“The Sotomayor Nomination”: This editorial appears today in The New York Times.

“The Day Obscenity Became Art”: Today in The New York Times, Fred Kaplan has an op-ed that begins, “Today is the 50th anniversary of the court ruling that overturned America’s obscenity laws, setting off an explosion of free speech — and also, in retrospect, splashing cold water on the idea, much discussed during Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, that judges are ‘umpires’ rather than agents of social change.”

“Old World: Why isn’t Obama appointing young judges to the circuit courts?” Law professors David Fontana and Micah Schwartzman have this essay online at The New Republic.

“Pa. Supreme Court upholds state prisons’ ban on pornography”: The Associated Press has this report on a ruling that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued yesterday.

“Cooke’s conviction overturned”: The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware has an update that begins, “A divided Delaware Supreme Court today overturned the conviction and death sentence of James E. Cooke Jr. in the 2005 murder of Lindsey M. Bonistall.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Del. court overturns death penalty conviction.”

You can access today’s 3-2 ruling of the Supreme Court of Delaware at this link.

“Texas court asserts protections for online reporter”: Douglas Lee has this commentary online at the First Amendment Center.

Available online from law.com: An article is headlined “Questioning Sotomayor Without a License: Six senators on the Judiciary Committee don’t have law degrees; How did they prepare for the hearing?”

And in other news, “‘Rule of Necessity’ Could Be Invoked in N.Y. Judicial Pay Suits.”

“Judicial Bias Case Heads Back to West Virginia Court”: At “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times,” Marcia Coyle has a post that begins, “The West Virginia Supreme Court in September will take its third look at the appeal of a $50 million-jury verdict which led to a key U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month on judicial bias.”

And speaking of heading back to West Virginia, it now appears that I’ll be in Huntington, West Virginia this September during Constitution Week to participate in a panel discussion about blogging and the First Amendment to be hosted by Chief Justice Brent D. Benjamin of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

“Ohio killer’s lethal injection marks 1,000th in US”: The Associated Press has this report.

“Is there a women’s view on top court?” Today in The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Kirk Makin has an article that begins, “Women are making a dramatic difference to the Supreme Court of Canada, concludes a new book that analyzed the past 40 years of the court and its jurisprudence.”

The book on which the article reports is “The Transformation of the Supreme Court of Canada: An Empirical Examination,” by Donald R. Songer.

Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The Associated Press is reporting: She has articles headlined “Panel delays Sotomayor vote as GOP support grows” and “Abortion rights group endorses Sotomayor for court.”

Programming note: This morning, I will be presenting oral argument before a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in a matter that involves fourteen consolidated appeals. I previously filed this Brief for Appellants in connection with those appeals. The cases have previously received some press coverage. See “Judge Asks Pa. Appeals Court to Uphold Dismissal of Consolidated HRT Cases“; “Pa. Judge Denies Another Breast Cancer-HRT Claim“; and “HRT Patient’s Personal Injury Claim Found to Be Time-Barred” (all freely available via law.com).

Additional posts will appear here this afternoon.