Scribble

Editor's Note :

Scribble

Court puts partisan-gerrymandering rulings on hold – Amy Howe

Academic highlight: Hyatt is latest example of textualist-originalist justices’ willingness to overturn precedent – Anita Krishnakumar

Relist Watch – John Elwood

Live blog of nomination | July 9, 2018 (with First Mondays)

Live blog of nomination | July 9, 2018 (with First Mondays)

We live-blogged with First Mondays as President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

We live-blogged with First Mondays as President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

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Conference of May 23, 2019

3rd & 7 37yd

Hi! The word seems to be that it’s Hardiman. Any thoughts?

by KPOM 7/10/2018 12:01:52 AM
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kavanaugh Coronation Hour! Glad to be joining you.

by Ian Samuel 7/10/2018 12:02:29 AM
For those of you who aren't caught up on the last-minute news:
- Amy Coney Barrett is at her house in Indiana. It's not her.
- Kethledge was informed by phone that it's not him.
- Hardiman is in DC, but has a pre-existing reason to be there
- The DC Circuit rushed out an opinion in a boring case about attorney's fees in which Kavanaugh was on the panel, and in which there was a dissent, on a day when the DC Circuit doesn't normally issue opinions
Do with that what you will.
by Ian Samuel 7/10/2018 12:04:39 AM
What do you think the chances are that the new Justice will recuse themselves from cases arising from investigations against the President ongoing at the time they were nominated? Has recusal philosophy ever been discussed during confirmation hearings?

by Just_Curious 7/10/2018 12:05:02 AM
Which Taylor Swift song describes BK best?

by Kenneth 7/10/2018 12:06:13 AM
What are the odds Kavanaugh is seated by the start of the term?

by PB 7/10/2018 12:07:53 AM
How confirmable is Kavanaugh vs the other choices? Do you sense Collins wasn’t going to support Barrett? And why not the others?

by KPOM 7/10/2018 12:08:26 AM
What is going to be Kavanaugh's biggest challenge during the confirmation process?

by Just Wondering 7/10/2018 12:10:24 AM
Are we sure it's Kavanaugh?

by Dave 7/10/2018 12:10:40 AM
Hi, all! I'll be in and out as I'm juggling two small kids, but I'm happy to answer questions in between bouts of toddler-wrangling.

by Dan Epps 7/10/2018 12:10:57 AM
How many glasses of wine have y'all had so far?

by Ar 7/10/2018 12:11:19 AM
I'm in Paris for July, and so I was really rooting for a more civilized 1pm EDT (7pm CEST) announcement.

by Ian Samuel 7/10/2018 12:12:20 AM
Does a new justice begin preparing to hear cases before confirmation is completed (tentatively hiring staff, reading briefs and memos, etc.) or do they wait until after the final vote?

by PB 7/10/2018 12:12:29 AM
The DC Circuit rushing out a Kavanaugh opinion today strikes me as a red herring. Not saying it's not him, but

by tforsean 7/10/2018 12:12:36 AM
What do you think the odds of a surprise pick are? Not saying I'm biased, but...

by Merrick Garland 7/10/2018 12:13:39 AM
U.S. Marshal outside of Kethledge's house apparently told CNN he's at home—not a surprise given what we knew, but he and ACB are seemingly officially out of the running. Barrett will be back for the next vacancy if there is one, but this might have been Kethledge's shot.

by Ian Samuel 7/10/2018 12:15:02 AM
Do you have a link to the opinion the D.C. Circuit rushed out today?

by DCWatch 7/10/2018 12:15:09 AM
Is anyone else equally excited and terrified? As a law student I’m excited because this doesn’t happen too often. As an individual, I’m cautious. I think if it’s Hardiman or Kavanaugh, it won’t be as significant a change as people believe.

by BlakeRunsLots 7/10/2018 12:15:36 AM
The term is shaping up, at least so far, to be less controversial than last term. How soon, realistically, would a case about overruling Roe come up to the Court?

by Fan of SCOTUSblog 7/10/2018 12:16:50 AM
Lot of talk about Kavanaugh on the live blog. Here's our profile on him (by Edith Roberts):

Potential nominee profile: Brett Kavanaugh - SCOTUSblog
SCOTUSblogWhen then-candidate Donald Trump released his first two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees in May and September of 2016, the omission of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit drew comment. Kavanaugh had served for 10 years on a bench known as

by Andrew Hamm 7/10/2018 12:18:35 AM
I should have had the seat that’s being filled today.

by Robert Bork 7/10/2018 12:19:39 AM
sorry, my previous comment was posted prematurely. my point was that the opinion would have been in the works for at least a few days. I don't doubt that it was rushed out as a precautionary measure, but the decision to expedite it must have bern made before Trump's final decision (assuming the reports yesterday and earlier today were correct)

by tforsean 7/10/2018 12:20:00 AM
As a conservative, I’m least excited about Kavanaugh.

