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Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

Justices release financial disclosures – Amy Howe

Challengers ask justices to put off census decision – Amy Howe

Live blog of confirmation hearing | September 27, 2018

Live blog of confirmation hearing | September 27, 2018

We live-blogged as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

We live-blogged as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

June 2019

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Good morning, and welcome to our live blog.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:47:58 PM
In just about ten minutes, the fifth day of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing will be gaveled into session. We will hear testimony from Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused the judge of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:49:18 PM
This session of the hearing, unlike the previous four days, is taking place in a relatively small hearing room with extremely limited press coverage, at Ford's request.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:50:17 PM
Ford will go first and Kavanaugh will be next; they won't be in the room at the same time, again at Ford's request.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:50:53 PM
In an unusual move, the Republican members of the committee have chosen to have their questioning conducted by Rachel Mitchell, an experienced sex-crimes prosecutor from Arizona. The Democratic members will be questioning the witnesses themselves.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:51:52 PM
Is a committee vote still scheduled for tomorrow?

by David 9/27/2018 1:53:05 PM
Each senator will have five minutes for questioning (which they can cede to colleagues or staff members, including Rachel Mitchell), and the Republicans and Democrats will alternate.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:53:22 PM
Here's the basic outline for the day as I understand it.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 1:54:40 PM
Grassley and Feinstein will give opening statements, for which there will be no time limitation.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 1:54:55 PM
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will be sworn in and give an opening statement (no time limit).

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 1:55:15 PM
The committee vote is still scheduled for 9:30 tomorrow. But one thing about that is that Chairman Grassley has indicated that there are certain things he must do under committee rules, include give three days notice for a vote.

by Mark Walsh 9/27/2018 1:55:26 PM
Each senator will have five minutes for questioning. Senators can defer their time to another committee member or staff person. Senators will alternate questioning by party.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 1:56:22 PM
Then this will repeat for Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 1:56:38 PM
Am I the only one here for the orders list?

by Lawyer 9/27/2018 1:58:34 PM
The senators are taking their seats now.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 1:59:57 PM
What a crazy day. Good morning

by John the Lawyer 9/27/2018 2:01:09 PM
Chairman Grassley just came in and is sitting down.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:01:58 PM
When will the list of denials appear?

by Soulard David 9/27/2018 2:02:42 PM
How many senators in total? How long do we expect this to take?

by KPOM 9/27/2018 2:03:02 PM
This hearing is in the Judiciary Committee's regular hearing room, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The first part was in the large general hearing room in the more modern Hart Senate Office Building. That room is more or less a TV studio. Dr. Ford apparently did not want to testify in that imposing room.

by Mark Walsh 9/27/2018 2:03:55 PM
Dr. Ford is at the table now.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:04:24 PM
She is accompanied by her lawyers, Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:05:13 PM
Grassley is bringing the hearing to order.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:05:34 PM
He is thanking the witnesses for testifying.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:05:53 PM
Both have been through a terrible couple of weeks. They and their families have received vile threats.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:06:24 PM
Wants to apologize for the way they have been treated, wants hearing to be safe and dignified and civil.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:06:52 PM
Explains how hearing has come about. Nominated on July 9. Kavanaugh has served on DC Circuit for 12 years.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:07:30 PM
Kavanaugh has undergone six full background investigations. Nowhere in these six FBI reports was there a whiff of any issue, any issue at all, related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:08:13 PM
Ford first raised allegations nearly 2 months ago in a secret letter. Letter was secret from July 30 until September. Ranking Member Feinstein took no action.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:08:49 PM
Allegations could have been addressed earlier.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:08:59 PM
Ranking Member didn't ask Kavanaugh about the allegations when she met with him privately or during previous hearing or during a closed session, which Feinstein did not attend.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:09:37 PM
Kavanaugh answered more written questions than any other nominee. Ranking Member only referred allegations to FBI at the eleventh hour.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:10:07 PM
Judge Kavanaugh has had to address these alllegations in the midst of a media circus.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:10:41 PM
According to Grassley's office, we will hear opening statements from the chairman (going on now), and from the ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. Thankfully, since this is a continuation of a pending hearing, we don't have to hear opening statements from all the other committee members.

by Mark Walsh 9/27/2018 2:10:47 PM
Grassley and his staff addressed the allegations the way they have conducted similar investigations in the past. Contacted all the individuals Ford identified and Kavanaugh denied all the allegations.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:11:30 PM
Democrats did not participate in the investigation.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:11:50 PM
If they had wanted to get to the truth, why didn't they participate?

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:12:08 PM
Witnesses named by Ford did not corroborate her statements.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:12:33 PM
The judiciary committee was able to conduct thorough investigations into the allegations. Some colleagues pushed for FBI investigations, but he has no authority to order an FBI investigation.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:13:34 PM
FBI doesn't assess credibility or verify witness statements. Quotes Joe Biden during Justice THomas' hearings re usefulness of FBI reports. FBI does not reach a conclusion, period.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:14:22 PM
They do not reach a conclusion or make recommendations.

by Edith Roberts 9/27/2018 2:14:44 PM
Grassley: Some colleagues have complained that an expert on the Republican side will question the witness (a sex crimes prosecutor). I see no basis for this complaint but for politics.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 2:15:26 PM
Grassley: These issues are difficult, which is why an expert was needed. I can think of no one better equipped to question the witnesses than Rachel Mitchell.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 2:16:21 PM
Grassley: She has spent working on sexual assault issues and educating others about how to handle them.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 2:17:07 PM
Grassley: There are other allegations. We have not had cooperation from attorneys representing other clients.

by Andrew Hamm 9/27/2018 2:17:33 PM

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Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

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The Supreme Court will release orders from the June 13 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's "Relist Watch" compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their June 20 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- 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.
- 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.
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Recent Decisions
- Quarles v. United States Michigan’s third-degree home-invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than generic burglary for purposes of qualifying for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
- Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the Outer Continental Shelf.
- Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service The federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
- Azar v. Allina Health Services Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.
- Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis The charge-filing precondition to suit set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a jurisdictional requirement.
- Mont v. United States Pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction tolls a supervised-release term under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e), even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited.
- Taggart v. Lorenzen A creditor may be held in civil contempt for violating a bankruptcy court’s discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct.
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Current Relists
- Jordan v. City of Darien, Georgia Whether the existence of probable cause defeats a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim as a matter of law.
- Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (1) Whether Oregon violated the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment by compelling the Kleins to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ritual in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs; (2) whether the Supreme Court should overrule Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and (3) whether the Supreme Court should reaffirm Smith’s hybrid-rights doctrine, applying strict scrutiny to free exercise claims that implicate other fundamental rights, and resolve the circuit split over the doctrine’s precedential status.
- McGee v. McFadden (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred when it found no constitutional error when the state failed to disclose Brady evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch, until the post-trial hearing for a motion for a new trial; (2) whether the state and federal courts’ decisions were contrary to Giglio v. United States, United States v. Bagley, Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois when the state failed to disclose material impeachment evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch who testified that petitioner confessed to him; and (3) whether the state and federal courts erred in finding that trial counsel rendered effective assistance of counsel when he failed to interview Michael Jones and call him as a witness.
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Cases argued 69

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Merits cases granted to date 73

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