SCOTUS ALLOWS ALABAMA EXECUTION | Where’s The Free Speech Line And Who Should Cross It | Years After Anita Hill, Weinstein Changes The Game
November 6, 2017
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH
|Today the Supreme Court released orders from its November 3 conference, although it did not grant any new cases. However, the high court did decide to wade into a case from Alabama. The justices unanimously reversed a lower court that had found a death row inmate ineligible for execution because his declining health had left him unable to remember the murder he had committed. The justices ruled that there is a difference between condemned inmates who cannot recall their crimes and those who cannot “rationally comprehend the concepts of crime and punishment.”
SORRY WE CAN'T COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW
|SCOTUS chose not to re-insert itself into the smartphone patent wars today, leaving intact a $120 million award Apple Inc. won from rival Samsung Electronics Co. over features that include slide-to-unlock.
PASS ON FOOTBALL
|The Supreme Court decided today that it won’t take up a copyright case involving the classic video game, “Madden.” One of the original programmers claimed Electronic Arts failed to give him royalties on a newer version of the game which copied his computer code.
WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times analyzes the case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which vexes even the most prominent First Amendment lawyer in the country, FLOYD ABRAMS. Though Abrams almost always argues in favor of free speech—and at first glance, that was he position he was going to take for this case—he ended up signing a brief in support of the gay couple who were refused a cake for their wedding. Read Liptak’s article to understand why.
BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT, BUT FOLLOW THE LAW
|For Reuters, Scott Lemieux argues that in the upcoming cake case, the justices need to tell the now-famous baker from Colorado, JACK PHILLIPS, that cakes aren’t art and he can’t be exempt from the law. “The wise approach for the Supreme Court would be to follow the lead of the Colorado court and uphold the sound judgement of the state’s civil rights commission: that while Jack Phillips is entitled to his beliefs, when he opens a business to the public he is required to follow state laws and treat his customers equally.”
PODCAST DU JOUR – LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE
|Episode 10 of The Washington Post’s podcast, “Constitution” explores the evolution of marriage as a right in this country. The episode features the voices of Philip Hirschkop, a lawyer who argued the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case before the Supreme Court, and ACLU National Legal Director David Cole.
ME TOO
|In The New York Times, Jessica Bennett considers why the HARVEY WEINSTEIN scandal was what made everything “click” for America. “We have seen this movie before,” she writes. “Sexual harassment complaints to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increased 73 percent in the year after ANITA HILL’S televised testimony about CLARENCE THOMAS’S behavior in 1991. Still, Mr. Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, while Ms. Hill went quietly back to being a law professor in Oklahoma. In the ensuing years, the issue cycled between headlines and whispers in a seemingly endless loop. But this sequel seems to have a surprise ending, or at least a plot twist: The public outrage is deeper and more sustained, and the dominoes continue to fall.”