“Servant of the Law: The President as Chief Prosecutor.” Bruce Swartz, Kit Beyer, and John David Cobb have this post at the “Just Security” blog.

“Sam Bankman-Fried Protected by Magna Carta From Being Fined Billions, a New Brief Argues to Supreme Court; A barrage of petitions arriving at the high bench’s docket make the case for a reversal of his fine — and conviction”: A.R. Hoffman of The New York Sun has this report (registration required for full access).

You can access the relevant court filings here, here, and here.

“Guantanamo Dispatches: Military Psychiatrist Finds Cole Bombing Case Defendant Competent; Federal Judge Refuses to Intervene.” Carol Rosenberg has this post at the “Just Security” blog, along with a post titled “Guantanamo Dispatches: Four Possible Obstacles to Jury Selection in the USS Cole Case at Guantanamo Bay.”

“Colorado River States Could Head Back to the Supreme Court; Diminishing water flows set up a conflict that would be subject to original jurisdiction”: Faith Bottum has this op-ed in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Facing the Death Penalty: The cases of Christa Pike and Nidal Hasan show how vanishingly fine the line is between a routine execution and an unbearable one.” Amy Davidson Sorkin has this essay online at The New Yorker.

Also online at The New Yorker, Dexter Filkins has an essay titled “What a Public Execution Looks Like: A life-and-death spectacle in Afghanistan.”

“Trump may have named his last Supreme Court justice; Republicans hold 53 Senate seats; Democrats need to flip four to stop a Trump Supreme Court pick — and with Justices Alito, Thomas and Sotomayor all in their 70s, a vacancy is far from impossible”: Columnist Dace Potas has this essay online at USA Today.