A NEW YEAR, A NEW LOOK AT THE JUDICIARY AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT | 2018 To Be A Test For U.S. Constitution
January 2, 2018
A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR THE JUDICIARY
|Happy New Year SCOTUSDaily friends! ICYMI, on Sunday CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS released his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary. In it, Roberts said he plans to launch a review on how the federal judiciary handles sexual harassment following the recent resignation of San Francisco-based federal appeals judge, ALEX KOZINSKI. “Events in recent months have illuminated the depth of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, and events in the past few weeks have made clear that the judicial branch is not immune,” the chief justice wrote in his report.
NOW MORE THAN EVER
|The Constitution turns 231 years old this year, and in The Sacramento Bee Erwin Chemerinsky predicts this will be one of the most consequential years for the document since its founding. He thinks the Constitution will sit at the center of the most important stories coming out of our nation’s capital, and so he previews for us three stories that will be critical to follow in 2018: 1) What will happen with ROBERT MUELLER’S investigation; 2) How the Supreme Court will rule in its partisan gerrymandering case; and 3) Whether JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY will retire.
A TEST OF TOLERANCE
|Echoing the importance of 2018, Elizabeth Price Foley writes in The Hill that this is “likely to be a year that tests the nation’s commitment to two core constitutional principles: tolerance and political accountability.”
PUTTING YOU IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times writes about a legal skirmish involving a man driving a rental car who got pulled over with 49 bricks of heroin in his trunk. The Supreme Court will soon consider how privacy rights are affected when we sign rental car contracts and what that means for law enforcement’s ability to search your vehicle. Liptak notes, “Letting a family member or a friend drive a car you have rented can be a breach of the rental contract. But it is not generally considered a crime, and it is not obvious that people who drive cars that others have rented should forfeit their Fourth Amendment rights.”
TOP-ED
|“Can online retailers be compelled by law to collect a sales tax? According to the Supreme Court, no — but that could change if, in the next few weeks, it decides to take up a case challenging the current rule.” That’s David Herzig writing in The New York Times that the high court should reconsider the current prohibition which he says “takes a hammer to the fiscal health of states.”
BACK AT IT
|The justices won’t hear any arguments this week but they will meet for conference on January 5. Check out SCOTUSblog’s list of petitions worth watching ahead of the Friday conference.