Scribble

Editor's Note :

Scribble

Court will review census citizenship dispute this term – Amy Howe

Argument preview: Justices to examine rejection of contracts in bankruptcy – Ronald Mann

Argument preview: Justices to consider ability of government to challenge patents in administrative process – Ronald Mann

Live blog of confirmation hearing | March 21, 2017

Live blog of confirmation hearing | March 21, 2017

Feb. 2019

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Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award

Conference of February 15, 2019

Conference

Holiday

Orders

RETURN MAIL INC. V. U.S. POSTAL SERVICE (17-1594)

MISSION PRODUCT HOLDINGS INC. V. TEMPNOLOGY INC. (17-1657)

Opinions

Conference

Orders

MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. V. HALLECK (17-1702)

UNITED STATES V. HAYMOND (17-1672)

MONT V. UNITED STATES (17-8995)

THE AMERICAN LEGION V. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION (17-1717)

3rd & 7 37yd

Gorsuch: Respectfully, it is not.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:12:43 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch talking about United States v. Jones, about GPS tracking device on car. This is at least his second reference to Jones and originalism today.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:13:17 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar: So when the Constitution refers to "his" or "he" in terms of president, the founders thought a woman could be president?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:13:49 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: Of course. [Raises his voice]. I have two daughters.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:14:04 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar is citing other examples of things left out of the Constituion, like the Air Force.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:14:22 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar refers to US v. VA, re exclusion of women from VMI. Scalia stuck to originalism in dissent, saying decision is creation of Constitution.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:14:57 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar: Would you be willing to apply same approach to minorities, LGBT, etc.?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:15:40 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: A good judge applies a law without respect to persons.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:15:49 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar: [Summary: What does that mean?]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:16:01 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: I don't take account of the person before me. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:16:15 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch, responding to Klobuchar's discussion of "selective originalism" -- refers her to various Supreme Court decision that relied on originalism to reach pro-defendant result.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:17:06 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar promises to do it on the second round.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:17:18 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar brings up "courtesy fifth": is it a good thing?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:17:31 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: I haven't studied that. Would be presumptuous to offer an opinion.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:17:46 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar: Could be relevant to travel ban, so maybe we will ask in next round.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:18:01 PM

Comment ()
Klobuchar has now moved on to freedom of the press.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:18:40 PM

Comment ()
Under NYT v. Sullivan, would First Amendment permit government officials to sue the press under any lower standard?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:19:11 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: NYT v. Sullivan was a landmark decision. Proof of actual malice is required to state a claim. Can point you to cases that have applied this principle.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:19:58 PM

Comment ()
Last question from Klobuchar: are there instances in which a court should recognize a reporter's privilege?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:20:53 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: those questions come up, so I must be careful. Your description of the case is entirely accurate.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:21:16 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch is returning to the room.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:33:11 PM

Comment ()
Senator Grassley is gaveling the hearing to reopen it.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:34:38 PM

Comment ()
Senator Cruz is up now. Congratulates Gorsuch on making it through the first half of questioning with flying colors.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:35:04 PM

Comment ()
Cruz: What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:35:29 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: 42.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:35:34 PM

Comment ()
This is an anecdote about swearing in new lawyers at the Tenth Circuit. Gorsuch apparently asks them that question, and the answer is from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which he says is one of his daughter's favorite books.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:36:55 PM

Comment ()
Cruz: You started as a law clerk for Byron White.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:37:08 PM

Comment ()
Talking about White's record in NFL. Cruz -- can you talk about your experience?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:37:39 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: He really was my childhood hero. To get picked out of the pile to clerk for him was the privilege of a lifetime.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:38:10 PM

Comment ()
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asks first about Justice Byron White.

by Andrew Hamm edited by Molly Runkle 3/21/2017 7:39:00 PM

Comment ()
We have another Gorsuch Byron White impression. [Don't know him, so can't weigh in on how accurate it is.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:39:06 PM

Comment ()
[Or should say didn't know him, very sorry.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:39:18 PM

Comment ()
[But Gorsuch very much enjoyed the impression.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:39:38 PM

Comment ()
White said his judicial philosophy was to decide cases. [Pretty sure we have heard this anecdote already today too.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:40:03 PM

Comment ()
Before a short break, Grassley entered into the record an op-ed with the Chicago Tribune, "Crying wolf over Neil Gorsuch." Here it is. www.chicagotribune.com

by Andrew Hamm 3/21/2017 7:40:29 PM

Comment ()
Now Cruz, who also clerked at the Court, is talking about the basketball court at the court. Describes White as playing with a bunch of "pencil-necked law clerks." [Cruz's words, not mine.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:41:22 PM

Comment ()
Now we are talking about Byron White's jump shot and eye-hand coordination. [I do not make this up.]

