Good morning, everyone! Welcome to the live blog. I'm here in the press room waiting for opinions at 10 am, and then I'll go upstairs for the oral argument in the peace cross case. It's the first oral argument this term for which reporters have had assigned seats, which is how we measure "big" cases, so we're very excited.
Most of the reporters have already gone upstairs, so it's just the die-hards downstairs waiting for opinions. Yesterday we got a December opinion (and when I refer to a case by a month, I am referring to the sitting in which it was argued, rather than the month), but there are still four opinions left from the October sitting.
Sorry, folks. Had to rush out of the press room because an anti-abortion protester is shouting very loudly down the hall, outside the cafeteria.
The Supreme Court police have wrestled him to the ground and cuffed him, but he is still shouting, including "tell the justices that they will burn in hell." He has now been taken away.
Never dull around here. Some of my colleagues have video, which I am sure will make its way onto Twitter soon.
Chris Geidner has pictures on his twitter feed if you'd like to see.
Hi all -- I also want to introduce Casetext co-founder Pablo Arredondo. He's here to talk about recent developments in legal technology and A.I. He's also got an interesting SCOTUS-building trivia question.
Good morning all. My name is Pablo Arredondo. I am a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Casetext, and a fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. As of this post, I am also everyone's favorite thing: a corporate sponsor intruding on regularly scheduled programming.
As promised, some SCOTUS-building trivia: which Aesop fable characters are carved in marble on the East Pediment of the Supreme Court Building?
This is somewhat of an anti-climax after the action down the hall, but we have two boxes this morning. For those of you who are new or new-ish here, the number of boxes is a rough proxy for the number of opinions we might expect.
We had the five-minute buzzer just now.
Also, if you haven't already, check out Art Lien's terrific banner on the blog. Most of us in the press room have visited the peace cross at some point over the last few weeks, which was a really interesting trip. Nice to have the subject of a case so local!
Okay, headed into the office to wait for opinions. Can't wait to see what we get!
We have the first opinion of the day, from Justice Kagan in Madison v. Alabama.
The lower court's opinion is vacated and remanded. The vote is 5-3.
Roberts joined the majority; Alito dissented, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
The court holds that the lack of a memory of a crime does not, standing alone, prohibit a state from executing an inmate.
But the court also holds that if someone suffering from a mental disorder is not able to understand why the state wants to execute him, then the Eighth Amendment does not allow the execution.
The court sends Madison's case back to the state court for further consideration.
Justice Sotomayor has the next opinion in Garza v. Idaho. The decision of the Supreme Court of Idaho is reversed and remanded.
Sotomayor's opinion is joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh. Thomas dissents, joined by Gorsuch and Alito.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the presumption of prejudice recognized in Roe v. Flores-Ortega, holding that prejudice will be presumed when an attorney's deficient performance costs a defendant that the defendant would have otherwise pursued, applies regardless of whether the defendant has signed an appeal waiver.
There will be more, but I would not expect to hear from Justices Gorsuch or Kavanaugh today, because the justices announce their opinions in order of reverse seniority. So we could hear from Sotomayor again (although she announced one yesterday), Alito, Breyer, Ginsburg, Thomas, or the Chief Justice.
Alito's dissent in Madison starts "What the Court has done in this case makes a mockery of our Rules." But at the end, he does "respectfully dissent."
Headed back in to wait for the next opinion.
And we have the last decision of the day, from the Chief Justice in Jam v. IFC.
The decision of the D.C. Circuit is reversed and remanded.
The Court holds that the International Organizations Immunities Act gives international organizations the same immunity from suit that foreign governments enjoy today under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Vote was 7-1; Breyer dissented. This ruling means that international organizations will have more limited immunity, rather than the virtually absolute immunity that foreign governments had when the IOIA was enacted.
Okay, I am headed upstairs for the oral argument in the peace cross case. Thanks for joining us today, and hopefully we'll be back here next week.
Hi all, that's going to be it for today! With three opinions, we've got a lot ahead. We'll also have Amy's analysis of the argument in the case of the Bladensburg Peace Cross (happening right now). If there are opinions Monday, we'll be back. We'll know Friday afternoon. Thanks, everyone!
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