by Georgia 7/10/2018 12:20:18 AM
Is there anything interesting jurisprudentially about BK at all or is he just an Alito clone?

by Ar 7/10/2018 12:20:57 AM
Justice Ginsburg seems to be in good health. If, hypothetically, President Trump won a second term, what is the likelihood he might get to appoint a third Justice?

by Fan of SCOTUSblog 7/10/2018 12:22:04 AM
Calling it now William H. Pryor Jr. complete wild card.

by Jerrett 7/10/2018 12:22:29 AM
Why do people think it's Kavanaugh over Hardiman? Is it just the SUV caravan + rushed out D.C. Circuit opinion?

by Dave 7/10/2018 12:22:44 AM
Maybe Trump will surprise us all and nominate a sane candidate: Richard Posner.

by Erik 7/10/2018 12:23:17 AM
What happens to a circuit court judge's clerks if the judge is confirmed to the Supreme Court? Do they go with him or remain below or are they just out of a job?

by justreasoner 7/10/2018 12:25:31 AM
The Obamacare as a tax idea started with Kavanaugh. That’s why he doesn’t excite conservatives as much as Barrett does.

by KPOM 7/10/2018 12:25:58 AM
What are the odds the President pulls a Harriet Miers and appoints a wild card that no one saw coming? Like Michael Cohen

by Rob 7/10/2018 12:26:09 AM
Is there anything methodologically distinctive about either of the two apparent finalists? Is it definitely going to be the same orthodox blend of textualism and originalism that Justice Gorsuch embodies, or is there the potential for some deviation in either of them?

by The Black Swan of Trespass 7/10/2018 12:26:43 AM
Was Merrick Garland ever under serious consideration during this nomination round? Or was that just a Chuck Schumer pipe dream? I’d like to hold out hope that he was, but I guess my faith in American democracy is old fashioned :3

by Garrison Lovely 7/10/2018 12:27:46 AM
Has Amul Tharpar completely dropped off consideration?

by guestyguest 7/10/2018 12:29:05 AM
Merrick Garland was only a possibility in the minds of people who thought The West Wing was how politics actually work

by oxwof 7/10/2018 12:29:55 AM
From a conservative standpoint, Hardiman seems to rank high on a "Souter risk" scale. Do you agree?

by Angel from Mexico 7/10/2018 12:30:12 AM
Kavanaugh is known for hiring clerks from both sides of the aisle, right?

by KE 7/10/2018 12:30:44 AM
ACB would have been a habeas disaster, judging by a recent off-target dissent. Not that many much care on that score.

by IndianaHabeas 7/10/2018 12:30:54 AM
When will we get the first installment of "Good Behavior" following the announcement?

by Just Wondering 7/10/2018 12:31:54 AM
But does Hardiman make it easier to pull in votes from middle america in the mid terms? Is that a factor?

by Mark 7/10/2018 12:32:03 AM
Does anyone have any thoughts regarding the 150th anniversary of the Fourteenth Amendment?

by Ken 7/10/2018 12:32:25 AM
To what extent might we see Kavanaugh's work on the Clinton impeachment come into play during his confirmation hearings?

by JJR 7/10/2018 12:33:25 AM
Will this nomination be televised?

by R Powell 7/10/2018 12:33:47 AM
If Kavanaugh is the pick, might it be an olive branch to Collins and Murkowski that ACA might not be a target of the new justice?

by MNWatcher 7/10/2018 12:34:26 AM
4 out of 9 justices will have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote but won their elections for their first term in office. Out of curiosity, I looked up whether this has happened before, and it has: Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote but won his election, and appointed 4 out of 9 justices.

by Luke 7/10/2018 12:35:08 AM

Featured Posts

Court puts partisan-gerrymandering rulings on hold – Amy Howe

Academic highlight: Hyatt is latest example of textualist-originalist justices’ willingness to overturn precedent – Anita Krishnakumar

Relist Watch – John Elwood
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This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the May 23 conference on Tuesday 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 Tuesday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their May 30 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.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Herrera v. Wyoming Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”; the lands of the Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” when the forest was created.
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht “Clear evidence” that the Food and Drug Administration would not have approved a change to a drug’s label – thus pre-empting a state-law failure-to-warn claim – is evidence showing that the drug manufacturer fully informed the FDA of the justifications for the warning required by state law and that the FDA, in turn, informed the drug manufacturer that the FDA would not approve a change to the drug’s label to include that warning; the question of agency disapproval is primarily one of law for a judge to decide.
- Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC A bankruptcy debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under 11 U.S.C. §365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy; such an act thus cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
More Petitions »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Justice Thomas at Pepperdine Law School

On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

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.
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Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
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Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
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Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

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