“Deputy Who Shot Woman Allegedly Trying to Moon Him Avoids Suit”: Bernie Pazanowski of Bloomberg Law has this report (subscription required for full access) on a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued yesterday.

“Why do Democrats want 13 Supreme Court justices? Their answer doesn’t make much sense. You’re welcome to believe the pseudo-historical argument the bill’s sponsors provide, but I suspect a more cynical and obvious motive.” Christopher J. Scalia has this essay online at USA Today.

“Amy Coney Barrett’s Big Book Deal Called Bad Optics for Supreme Court”: Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News has this report.

Access today’s rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court in argued cases: The Court today issued rulings in three argued cases.

1. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court in Jones v. Mississippi, No. 18-1259. Justice Clarence Thomas issued an opinion concurring in the judgment. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined. You can access the oral argument via this link.

2. Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court in Carr v. Saul, 19-1442. Justice Thomas issued an opinion, in which Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. And Justice Breyer issued an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. You can access the oral argument via this link.

3. And Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court in AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC, 19-508. You can access the oral argument via this link.

“A white restaurant owner admitted to enslaving a black man. He got 10 years in prison.” Michael Brice-Saddler of The Washington Post had this report back in November 2019.

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued this decision holding that the restaurant owner should be ordered to pay additional restitution for his crime.

“A Different Kind of Supreme Court Reform Is Already Happening; The left is finally paying attention to the court, and it might be having an impact”: Dahlia Lithwick has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“Uncomfortable Timing for a Supreme Court Gun Fight; The justices contemplate expanding arms rights in the wake of mass shootings”: Linda Greenhouse has this essay online at The New York Times.

“Amul Thapar’s American Dream: He knows life tenure isn’t meant to create a judiciary of pundits.” This editorial will appear in Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Should Biden Pack the Supreme Court? As legislation, it’s doomed. As a threat, it’s brilliant. What Joe could learn from F.D.R.” Columnist Bill Scher has this essay online at Washington Monthly.

“Originalism’s Discontinuity Problem”: Michael C. Dorf has this post at his blog, “Dorf on Law.”

And at “The Originalism Blog,” Michael Ramsey offers this response.

“Should party label appear on judicial ballots? Ohio Senate passes bill to make higher court races partisan.” Jackie Borchardt of The Cincinnati Enquirer has this report.

And Andrew J. Tobias of The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that “Bill listing party ID for Ohio Supreme Court candidates clears Ohio Senate.”

“Chauvin verdict reenergizes debate over Supreme Court’s legal deference for police”: John Fritze of USA Today has this report.

“U.S. Supreme Court hears San Antonio’s challenge to $2M court tab owed to online travel companies”: Patrick Danner of The San Antonio Express-News has this report.

Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson of Bloomberg News reports that “Justices Dig Into Appellate Cost Awards With No Clear Winner.”

And Alexandra Jones of Courthouse News Service reports that “Cities Fight for Court Discount After Tax War With Online Travel Giant; What was once an $84 million tax judgment against Hotels.com is now a $2 million costs bill for the cities that had sued it; The Supreme Court waded into the 15-year entanglement Wednesday.”

You can access via this link the audio and transcript of today’s U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L.P., No. 20-334.

“Kennebec County commissioners vote to return controversial statue to donor; Robert Fuller Jr., who gave the statue of Melville Fuller to the county and offered to take it back, will have up to a year to make arrangements to move the monument of the controversial jurist”: Jessica Lowell has this front page article in today’s edition of The Kennebec Journal of Augusta, Maine.

“Courts of Appeals Citations to the Former Lions of the Supreme Court’s Left and Right”: Adam Feldman has this post at The Juris Lab.

“Wells Fargo gets new hearing on ability of Oakland to sue over its minority lending practices”: Bob Egelko of The San Francisco Chronicle has this report on an order granting rehearing en banc that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued yesterday.

