Big Wednesday 2013

Yesterday, I finally had a spare moment to set up for today’s cases. And I threw in my predictions just to go on the record. No, I don’t know why the Court is taking three days to do what I… Continue Reading

In Which I Mostly Agree With Clarence Thomas

Today’s big case was Fisher v. University of Texas. It’s the affirmative action case. The case was decided 7-1 with Anthony Kennedy delivering the opinion of the Court’s majority in a blander fashion than I’m used to. The case is remarkable… Continue Reading

Big Monday 2013

Today is the last scheduled day for decisions and opinions scheduled by the Supreme Court. In the comments to this post, I’ll be glossing the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and same-sex marriage cases.* And, of course, setting up a… Continue Reading

For The Cold Case Files

Does the Fourth Amendment allow law enforcement to gather an arrestee’s genetic sequence and compare it with a large FBI database of genetic material gathered from old, unsolved crimes? A reader asked me to do an analysis of Maryland v. King, a… Continue Reading

Playing With Constitutional Fire

A few days ago I broke down a case from the Ninth Circuit permitting sectarian prayers at the opening of city council meetings for a city in California. In 2011, the Fourth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion with respect to… Continue Reading