The big SCOTUS news this week came yesterday, with the 53-47 Senate vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first African American woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Congrats, Judge Jackson/America! As always you can find all sorts of analysis of the confirmation and soon-to-be Justice Jackson’s potential impact on the Court elsewhere. We’re sticking to opinions!
Of those, there was just
Read More Thompson v. Clark (No. 20-659), Louisiana v. American Rivers (No.21A539)Just one new decision this week. In Badgerow v. Walters (No. 20-1143), the Court resolved a circuit split over a technical jurisdictional issue involving the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), while airing the ever-diminishing differences among the Justices when it comes to formalistic or functional approaches to statutory interpretation.
Section 4 of the FAA authorizes a party to an arbitration agreement to request that a
Read More Badgerow v. Walters (No. 20-1143)While most eyes were on the confirmation hearings of the Court’s next (presumptive) justice, the current crew kept busy with two new decisions, each touching on First Amendment concerns. In Houston Community College System v. Wilson (No. 20-804), the Court held that the First Amendment does not preclude a public college from censuring one of its employees in alleged retaliation for his own speech.
Read More Houston Community College System v. Wilson (No. 20-804), Ramirez v. Collier (No. 21-5592),The Nine have been active of late, with four opinions coming out late last week and another yesterday morning. There was also significant news yesterday on the orders docket. Here follows our harried (if not quite hurried) effort to bring you up to speed.
First up, in United States v. Tsarnaev (No. 20-443), the Court reinstated the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar
Read More United States v. Tsarnaev (No. 20-443), United States v. Zubaydah (No. 20-827), FBI v. Fazaga, (No. 20-828), Wooden v. United States (No. 20-5279), Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center (No. 20-601)The big news today (setting aside the early rumblings of World War III) is of course President Biden’s nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson to succeed Justice Breyer on that other federal appeals court in the District. You’ll have to look elsewhere (and you won’t have to look far) for hot takes on the nomination and whether and how, if confirmed, Justice Brown-Jackson would
Read More Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Henes & Mauritz, L.P. (No. 20-915)Last week’s big news was not found in the pages of the U.S. Reports. As you’ve surely heard, last Thursday Justice Breyer officially announced his retirement from regular service on the Court after that news was leaked the day before. The decision will take effect when the Court recesses for the summer “assuming that by then [a] successor has been nominated and confirmed.” Court watchers
Read More Hughes v. Northwestern University (No. 19-1401), United States v. Tsarnaev, (No. 20-443), Hamm v. Reeves (No. 21A372)