PARTY TIME AT SCOTUS | Justices Remember Their Own Party Days | The Court’s Worst Kept Secret
October 5, 2017
BOOZE, DRUGS, STRIPPERS
|Yesterday at SCOTUS, the justices heard two cases—one involving probable cause and the other considering whether a guilty plea waives a challenge to the constitutionality of an offense. Richard Wolf with USA Today covers the first case involving “all the tawdry details of a modern-day bachelor party.” The title of his piece is “Booze, drugs, strippers: A Supreme Court conundrum” — a confluence of words so rare that you can’t miss this story.
DO YOU PARTY
|While hearing Wednesday’s case about policing that involved a house party in D.C., the justices reminisced about their own party days. Ann Marimow with The Washington Post reports that some of the more liberal justices didn’t seem to like the idea that their younger selves could have been arrested merely for accepting an invitation without knowing the host or whether the host had permission to throw the party. JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN apparently reminisced about the parties she was invited to “long, long ago” without knowing the host and, added coyly, where “marijuana was maybe present at those parties.” In all, while the lawyers argued the case, the justices were the ones proving a point: they can be fun too.
WELL AREN'T YOU FULL OF SURPRISES
|Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal covers the second SCOTUS case from yesterday, reporting JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH joined his liberal colleagues in questioning the government’s arguments that criminal defendants forfeit all rights to appeal after entering a plea bargain. Get all the details on the case and read how the justices tipped their hands to how they might come down on decision day.
WERE YOU EVEN INVITED
|Scott Bomboy with Constitution Daily takes us through the party case from yesterday’s arguments which seeks to address two important questions: Did the police have the right to arrest the party participants after some of them told the officers they had been invited to the empty house or they had heard they were permitted to be there? And did the officers have qualified immunity from being sued by the partiers since they were conducting their official duties at the time?
MEET PEACHES
|The best part of the party case may not even be the justices’ colorful revelations, but instead it might actually be the hostess of the party, “Peaches.” Referred to only by her nickname, the justices repeatedly referred to her as they grilled lawyers for the city and the partygoers about whether police had acted lawfully when they arrested 21 people for trespassing in 2008. Ann Marimow with The Washington Post introduces us to the woman behind the nickname and her involvement in the case. She notes, “Just the mention at oral argument of ‘Peaches,’ first by JUSTICE STEPHEN G. BREYER, and more than a dozen other times by various justices and lawyers, seemed to lighten the tone of the typically staid proceedings.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times addresses two cases that came before the court this week that considered whether noncitizens should be afforded at least some level of due process. The Ed Board urges, “The answer in both cases should be a resounding yes.”
BELIEVE YOU ME
|So what’s it gonna be, JUSTICE KENNEDY? David Daley for The New Yorker wonders which side Kennedy will believe and whether his swing vote will strike down extreme partisan gerrymandering. Daley writes, “Left unclear, and unsaid, after all this debate is whether that number of justices is four or five. The future of our politics depends on which it is.”
CHIEF OF PR
|Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post wants to remind CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS that he is the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he’s not the institution’s head of PR. She opines, “I find very problematic Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s notion that the court should avoid acting when its reputation would be harmed.”
SECRETS SOMETIMES DO MAKE FRIENDS
|“The secret to advocacy before the contemporary Supreme Court is no secret: it’s all about pandering to JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY.” That’s Jeffrey Toobin with The New Yorker outlining some of the strategies for winning over Kennedy’s vote in the big partisan gerrymandering case, Gill v. Whitford.
BACKING THE BAN
|Today, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to dismiss its pending case over the president’s travel ban which would let lower courts take the first look at the most recent version of the policy. The justices already cancelled its hearing of the prior version of the ban, but it has yet to decide what to do with the underlying case.
MORE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
|In a brief submitted in U.S. District Court in D.C. yesterday, the administration argued that it’s too soon for federal courts to consider blocking the president’s ban on transgender people in the military because the Pentagon hasn’t finalized the details of the policy yet. The government also argued that the case be thrown out because of the court system’s long history of “healthy deference” to the military on constitutional matters. This is the first time federal lawyers have attempted to defend Trump’s policy in court.
THE SOTOMAYOR TREATMENT
|Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern writes that JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR has a real knack for “crafting simple, devastating questions.” Apparently, she let that skill shine during arguments in the partisan gerrymandering case.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Justice Roberts Said Political Science Is 'Sociological Gobbledygook." Here's Why He Said It, And Why He's Mistaken.
The Washington Post“Social science can indeed make the difference at the Supreme Court. The political science on gerrymandering in Gill v. Whitford will be particularly important for Kennedy, who is likely to be the swing vote in this case.”
OTHER NEWS
D.C. Will Not Appeal Concealed Carry Gun Ruling to Supreme Court
The Washington Post“District officials will not appeal a court order blocking enforcement of the city’s restrictions on the carrying of concealed guns in public, setting the stage for what could be a marked increase in firearms on the streets of the nation’s capital. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D) and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced the decision not to appeal to the Supreme Court at a press conference Thursday.”