The Supreme Court held two state statutes unconstitutional during the the 2015 term*: portions of Florida’s death penalty law in Hurst v. Florida and Texas’ abortion statute in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. While lower court rulings relate to the specific statute(s) dealt with in a case, these decisions have nationwide implications. The Court’s decisions have constitutional…
Month: August 2016
Supreme Court Opinion Readability 2015
How easy are Supreme Court opinions to read? There is quite a bit of variation in the Court’s writings based on the case facts, Justice, clerks, majority coalition, and prior case law involved. Complicating this question further is the difficulty in measuring reading ease. As with measuring writing quality, there are subjective elements that even…
The Summer Pipeline
Supreme Court Justices make few official decisions during the summer. Generally, these relate to emergency matter that require quick injunctive responses. For lawyers, however, the situation is quite different (as the saying goes “time and tide wait for no man”). While the Court does not rule on cases during the summer, cert petitions accumulate just…
Five SCOTUS Decisions Making Waves in the Lower Courts
The 2015/2016 Supreme Court Term had its fair share of significant cases. Some of these cases have effected and will effect large swaths of the population. The ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, for instance, sets guidelines for acceptable state regulations on abortion. Evenwel v. Abbott clarifies how states may draw legislative districts, thus…
Why Garland Makes Sense for Clinton and Obama
Merrick Garland has a stellar judicial record. None of the 330 decisions he authored have even been heard by the Supreme Court on writ of certiorari. Few of his fellow jurists on the D.C. Circuit have dissented in cases where he wrote the majority opinion. He has fed more clerks to the Supreme Court…
A Formula For Supreme Court Clerkships? Harvard and Garland
Is there a formula to becoming a Supreme Court clerk? Perhaps a certain pedigree? How about a prior federal clerkship? The short answer to all three questions is yes. At very least, going to a certain school and working for a specific judge significantly enhance your chances. Much of the discussion surrounding Supreme Court clerkships has centered…
Professors as Amici
Amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court are most commonly used as a tool for interest groups use to convey their positions (for a look at interest groups’ use of amicus briefs see this article by Professor Paul Collins). This is not the sole use of such briefs though. Non-party individuals and groups that have an…
Quick Note: Supreme Court Stay Applications 2015/2016
The Supreme Court regularly receives applications to stay court orders or mandates pending possible upcoming decisions such as those on certiorari. Many of these requests are received from inmates on death row looking to stay executions. Several instances involve multiple applications based around the same underlying cases. Due to the interest in the stay recently granted in…
Forced Judicial Restraint
When, soon after his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Garland was praised for his judicial restraint, this praise was not envisioned for the type of impact Judge Garland’s nomination has made on the Court so far. Similarly, no one calling for judicial restraint or decrying the Court’s judicial activism prior to 2016 expected change to come in…
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