“J’Accuse! Allegations Make News Even When They’re Unproven; Courts have long protected journalists’ freedom to report on lawsuits, regardless of what’s in those lawsuits.” Law professor Stephen L. Carter has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“Amy Coney Barrett Should Just Judge Without Bias Before Writing a Book on Judging Without Bias; It’s remarkably early in her term to receive this big of a book deal”: Dahlia Lithwick has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“Talc plaintiffs urge Supreme Court to let $2.1 bln verdict against J&J stand”: Brendan Pierson of Reuters has this report (subscription required for full access) on plaintiffs’ Brief in Opposition filed yesterday in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“McConnell vents over ‘fake news'”: Alexander Bolton of The Hill has a report that begins, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday vented about his ‘frustration’ with media coverage of the Biden administration’s exploration of expanding the number of seats on the Supreme Court.”

“Justice Amy Coney Barrett sells Indiana home, listed for $899G; The justice’s husband Jesse Barrett said the South Bend home is ‘kind of a part of us'”: Janine Puhak of Fox News has this report.

“‘Retroactive’ Liability after Barr v. AAPC: Judge Stephanos Bibas ‘does not see how’ he can follow the plurality opinion.” Will Baude has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy” about a notable federal district court decision issued yesterday.

“Supreme Court to Tackle a Rare First Amendment Test of Freedom of Association”: Tony Mauro has this post at Freedom Forum.

“Why the Supreme Court may need court-packing to keep its integrity: The court expansion debate may test the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself.” MSNBC Opinion columnist Chris Geidner has this essay.

“‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court.” Tom McCarthy of The Guardian (UK) has this report.

“Democrats press Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse in major First Amendment case”: John Fritze of USA Today has this report.

“State Supreme Court Diversity — April 2021 Update; Across the country, state supreme courts fail to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve and the diversity of the legal profession”: Janna Adelstein and Alicia Bannon of the Brennan Center for Justice have this report.

“Jury finds Madras man guilty of unlawful use of a gun in 2017 road rage encounter on U.S. 26”: Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian had this article back in March 2019.

Yesterday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued this decision overturning the conviction, holding that federal prosecutors had improperly “assimilated into federal criminal law Oregon’s unlawful use of a weapon statute” to apply to a a road rage incident on a highway in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon.

“Sixth Circuit Grants Habeas Petition for Lower Court’s Objectively Unreasonable Application of the Confrontation Clause; A liberal result (granting a criminal defendant’s habeas petition) from a quite conservative judge (John Bush)”: Jonathan H. Adler has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy” about a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued yesterday.

“A woman in Lakeland was killed by deputies. A judge rules the case should move forward.” Daniel Connolly of The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee had this report back in December 2020 about a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

According to Connolly’s article from last December, “In an unusual step, the judge published his own analysis of the available videos in the case, commenting on several individual frames.”

Yesterday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued this decision reversing the district court’s denial of qualified immunity.

According to yesterday’s Sixth Circuit ruling:

To the extent that the district court relied upon screen shots, as it apparently did here, to decide whether it was objectively reasonable for the officers to use lethal force, it erred. The deputies’ perspective did not include leisurely stop-action viewing of the real-time situation that they encountered. To rest a finding of reasonableness on a luxury that they did not enjoy is unsupported by any clearly established law and would constitute reversible error

So the lesson of yesterday’s ruling appears to be that video of fatal police-citizen encounters is good, but screen shots from the video to evaluate what’s going on are bad.

“Tribes and ANCs present grammar puzzle to Supreme Court, with $530 million at stake”: Liz Ruskin of Alaska Public Media has this report.

“Former Judge Michael Luttig Talks First Amendment, Impeachment and Coca-Cola; Michael Luttig chats with us about redesigning a first amendment icon”: Tony Mauro of The National Law Journal has this report.

“An ‘insane’ covid lockdown two miles from the Capitol, with no end in sight; For a year, 1,500 people held at D.C. jail have been confined to cells 23 hours a day in what experts call a grave human rights abuse”: Peter Jamison of The Washington Post has this report.

“You Can’t Fight Big Condiment”: Online at Courthouse News Service, columnist Milt Policzer has an essay that begins, “Big Condiment wins again. I’m speaking, of course, of a ruling issued last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that mostly favored Kraft Heinz Foods Company over a small-time sauce maker.”

“High court seems ready to send virus funds to Alaska Natives”: Jessica Gresko of The Associated Press has this report on an oral argument (audio and transcript link) that the U.S. Supreme Court heard today in Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Reservation, No. 20-543.