“The Sotomayor Style: A stirring dissent shows why the justice is a national treasure.” Law professor David Fontana has this essay online today at The New Republic.

“Fifth Circuit rules that a federal law punishing hate crimes is a permissible exercise of Congress’ power under the Thirteenth Amendment”: Ilya Somin has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy” about an interesting ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued today.

Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote both the majority opinion and an opinion specially concurring. In the latter opinion, Elrod noted the existence of “a growing tension between the Supreme Court’s precedent regarding the scope of Congress’s powers under sec. 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions regarding the other Reconstruction Amendments and the Commerce Clause” that “would benefit from additional guidance from the Supreme Court on how to harmonize these lines of precedent.”

“Who cares if the Supreme Court is bad at computers?” Sarah Jeong had this post yesterday at her blog “five-tweet-thoughts,” following-up on her post from a day earlier titled “Supreme Court Justices Are Not Good With Computers.”

Online at Vox, Timothy B. Lee has a post titled “The Supreme Court’s technical cluelessness makes them better justices.”

At “The Switch” blog of The Washington Post, Brian Fung has an entry titled “The Aereo case is being decided by people who call iCloud ‘the iCloud.’ Yes, really.”

And at Bloomberg View, law professor Noah Feldman has an essay titled “Justice Scalia Is Not a ‘Game of Thrones’ Fan.”

“Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence”: Ann E. Marimow and Craig Timberg will have this article in Friday’s edition of The Washington Post.

“Colleges Seek New Paths to Diversity After Court Ruling”: Tamar Lewin had this article in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times.

In Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Ballhaus will have an article headlined “Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling Seen Having Limited Reach; Efforts to End Race-Based Admissions in Other States Are in Early Stages.” You can freely access the full text of the article via Google.

In yesterday’s edition of The Washington Post, Robert Barnes had an article headlined “Sotomayor accuses colleagues of trying to ‘wish away’ racial inequality.”

On Tuesday, Ariane de Vogue of ABC News had a blog post titled “Justice Sonia Sotomayor: Affirmative Action ‘Opened Doors in My Life.’”

Today at WSJ.com’s “Law Blog,” Jess Bravin had a post titled “Another Look at the Affirmative-Action Ruling: What the Justices Didn’t Do.”

Online at The New Republic, law professor Jeffrey Rosen has an essay titled “Liberals Should Be Happy About the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Decision.”

Online at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick has a jurisprudence essay titled “What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking About Race: Deep inside the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision lies a fight about how we speak about race in America.”

Online at Bloomberg View, law professor Noah Feldman has an essay titled “Affirmative Action Will Die Another Day.”

Online at The Daily Beast, Mike Sacks has an essay titled “Affirmative Action Isn’t Oppressive, but the Roberts Court Wants to End It Anyway; By upholding Michigan’s ban on race as a factor in college admissions, the Supreme Court chips away at the idea that diversity is good for all and worth promoting via special treatment.”

At Justia’s Verdict, law professor Michael C. Dorf has an essay titled “The Supreme Court Again Fractures Over Race.”

And at The Huffington Post, law professor Geoffrey R. Stone has a blog entry titled “The National Review, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Affirmative Action.” The National Review Online editorial to which Stone is responding is titled “Half a Win on Racial Discrimination.”

“Retired Justice John Paul Stevens: Marijuana Should Be Legal.” NPR has this report.

“Trinity Western law grads won’t be allowed to practise in Ontario”: The Toronto Globe and Mail has a news update that begins, “Ontario’s law society has voted not to accredit graduates of a controversial faith-based law school which has drawn opposition over concerns it would discriminate against gays and lesbians.”

The Toronto Star has a news update headlined “Law Society votes against accrediting controversial Christian law school; The Law Society of Upper Canada has voted against accrediting B.C.’s Trinity Western University law school that bans gay sexual intimacy.”

And The Canadian Press reports that “Ontario law society votes ‘no’ to accrediting Trinity Western University; Speakers say school’s community covenant discriminates against LGBTQ students.”

“Texas appeals court halts ruling in gay-divorce case”: Chuck Lindell of The Austin American-Statesman has this news update.

“In defense of political lying”: Jack Shafer has this essay online at Reuters.

“Chiquita asks court to toss terror payments case”: The Associated Press has this report on an appeal argued today at the U.S .Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

“State Farm Ducks Coverage For Decaying Body In Fla. Appeal”: Law360.com has this report (subscription required for full access) on a ruling that Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal issued yesterday.

According to the opinion, “the decomposed body leaked bodily fluids, which infiltrated the walls and the insured’s apartment causing damage. This is the event that gave rise to the insured’s claim.”

“Sam Alito: A Civil Man; The pleasure of Justice Alito’s company.” Matthew Walther has this cover story in the May 2014 issue of The American Spectator.

“Supreme Court hears crucial N.C. water pollution case”: Michael Doyle of McClatchy Washington Bureau has this report.

“Judge Vaughn Walker tells his side of Prop. 8 trial”: Bob Egelko of The San Francisco Chronicle has this report.

I recently received a review copy of Jo Becker’s controversial new book, “Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality.”

“Oklahoma Supreme Court lets executions go forward; Justices lift stay after ruling inmates don’t have right to know source of drugs”: Nolan Clay has this front page article today in The Oklahoman.

In today’s edition of The Tulsa World, Ziva Branstetter and Barbara Hoberock have a front page article headlined “Path to executions cleared as Oklahoma Supreme Court reverses lower court’s ruling; It reverses a court’s ruling that Oklahoma’s execution-secrecy law is unconstitutional.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Oklahoma court rejects death-row inmates’ claims.”

Yesterday’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma consisted of a per curiam opinion and an opinion concurring in the result.

“The Supreme Court’s Unprecedented Public Clash Over Race”: Sahil Kapur of TPM DC has this report.

“Top court rejects award for Pa. child porn victim”: Tracie Mauriello has this front page article today in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Today’s edition of The Houston Chronicle contains a front page article headlined “Supreme Court ups the ante for porn victims; Court limits amount defendant must pay in Texas abuse case.” You can freely access the full text of the article via Google.

Warren Richey of The Christian Science Monitor has an article headlined “US Supreme Court limits restitution payments to child pornography victims; The Supreme Court said federal law does not require a defendant to pay the entire amount of a multimillion-dollar restitution award owed to a child pornography victim whose abuse is depicted in images widely distributed on the Internet.”

Cheryl Wetzstein of The Washington Times reports that “Divided court strikes down big porn award; Victim sought $3.4M from one viewer.”

And David Kravets of Ars Technica reports that “Online child porn victims lose at Supreme Court; Victims can’t recoup 100% of damages from criminals who viewed their images online.”

“Will the Supreme Court Address Louisiana’s Flawed Jury System? By allowing non-unanimous verdicts in murder trials, the state makes it possible for prosecutors to accept minority jurors — and then discount their views.” Andrew Cohen has this essay online at The Atlantic.

“Transcript gives glimpse into deadly courtroom shooting”: Dennis Romboy has this article today in The Deseret News.