The Blog of Legal Times has a good summary of the discussion of stare decisis in Tuesday’s U. S. Supreme Court opinions in John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, case no. 06-1164 (Jan. 8, 2008), including what it sees as an unusual alignment of the justices. The catalyst for the discussion was whether a series of SCOTUS precedents dating back to the 1880s was effectively overruled by a 1990 SCOTUS decision. The competing opinions in John R. Sand & Gravel disagree on the impact of the 1990 decision, with the majority concluding that it did not overrule the earlier cases. I remember my legal writing professor emphasizing…
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Are SCOTUS Pros Hogging the Court?
WSJ.com Law Blog summarizes a Legal Times article highlighting a paper by Georgetown law professor Richard Lazarus, in which he posits that the U.S. Supreme Court tends to grant certiorari in cases involving “superstar” members of its bar. Since those superstars tend to represent business interests, Lazarus contends — according to the Legal Times — that they are “boxing out the civil rights, civil liberties and labor groups that once helped set the Court’s agenda.” Some of the commenters think Professor Lazarus is off base. UPDATE (10/24/07): Legal Profession Blog has the abstract of Professor Lazarus’s paper and a link to it on SSRN. UPDATE (10/26/07): If you want more…
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SCOTUS Cert Pool Memos Available Online
Professor Lee Epstein at Northwestern University School of Law has posted a “Digital Archive of the Papers of Harry A. Blackmun.” Bloggers are most abuzz about the “cert pool memos” available as part of the archive. These memos provide insight into the reasons certiorari was granted or denied. For a good explanation of the cert pool memos, go to this page of the archive. I got the link from Prawfsblawg. Who got it from GWU Law Professor Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy (who gives some especially good reasons to peruse them). Who got it from How Appealing. Who got it from . . . aw, who knows?