DUSKY GOPHER FROG GOES DOWN FOR NOW | How Bad Is Back-Talk | New Memoir From John Paul Stevens
November 27, 2018
ALL FOR ONE, AND NONE FOR FROGS
|The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision today in which they overruled a federal appeals court decision that upheld the designation of “critical habitat” for the dusky gopher frog. This endangered species doesn’t actually live in the habitat currently, and according to the decision written by CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, “Only the ‘habitat’ of the endangered species is eligible for designation as critical habitat.”
WHEN THINGS GET KNOTTY
|“Some legal questions are knotty enough that the Supreme Court can’t decide them on the first try. Or the second. And, after Monday’s oral argument over a familiar problem, there was reason to believe that the third time might not be the charm, either.” That’s Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reporting on the issue before SCOTUS yesterday which called into question whether someone who believes he was arrested in violation of his free speech rights can pursue a claim of retaliation against the police when there was probable cause for the arrest. Adam Liptak with The New York Times also reported on yesterday’s case and notes how justices struggled with drawing a line between different kinds of arrests.
STAY OUT OF IT
|Josh Gerstein with POLITICO notes that the Trump administration is deviating slightly from its usual playbook of tapping SCOTUS for support, urging justices this week to decline to weigh in on the appointment of MATTHEW WHITAKER. “Litigants in several different courts have questioned the legality of Trump’s move, but Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court on Monday that it should stay out of the fray until lower courts had a chance to weigh in.”
IT'S A LONG STORY
|Former justice JOHN PAUL STEVENS has written a memoir — “The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years” — that will be published this spring just after his 99th birthday. Adam Liptak with The New York Times spoke with Stevens about making the memoir, and Stevens described his experience writing it as almost having to make two separate books: “The first one about the time before I went on the court and the second one about the many, many terms I was on the court.” Stevens also noted for Liptak that he has kept up with all of the recent Supreme Court controversies and remarked, “I certainly think Garland should have gotten a confirmation hearing. That was really a most unfortunate thing, because he is so very well qualified. He is not a member of one party or the other. He is just a good judge. Of course, actually Kavanaugh is also a good judge.”