“Justices Indicate They May Uphold Voter ID Rules”: Linda Greenhouse will have this article Thursday in The New York Times.

And Thursday in The Washington Post, Robert Barnes will have an article headlined “Justices May Seek Compromise in Voter ID Case.”

“The Indiana Voter ID Case: Bush v. Gore All Over Again?” Law Professor Rick Hasen has this post at his “Election Law” blog.

“Ind. Voter Identification Law Likely to Survive High Court Challenge”: law.com’s Tony Mauro provides this report.

Available online from National Public Radio: This evening’s broadcast of “All Things Considered” contained an audio segment entitled “Supreme Court Hears Indiana Voter ID Case” featuring Nina Totenberg.

And today’s broadcast of “Day to Day” contained an audio segment entitled “High Court Hears Voter ID Case” featuring Dahlia Lithwick.

RealPlayer is required to launch these audio segments.

“Partisanship surfaces in Supreme Court arguments over voter-ID law”: McClatchy Newspapers provide a report that begins, “The Supreme Court appeared to split along partisan lines Wednesday as the justices weighed a challenge to Indiana’s toughest-in-the-nation law requiring every voter to show a photo identification card before casting a ballot.”

“Grandma Got Carded: The Supreme Court looks closely at Indiana’s voter-ID law.” Dahlia Lithwick has this Supreme Court dispatch online at Slate.

“Judge Won’t Inquire Into CIA Tapes Case”: The Associated Press provides a report that begins, “A federal judge refused on Wednesday to delve into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, saying there was no evidence the Bush administration violated a court order and the Justice Department deserved time to conduct its own investigation.”

The U.S. Army helped pay for her to attend medical school, then she decided her religion prohibited her from killing, and today the First Circuit affirms a federal district court’s order overturning the Army’s refusal to discharge her as a conscientious objector: You can access today’s ruling of a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit at this link.

Chief Judge Michael Boudin‘s dissenting opinion concludes, “Holmes’ famous aphorism notwithstanding, it is far from clear that hard cases make bad law. Often, the problem in a hard case is a tension between existing law and what the judge feels is the ‘right’ result. Here, doctrine gives the close calls to the army. If a judge disregards that doctrine, it is the judge and not the case that has made bad law. This decision, alas, is such an instance.”

“Appeals court won’t reinstate S.F. handgun ban”: Bob Egelko of The San Francisco Chronicle provides a news update that begins, “A state appeals court refused today to revive a ban on handgun possession in San Francisco, saying the measure that city voters approved in November 2005 conflicts with state law. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco agreed with a June 2006 ruling by Superior Court Judge James Warren, who said local governments in California have no authority to prohibit handguns. Warren said a California law that authorizes police agencies to issue concealed-weapon permits implicitly forbids a city or county to ban handgun possession by law-abiding adults.”

You can access today’s ruling of California’s First District Court of Appeal at this link.

“Appeals court lets S.F.’s universal health care law go forward”: Bob Egelko of The San Francisco Chronicle has a news update that begins, “The city of San Francisco won approval from a federal appeals court today to begin providing health coverage to all uninsured adult residents under a new ordinance and require employers to share the cost. A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the city’s request to suspend a federal judge’s Dec. 26 ruling striking down a key funding provision of the ordinance. That provision requires large and medium-size companies to offer insurance to their workers or pay a fee to the city.”

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision today in typescript form, and you can access the ruling at this link.

“We must determine the bounds of a city’s authority to restrict expression in a public forum.” So begins Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain majority opinion that a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued today. The lawsuit was brought by street performer Michael Berger, a/k/a “Magic Mike,” against the City of Seattle, which seeks to regulate the manner of his performances at a public forum known as the Seattle Center.

Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon‘s dissenting opinion concludes:

The majority does not acknowledge how radically its holdings alter our law, creating a legal structure which will make it far easier to shut down discourse in public parks and other traditional public fora. Democracies survive and grow through public conversations among their citizens. For this reason, we have always viewed any limitations on speech in traditional public fora with extreme skepticism. Today’s opinion departs from that long tradition. I respectfully dissent.

You can access the complete 61-page ruling at this link.

Access online the transcripts of today’s U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments: By clicking on the following links, you can access the transcripts of today’s oral arguments in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, No. 07-21, and Kentucky Retirement Systems v. EEOC, No. 06-1037.

“Supreme Court Hears Challenge to Voter ID Law; Indiana Law Requires Voters to Show Identification at Polls”: Robert Barnes of The Washington Post provides this news update.

“Court Hears Indiana Voter ID Case”: Mark Sherman of The Associated Press provides this report.

David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times provides a news update headlined “Supreme Court cool to voter ID challenge; Justices indicate they don’t agree with Democrats’ claim that an Indiana law would deter thousands from casting ballots.”

And at “SCOTUSblog,” Lyle Denniston has a post titled “The partisan elephant unnoticed in the room.”

“Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings”: On October 1, 2006, The New York Times published this lengthy article by Adam Liptak and Janet Roberts about the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Among other things, the article reported on the efforts of intermediate Ohio state appellate court Judge William O’Neill to achieve election to a seat on Ohio’s highest court while refusing to accept campaign contributions. According to the article, “Judge O’Neill’s assertion that seats on the Supreme Court are for sale infuriates many in the legal establishment in Ohio, and in July 2004 the Disciplinary Counsel of the Ohio Supreme Court began an investigation into whether Judge O’Neill had violated judicial ethics by making similar statements in the last campaign.” The article went on to note that “For the time being, a federal judge has suspended the investigation on First Amendment grounds.”

Today, the majority on a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held, in a decision you can access here, that a federal district court had erred in granting Judge O’Neill’s request to enjoin enforcement against him of three canons of the Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct. Instead, the federal district court should have abstained, today’s Sixth Circuit majority holds.

“Supreme Court Weighs Voter ID Requirements”: Nina Totenberg had this audio segment (RealPlayer required) on today’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

The Associated Press is reporting: Now available online are articles headlined “Appeals Court: No Delay in Snipes Trial” (my coverage of yesterday’s Eleventh Circuit ruling appears at this link); “Ark. Reporters’ Execution Lawsuit Tossed“: and “Judge Won’t Block Noriega Extradition.”

“Not-so-natty neckwear raises judge’s hackles”: Today’s edition of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contains an article that begins, “Justice may be blind, but Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Sosnay’s sense of courtroom fashion is not. In the courtroom of the pompadoured judge long known as a fastidious dresser, a sentencing hearing in a misdemeanor case was delayed for three hours Tuesday after a veteran prosecutor turned up for court wearing an ascot. A courthouse rule requires all lawyers to wear neckties, but prosecutor Warren Zier’s occasional choice of creative cravats drew the judge’s ire. Sosnay’s review found Zier’s red ascot – which matched the handkerchief in the breast pocket of Zier’s pinstriped gray suit – ‘borders on contemptuous,’ given the judge’s prior warnings that he only cottons to neck- and bow-ties.”

And The Associated Press provides a report headlined “Judge: Ascots Aren’t Same As Neckties.”

“Supreme Court to hear voter-ID arguments today; Constitutionality of law questioned”: This article appears today in The Louisville Courier-Journal.

The Post-Tribune of Gary, Indiana reports today that “High court to weigh legality of Hoosier voter ID law.”

And The New York Times contains an editorial entitled “The Court and Voter ID’s.”

“Election Burden: Indiana’s voter-ID law is harmful and worthless.” Walter Dellinger and Sri Srinivasan have this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“Abortion Clinic Violence: Is ‘Pro-Life’ Murder An Oxymoron?” Sherry F. Colb has this essay online today at FindLaw.