How Appealing



Tuesday, November 22, 2022

“Mother of Slain Professor Dan Markel Says There’s No Time Limit on Grief”: Naomi Feinstein of Miami New Times has this report.

Posted at 10:12 PM by Howard Bashman



Senior U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns (S.D. Cal.) recuses from resentencings in two cases on remand from the Ninth Circuit based on disagreement with the appellate court’s decisions in the cases: You can access last week’s recusal decision at this link. I suspect that this sort of recusal happens quite rarely, which is why I thought it worth noting here.

Posted at 9:02 PM by Howard Bashman



“How the Supreme Court can start to regain Americans’ trust in its ethics”: The Washington Post has published this editorial.

Also online at The Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump has an essay titled “The Supreme Court has lost the benefit of the doubt.”

Online at CNN, law professor Mary Ziegler has an essay titled “Bombshell report deals another blow to the Supreme Court’s reputation.”

And online at The Nation, Elie Mystal has an essay titled “The Stench of Corruption Is Growing Stronger Around the Supreme Court; Chief Justice John Roberts insists the court can police itself, but all evidence points to the contrary.”

Posted at 8:44 PM by Howard Bashman



“Verizon appeal will be early test of corporate strategy to combat mass arbitration”: Alison Frankel’s “On the Case” from Reuters has this post.

Posted at 8:14 PM by Howard Bashman



“Court Appears Ready to End Special Master Review in Trump Files Inquiry; Two of the three judges had already expressed skepticism about a court’s intervention after the F.B.I. seized records from the ex-president’s home”: Charlie Savage and Alan Feuer of The New York Times have this report.

Perry Stein of The Washington Post reports that “Appeals panel grills Trump lawyer over FBI search of Mar-a-Lago; In hearing appeal of special master appointment, judges seem skeptical that court-approved search was improper or unlawful.”

Sarah D. Wire of The Los Angeles Times reports that “Appeals court panel skeptical of Trump’s arguments in Mar-a-Lago special master case.”

Jan Wolfe and Byron Tau of The Wall Street Journal report that “Appeals Court Weighs DOJ Challenge to Special Master in Trump Documents Probe; Panel questions whether lower-court judge erred in granting former president’s request to appoint arbiter to vet papers.”

And Bart Jansen of USA Today reports that “Appeals panel questions whether Trump seeks special treatment for Mar-a-Lago documents; Another three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled that the Justice Department could continue its criminal investigation while the special master reviews the records.”

Posted at 8:09 PM by Howard Bashman



“Cecilia ‘Cissy’ Marshall, keeper of Thurgood Marshall’s legacy, dies at 94; The former NAACP legal secretary married Marshall in 1955 and burnished his reputation as the leading legal architect of the civil rights movement”: Bart Barnes of The Washington Post has written this obituary.

Posted at 7:32 PM by Howard Bashman



“Targeting Justice Samuel Alito: The latest second-hand hearsay attempt to discredit the Supreme Court.” This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Posted at 7:14 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Case for Supreme Court Term Limits Just Got a Lot Better”: Columnist Jamelle Bouie has this essay online at The New York Times.

Posted at 5:17 PM by Howard Bashman



“Gov. Gretchen Whitmer makes historic pick for Michigan Supreme Court vacancy”: Craig Mauger of The Detroit News has an article that begins, “Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has chosen state Rep. Kyra Harris Bolden to fill a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to serve on the state’s high court.”

And Arpan Lobo of The Detroit Free Press reports that “Whitmer to name Kyra Harris Bolden to fill Michigan Supreme Court vacancy.”

Posted at 3:21 PM by Howard Bashman



“Is TRUMP TOO SMALL for the Supreme Court?” Dennis Crouch has this post at his “Patently-O” blog about an application for an extension of time to file a petition for writ of certiorari that the Solicitor General recently filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Chief Justice granted the application, extending the deadline to file for cert. until December 29, 2022.)

And at “The TTABlog,” John L. Welch has previously covered this litigation in posts titled “CAFC Deems Section 2(c) Unconstitutional As-Applied in ‘TRUMP TOO SMALL’ Refusal to Register” and “Rejecting First Amendment Claim, TTAB Affirms Section 2(c) Refusal of TRUMP TOO SMALL for Shirts.”

Posted at 3:15 PM by Howard Bashman



“Congratulations To The 2023 Bristow Fellows; Gender diversity, yes — this is the first majority-female class since 2017 — but law school diversity, no”: David Lat has this post at his “Original Jurisdiction” Substack site.

Posted at 2:08 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Horseracing Case and How It Misunderstands Private Delegation: Despite a recent Fifth Circuit case, there is no private nondelegation doctrine.” Sasha Volokh has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy,” along with a post titled “The Horseracing Case, Part 2: Private Delegation Before and After Schechter Poultry; The Supreme Court has never held that private delegations have any special unfavorable treatment under the Article I Nondelegation Doctrine: quite the opposite!

Posted at 1:04 PM by Howard Bashman



“How a Gorsuch LGBT Ruling May Doom Affirmative Action in College Admissions; The link between Bostock v. Clayton County and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina“: Damon Root has this post online at Reason.

Posted at 1:00 PM by Howard Bashman



“Alabama woman jailed for using drugs during pregnancy wasn’t pregnant, lawsuit says”: Amy Yurkanin of AL.com has this report.

Posted at 12:58 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Real Problem With the Second Alleged Leak at the Court: It doesn’t matter if Alito preemptively revealed the outcome in Hobby Lobby; Consider the rest of the story.” Dahlia Lithwick has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

Posted at 11:15 AM by Howard Bashman



“Panel Revealed to Hear Challenge to Trump Special Master Order; The panel will decide whether to reverse an order for a special master to review documents taken from Mar-a-Lago”: Avalon Zoppo of The National Law Journal has this report.

According to the article, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit assigned to hear and decide this appeal will consist of Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr. and Circuit Judges Britt C. Grant and Andrew L. Brasher.

Because former President Trump appointed more than half of the active judges currently serving on the Eleventh Circuit, it is not a huge surprise that the panel consists of two Trump-appointed judges. And the presiding judge (along with Judge Grant) were on former President Trump’s #SCOTUS short-list. Whether this particular panel will be good for Trump (or not) remains to be seen, however, because these three are also regarded as law-and-order judges.

The Eleventh Circuit will live-stream the audio of the oral argument starting at 2 p.m. today via this link.

Posted at 11:07 AM by Howard Bashman



“Failures of capital punishment: Alabama, Missouri, and Oklahoma; Incompetence, racism, and . . . wanting to kill so badly that you set an execution date when the man isn’t even in your custody.” Chris Geidner has this post at his “Law Dork” Substack site.

And online at Slate, professor Austin Sarat has a jurisprudence essay titled “A New Low for Lethal Injections’ Cruelty and Incompetence: Three executions in two days — and all of them botched.”

Posted at 10:53 AM by Howard Bashman



“2. Opinions and Orders: This week’s issue offers an introduction to the two very different ways in which the Supreme Court resolves disputes, and why our attention tends to focus too much on one at the expense of the other.” Steve Vladeck, who may know a thing or two about something, has this post at his “One First” Substack site.

Posted at 10:50 AM by Howard Bashman



“How to Fix Our Remaining Election Vulnerabilities: In the midterms, election skeptics lost races in critical swing states; But an upcoming Supreme Court case and a federal reform bill could make all the difference.” Online at The New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner has this “Q&A” with law professor Richard L. Hasen, founder of the “Election Law Blog.”

Posted at 10:44 AM by Howard Bashman