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:41:44 PM

Comment ()
White told him, "The truth is, we will all be forgotten."

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:42:43 PM

Comment ()
Cruz: "There is wisdom in that humility."

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:42:52 PM

Comment ()
Cruz: Some Democratic senators who have challenged originalism, painted it as some quaint and outdated mode of interpreting the Constitution.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:43:17 PM

Comment ()
Cruz (who is speaking very slowly): Do you agree that originalism is a quaint and outdated notion?

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:44:09 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: We sometimes use labels as a way to not engage with other people. As a judge, that's not fair or useful.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:44:33 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: I don't think there is a judge alive who doesn't want to know something about original meaning of text he or she is interpreting. I don't think this is an ideological thing. Refers to Fourth Amendment cases that ruled for the defendant. Also Crawford v. Washington and the right to confront witnesses.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:45:40 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: Crawford based on original meaning of Sixth Amendment. Justice Stevens examined original history of Fifth Amendment in Apprendi.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:46:09 PM

Comment ()
Gorsuch: Or Heller, in which both majority and dissent wrote opinions that examined original history of the Constitution.

by Amy Howe 3/21/2017 7:46:55 PM

Comment ()

Featured Posts

Court will review census citizenship dispute this term – Amy Howe

Argument preview: Justices to examine rejection of contracts in bankruptcy – Ronald Mann

Argument preview: Justices to consider ability of government to challenge patents in administrative process – Ronald Mann
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This Week at the Court
On Friday, the justices met for their February 15 conference and agreed to hear oral argument in Department of Commerce v. New York during the second week of the April sitting.
The calendar for the February sitting, which will begin on Tuesday, February 19, is available on the Supreme Court's website.
Major Cases
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York
  Whether New York City’s ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment, the commerce clause and the constitutional right to travel.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. The sale of an invention to a third party who is obligated to keep the invention confidential may place the invention “on sale” for purposes of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which bars a person from receiving a patent on an invention that was “in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention,” 35 U. S. C. §102(a)(1).
- New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.
- Stokeling v. United States The Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause encompasses a robbery offense that, like Florida’s law, requires the criminal to overcome the victim’s resistance.
- Culbertson v. Berryhill The Social Security Act’s fee cap of 25 percent of past-due benefits imposed on attorneys who successfully represent Title II benefit claimants in court proceedings applies only to fees for court representation and not to aggregate fees for both court and agency representation.
- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.
- Baxter v. United States (1) Whether a conviction for robbery under Florida law qualifies as a “violent felony” within the Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause simply because it requires overcoming victim resistance, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has held, or whether such a conviction fails to qualify as an ACCA “violent felony” because Florida caselaw confirms that overcoming victim resistance does not invariably requires the use of “violent force” as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has held; and (2) whether a conviction for any state robbery offense that includes “as an element” the common law requirement of overcoming “victim resistance” is categorically a “violent felony” within the ACCA’s elements clause if the offense has been specifically interpreted by state appellate courts to require only slight force to overcome resistance.
- Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
More Petitions »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 43

Cases decided 10

Summary reversals 2

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Chief Justice Roberts at Belmont University

On February 6, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke at Belmont University College of Law with Alberto Gonzales, dean of the law school and former U.S. attorney general.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

15
Conference

19
Orders
RETURN MAIL INC. V. U.S. POSTAL SERVICE (17-1594)

20
MISSION PRODUCT HOLDINGS INC. V. TEMPNOLOGY INC. (17-1657)
Opinions

22
Conference

25
Orders
MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. V. HALLECK (17-1702)

26
UNITED STATES V. HAYMOND (17-1672)
MONT V. UNITED STATES (17-8995)

27
THE AMERICAN LEGION V. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION (17-1717)

Cases argued	43
Cases decided	10
Summary reversals	2
Merits cases granted to date	73