At Roll Call, Todd Ruger reports that the case “gave retiring Sen. Orrin G. Hatch a final chance to broadcast his views beyond the Capitol building to the nine justices across the street,” when Hatch “filed a brief known as an amicus curiae — or a ‘friend of the court’ who is not a party in a case.” The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal counsels that “[t]here are strong legal arguments on both sides, but the implications of jettisoning longtime precedent counsel judicial restraint.” Another look at the case comes from Garrett Epps at The Atlantic.

Briefly:

• At The Hill, Lydia Wheeler reports that “[a] bruising battle over the court’s latest appointee and a recent health scare involving the oldest justice has renewed interest in the age-old debate over whether there should be term limits for the Supreme Court.”
• In the most recent episode of the Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, “John-Michael Seibler joins Elizabeth Slattery to discuss retired Justice Kennedy lingering at the Court and share holiday gift recommendations for the SCOTUS nerd in your life.”
• In an op-ed for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse remarks on an enduring legacy of the late President George H.W. Bush: his appointment of “Clarence Thomas, [who] is now in his 27th year as a justice and, at age 70, is on track to become one of the longest-serving Supreme Court justices in history,” noting that “[a]cross all his federal court nominations, … [P]resident [Donald Trump] has chosen two dozen former Supreme Court law clerks, including 10 who clerked for Justice Thomas — more than for any other justice.”

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