“2 lawyers: Elect chief justice; The state’s top jurist hasn’t been elected since 2000; Two attorneys asked federal judges to change that.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune contains this article today.

You can access online yesterday’s oral argument of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in both Windows Media and mp3 formats.

“Judge Leaves Hospital; Hayes Trial To Resume Wednesday; Illnesses Caused A 2 1/2-Day Delay”: This article appears today in The Hartford Courant.

And The New Haven Register reports today that “Trial judge in Hayes’ case released from hospital: Blue sought medical attention after feeling ‘light-headed,’ sources say.”

“Oregon sex-literature laws ruled unconstitutional; Two measures intended to keep pedophiles from giving explicit work to children are too broad, an appeals court says, adding that one law criminalized fiction ‘no more tawdry than a romance novel'”: Carol J. Williams has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

Today’s edition of The Oregonian contains an article headlined “Appeals court: Oregon porn law would apply to sex-ed and coming-of-age books.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Ore. law on sexually explicit material struck down.”

My earlier coverage of yesterday’s Ninth Circuit ruling appears at this link.

“Family Fight, Border Patrol Raid, Baby Deported”: Adam Liptak will have this new installment of his “Sidebar” column in Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times.

Charlie Rose interviews Justice Stephen G. Breyer: You can view the hour-long interview (and access a transcript of the interview) by clicking here.

“Healthy Debate: Will the Supreme Court strike down controversial provisions of the new health-care law?” Stuart Taylor Jr. has this essay online at Newsweek’s web site.

“N.J. High Court to Review if Web Posters Can Invoke Shield Law”: Michael Booth of New Jersey Law Journal has this report.

“DOJ Urges Full Court to Review Warrantless GPS Case in D.C.” Mike Scarcella has this post at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.”

In today’s mail: A copy of the book “Lawyers and Fidelity to Law,” by law professor W. Bradley Wendel. The book’s official publication date is October 27, 2010.

Ninth Circuit holds that Oregon criminal statutes aimed at prohibiting adults from furnishing sexually explicit material to children are unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment: You can access today’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at this link.

“Court to hear Arizona immigration appeal Nov. 1”: The Associated Press has a report that begins, “A federal appeals court says it will hear arguments Nov. 1 in Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s appeal of a ruling that put parts of the state’s new immigration law on hold.”

“Judge in Hayes trial undergoing medical tests, expected back Wednesday”: The New Haven Register has this news update.

The Hartford Courant has a news update headlined “Judge ‘Feeling Very Well’; Cheshire Slaying Trial Set To Resume Wednesday.”

And The Associated Press reports that “Judge in Conn. home invasion trial is hospitalized.”

“Judges’ disclosures hard to get”: Mark Sherman of The Associated Press has this report.

“In book, more of Breyer’s dissents on originalism”: Robert Barnes has this article today in The Washington Post.

And in the September 27, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin has an “Annals of Law” article headlined “Without a Paddle: Stephen Breyer and the liberal agenda.” A subscription is required to access the text of the article.

Update: Via WSJ.com’s “Law Blog,” you can access the full text of Toobin’s article at this link.

“Three years after landmark court decision, Louisville still struggles with school desegregation”: Robert Barnes will have this lengthy article Monday in The Washington Post.

“Obama administration leaves climate change to Congress, not the courts; The stance on a suit seeking limits on pollution from coal-fired power plants has disappointed environmentalists; The case is being watched as a test of whether producers of greenhouse gases can be sued”: David G. Savage has this article today in The Los Angeles Times.

“Trouble in the jury box: Jurors quitting may put Hayes case at risk.” This article appears today in The New Haven Register, along with an article headlined “Trials in the Twitter age: Petit case brings instant news coverage.”

Today’s edition of The New York Times contains an article headlined “In Court, Echoes and Ghosts.”

And in The Hartford Courant, Helen Ubinas has an op-ed entitled “Haunting Images Of Everyday Life: At Hayes Trial, Common Ordinary Items More Disturbing Than Horrific Photos.”

“Lap dance, bucket of shrimp, ‘Gretna mentality’ discussed in Porteous impeachment hearings”: Bruce Alpert has this article today in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

Today’s newspaper also contains an op-ed by Stephanie Grace entitled “From one crooked judge to another.”

“Once more, with feeling: Make judges move out of the ‘Taj Mahal.'” Columnist Howard Troxler has this op-ed today in The St. Petersburg Times.

“Under the U.S. Supreme Court: Software is like beer — you just rent it.” Michael Kirkland of UPI has this report.

“Evolving Circumstances, Enduring Values”: In the Sunday Book Review section of tomorrow’s edition of The New York Times, Jeff Shesol will have this review of Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s new book, “Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View.”

