Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Go Go Gadget Arms: Why Justice Breyer Rightly Reached Out to Decide a Question Not Presented in Turner v. Rogers

Posted June 22nd, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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Sometimes the Supreme Court reaches out to decide issues not raised in the petition for certiorari. It is a rare occurrence. But it happened in Turner v. Rogers, No. 10-10. If you weren’t following the case, here are the facts: Michael D. Turner racked up large debts owed to his child’s mother and the state [...]
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The Supreme Court Ducks the Political Question in American Electric

Posted June 21st, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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The U.S. Supreme Court largely ducked the most outlandish parts of the Second Circuit’s decision in American Electric. Instead, the Court reversed the lower court on the easiest of the several grounds for reversal: displacement of federal common law.   But how would the political question doctrine have fared had the Court decided it? The [...]
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The Supreme Court’s Use of Dictionaries

Posted June 14th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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Yesterday, Adam Liptak at the NY Times covered a Supreme Court trend: the Justices’ use of dictionary definitions in their opinions. He writes that: In May alone, the justices cited dictionaries in eight cases to determine what legislators had meant when they used words like “prevent,” “delay” and “report.” Over the years, justices have looked [...]
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Should We Listen To An Argument of Fear? Relieving Overcrowded Prisons May Actually Increase Public Safety

Posted June 3rd, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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If we release prisoners to relieve overcrowding, then prisoners will rape, rob and murder our citizens. That is frightening; therefore we shouldn’t release prisoners, even though the State cannot afford to humanely incarcerate them. This argument was at the heart of Justices Scalia and Alito’s dissenting opinions last week in the California prison case. The argument, [...]
Posted in Constitutional Law, Prisoners, Supreme Court |( Leave a comment)

New Supreme Court Case Distribution Schedule

Posted June 3rd, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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The Supreme Court released their case distribution schedule for the October 2011 Term. The schedule lists the Court’s distribution dates for both both in forma pauperis and paid cases, as well as the corresponding conference dates. The distribution dates are important for determining the due date of cert stage  reply brief. To view the 2011 Term [...]
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More Coverage of Brown v. Plata

Posted May 31st, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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The discussion about the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last week in Brown v. Plata continues unabated. There are basically two sides of the debate. Those predicting that a release of prisoners will create a crime wave in California, and therefore, the Supreme Court should not have upheld the release order. You can find these views [...]
Posted in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Prisoners, Supreme Court |( Leave a comment)

Prisoners Win, Prisoners Win

Posted May 23rd, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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In what is undoubtedly the biggest win for inmates serving time in deplorable prison conditions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Prison Litigation Reform Act DOES authorize the release of prisoners to remedy the egregious violation of prisoners’ constitutional rights. The case is Brown, et al. v. Plata, et al., No. 09-1233 and the opinion [...]
Posted in Constitutional Law, Prisoners, Supreme Court, Uncategorized |( Leave a comment)

The Man of Many Hats

Posted April 19th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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If any of you follow the Supreme Court you will have undoubtedly come across a Josh Blackman post about some SCOTUS development. The man is simply a writing machine. He blogs daily. He publishes law reviews like some publish blog posts. He teaches at Penn State Law School. He is the President and Co-Founder of The [...]
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My First Visit To The Court That Changed My Life

Posted March 25th, 2011
Shon R. Hopwood
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On Wednesday, Annie and I visited the Supreme Court. Although I have studied, filed briefs in, written about, and generally gushed over the Court for eleven years, it was my first visit to the place that has enormously impacted my life. I was kind of nervous that the Court could not possibly live up to [...]
Posted in Law School, Supreme Court |( Comments closed)

Justice White for the Apples and Justice Scalia for the Oranges

Posted March 21st, 2011
Palma Joy Strand
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Scalia Supreme Court dissents as judicial activism of process
Posted in Constitutional Law, Opinions, Uncategorized |( 2 Comments)