How Appealing



Friday, May 7, 2010

“Holder Says He’s Open to ‘Reconfiguring’ the 9th Circuit”: David Ingram has this post today at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.”

Posted at 9:00 PM by Howard Bashman



“Kagan’s words may return to haunt her; As a law professor in 1995, she described Supreme Court confirmation hearings as ‘a vapid and hollow charade’; The remarks would be a likely focus if she became a nominee herself”: David G. Savage will have this article Saturday in The Los Angeles Times.

And at “The Volokh Conspiracy,” Jonathan H. Adler has an interesting post titled “Closing in on a Court Pick.”

Posted at 8:57 PM by Howard Bashman



The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has today issued its ruling in the case captioned Michael Newdow v. John Roberts, Jr. You can access the ruling at this link.

Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown‘s majority opinion begins, “Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their constitutional challenge to religious elements of the presidential inaugural ceremony.” The majority holds that Newdow lacks standing.

By contrast, Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh‘s opinion concurring in the judgment begins, “Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, plaintiffs have standing to raise an Establishment Clause challenge to the Inaugural prayers and to the inclusion of the words ‘so help me God’ in the official Presidential oath administered at the public Inauguration ceremonies. I would reject plaintiffs’ claims on the merits because those longstanding practices do not violate the Establishment Clause as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court.”

Posted at 11:14 AM by Howard Bashman



“Potential Court Pick Faced Dilemma at Harvard”: This article appears today in The New York Times, along with articles headlined “Marking Off the Course to the Supreme Court” and “Think the Question Is ‘Who?’ How About ‘When?’

Yesterday, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post had a news update headlined “Justice Stevens casts a long shadow over Supreme Court.” And in today’s newspaper, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has an op-ed entitled “Americans look for Supreme Court to restrain federal power, not expand it,” while Joseph J. Ellis has an op-ed entitled “Immaculate misconception and the Supreme Court.”

Bill Mears of CNN.com has an article headlined “What you need to know about the top Supreme Court contenders.”

And Thomas Ferraro of Reuters reports that “Republican would back Garland for Supreme Court.”

Posted at 8:07 AM by Howard Bashman