“Vermont high court: Trying to view woman showering doesn’t equate to voyeurism.” The Associated Press has this report on a ruling that the Supreme Court of Vermont issued yesterday in a case captioned State v. Devoid.

“Constitution does not ban sex bias, Scalia says”: Bob Egelko has this article today in The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Contra Costa Times reports today that “Supreme Court’s Scalia talks Constitution at UC Hastings appearance.”

And the “Legal Pad” blog of The Recorder has a post titled “Scalia Is a Hit at Hastings.”

“UT hosts U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Justice speaks to law students, will attend football game today”: This article appears today in The Knoxville News Sentinel.

“Utah A.G. lines up against violent video game ban”: In today’s edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, Robert Gehrke has an article that begins, “Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has joined his colleagues in nine other states, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a California law aimed at restricting the sale of violent video games to children.”

“Media Companies Want D.C. Circuit Ruling in Gitmo Case Unsealed”: Mike Scarcella has this post at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.”

“Today we consider a student’s First Amendment challenge to a community college sexual harassment policy.” So begins today’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Lopez v. Candaele. Today’s decision holds that the student lacks standing to challenge the policy.

Via “The Volokh Conspiracy,” you can access the trial court’s ruling at this link. And the complaint filed to initiate the lawsuit can be accessed here (large PDF file).

“Barack Obama cites GOP ‘game playing'”: At Politico.com, Abby Phillip has an article that begins, “For weeks, President Barack Obama has accused Senate Republicans of ‘game playing’ to stall his judicial nominees, but legal observers and liberal activists say the White House has spent too much energy on big-ticket agenda items like the stimulus bill and Wall Street reform — at the expense of an opportunity to recalibrate a court system that the Bush and Reagan administrations pushed to the right.”

“4th Circuit Becomes New Front in Battle Over Judges”: David Ingram has this post at “The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.”

“Appeals court: Once al-Qaida, always al-Qaida?” The Associated Press has this report.

“Corporations Aren’t Subject to Federal Alien Tort Law, Appeals Court Rules”: Bloomberg News has this report.

My earlier coverage of today’s Second Circuit ruling appears in the post immediately below.

“The concept of corporate liability for violations of customary international law has not achieved universal recognition or acceptance as a norm in the relations of States with each other. Inasmuch as plaintiffs assert claims against corporations only, their complaint must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” So holds the long-awaited majority opinion that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued today in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. The plaintiffs were seeking to pursue their claim under a federal law known as the Alien Tort Statute.

Circuit Judge Pierre N. Leval issued an opinion “concurring only in the judgment” that begins:

The majority opinion deals a substantial blow to international law and its undertaking to protect fundamental human rights. According to the rule my colleagues have created, one who earns profits by commercial exploitation of abuse of fundamental human rights can successfully shield those profits from victims’ claims for compensation simply by taking the precaution of conducting the heinous operation in the corporate form. Without any support in either the precedents or the scholarship of international law, the majority take the position that corporations, and other juridical entities, are not subject to international law, and for that reason such violators of fundamental human rights are free to retain any profits so earned without liability to their victims.

The majority begins its response to Judge Leval’s separate opinion in the introduction to the majority opinion, writing:

Lastly, we wish to note that we do not take lightly the passion with which Judge Leval disagrees with our holding. We are keenly aware that he calls our reasoning “illogical” on nine separate occasions. See Concurring Op. 4, 5, 9, 30, 31 n.18, 36, 28, 46, 68, 69. Nor is it lost on us that he calls our conclusions “strange,” id. at 3, 57, 59,23 or that he repeatedly criticizes our analysis as “internally inconsistent,” id. at 6, 7, 46.24 We must, however, leave it to the reader to decide whether any of Judge Leval’s charges, individually or in combination, are a fair reading of our opinion. In so doing we are confident that if our effort is misguided, higher judicial authority is available to tell us so.

An article that The American Lawyer published in October 2008 described the Kiobel case as alleging that “Shell supplied ammunition, transit, and logistical support for the Nigerian military’s ‘Operation Restore Order in Ogoniland.'”

“Ga. capital cases in US Supreme Court crosshairs”: The Associated Press has this report.

“3rd Circuit Rules Some Asbestos Cases Are Pre-Empted”: Shannon P. Duffy has this front page article, in which I am quoted, in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Philadelphia’s daily newspaper for lawyers.

The article reports on a decision that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued last week.

“High court rules against Wintergreen”: The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Virginia today contains an article that begins, “Wintergreen Resort still would have lost its appeal of an $8.3 million judgment to an injured skier even if there hadn’t been a trial transcript filing error, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.”

You can access yesterday’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Virginia at this link.