KENNEDY RETIREMENT WATCH BACK ON | An Elegant Proposal To Depoliticize SCOTUS | Farewell To A Living Legend
July 5, 2017
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1984, the Supreme Court weakened the 70-year-old “exclusionary rule,” deciding that evidence seized in good faith with defective court warrants could be used against defendants in criminal trials.
ICYMI
|Over the long holiday weekend, NPR’s Nina Totenberg dropped a pretty major news story. Reporting on JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY’S decision to remain on the Supreme Court (for now), Totenberg writes that he has let law clerk applicants know that he is still considering retirement. Read her full report on Justice Kennedy’s future on the bench and what else we can expect next term.
REPORTING ON THE NEWS
|Aaron Blake with The Washington Post covered the piece Nina Totenberg put out in which she mentions somewhere in the middle of her story that JUSTICE KENNEDY has been telling his clerk applicants that he’s still considering retirement. Blake writes, “That’s called burying the lead. And it’s a piece of news that, especially after a tough first six months of the Trump administration, Republicans will be very, very happy to see.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|“The Washington football team’s legal victory isn’t a win worth celebrating.” That’s the Editorial Board with The Washington Post weighing in on the NFL Redskins’ victory over their controversial name. WaPo: “The team’s name is still as hurtful and offensive as ever, and the controversy it stirs will likely only intensify, not go away. So pardon us for not offering our congratulations.”
AN ELEGANT PROPOSAL
|Twenty-one constitutional scholars introduced an “elegant proposal” last week calling for a regular system for biennial appointments to the Supreme Court. The idea is that a regularized system for Supreme Court appointments would depoliticize the way in which we get justices on the bench.
HERE'S TO THE LITTLE GUYS
|Richard Wolf with USA Today reports that this Supreme Court term was especially good for the “little guys.” Wolf notes that although the number of these “little-guy victories” seems unusual, they were not unique.
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S LAWYERS
|“DONALD TRUMP’S life and career have been defined by his legal battles. But do the attorneys who guided him through the courtrooms of New York and New Jersey know how to navigate Washington?” Jonathan Mahler for The New York Times reports.
SEE YOU BACK IN COURT
|Lyle Denniston for Constitution Daily reports that the Trump administration is ready to go back to the Supreme Court if a federal judge relaxes, in any way, the government’s restrictions on entry into the U.S. under its newly implemented travel ban. Denniston writes, “In a filing Monday in a federal trial court in Hawaii, Justice Department lawyers argued that the challengers to current regulations under a presidential executive order on immigration are not legally entitled to any changes at all.”
VACATION ALL I EVER WANTED
|For The Economist, Steven Mazie explains how Supreme Court justices spend their summer vacations. He notes that although they get three months off from their courtroom duties, “The Supreme Court website insists that ‘the work of the justices is unceasing.’ All summer long, ‘they continue to analyse new petitions for review, consider motions and applications, and must make preparations for cases scheduled for fall argument.'” However, as Executive Director of Fix the Court, GABE ROTH, points out, neither the Supreme Court nor its website provides “notice of the justices’ out-of-Washington appearances” unlike the other branches of the federal government.
DEAN OF THE SUPREME COURT PRESS CORPS
|After 58 years, legendary Supreme Court reporter LYLE DENNISTON is to say goodbye to the marble palace. As Jesse Wegman in The New York Times points out, “There have been 113 Supreme Court justices in American history. Lyle Denniston has reported on 31 of them — more than one in four.” On the final day of this term, CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS paused to honor Mr. Denniston’s service. And when he recalled that moment to Wegman, it was clear Mr. Denniston was touched and also reminded of “the unbridgeable gulf between him and the institution to which he devoted his life.” He told her, “We are strangers to the courthouse. I’m not part of the furniture and I’m not part of the family.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
When Kennedy Retires is Key to His Legacy — And to Trump's
The Hill“When Justice Anthony Kennedy retires, it may be the greatest proof of Woody Allen’s rule that 80 percent of success in life is just showing up. He may now show that the other 20 percent is just leaving.”
The Supreme Court's Most Consequential Decision of the Year
The Sacramento Bee“The most consequential decision the court made this last term was to hear arguments in a case involving the drawing of legislative district lines. Please don’t yawn. This process of drawing district lines, called redistricting, dictates who our state and federal representatives will be.”