“Judicial Notice (06.26.21): #FreeBritney; Blockbuster Supreme Court decisions, a big-ticket litigation finance deal, and other legal news from the week that was.” David Lat has this post at his “Original Jurisdiction” Substack site.

“High School SCOTUS: A Breakdown of Mahanoy Area School District v. BL.” A contributor to the blog “High School SCOTUS” has posted this video discussion on YouTube.

“A Conservative Court Awakening: The Justices take another step to reinforce the separation of powers.” This editorial appears in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Trump-appointed judges obstruct Biden ‘pen and phone’ policies just months into term; Trump judges stymied Biden administration on parts of COVID relief bill, oil and gas leases and more”: Tyler Olson of Fox News has this report.

“Will a pending Supreme Court case doom DOJ’s voting rights lawsuit before it begins?” Ariane de Vogue of CNN has this report.

“Ideology Shows in Supreme Court Ruling on Union Organizing; If conservative justices oppose judicial activism, what did they just do to a longstanding California labor law?” Law professor Noah Feldman has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“5th Circuit Grants Qualified Immunity to Cops Who Ignited a Suicidal, Gasoline-Drenched Man by Tasing Him; The appeals court concluded that the officers’ use of force was reasonable in the circumstances”: Jacob Sullum had this post online at Reason back in February 2021 about a per curiam opinion that a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had issued earlier that month.

Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit issued this order, accompanied by concurrences and dissents, denying rehearing en banc in the case by a vote of 13-to-4. In particular, Circuit Judge Don R. Willett — no fan of the qualified immunity doctrine — wrote a noteworthy dissent from the denial of en banc review.

Judge Willett’s dissent drew responses from Circuit Judges E. Grady Jolly (access here, demonstrating he was none too amused by Willett’s rhetorical flourishes), Andrew S. Oldham (access here) and James C. Ho (access here, referring in passing to the “woke Constitution“), the first two of whom served on the original three-judge panel.