This press release has details of the new Supreme Court website, which debuted yesterday. The web address changed from http://www.supremecourtus.gov to http://www.supremecourt.gov, and the Supreme Court took over administration of the site from the GPO.All the podcasts we’ve recorded since 2006 are now available on a single convenient podcast feed, which you can subscribe to by searching for “scotusblog” on iTunes.
resource for access to the case law of the United States. Our organization believes that because the laws of the land are in the public domain, they should be accessible by the public without restriction and especially without charge. Our collection includes approximately 647,000 opinions and other transactions from the United States Supreme Court, beginning with the first session in 1790; and Lower Federal Courts, as published in the Federal Reporter beginning in 1880.
The schools received an $874,000 National Science Foundation grant in September to begin the four-year project, which will add 19,675 cases to a database that now extends from the Court's 1953 term through 2008, said Lee Epstein, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. The group will post 4,400 cases by next summer and add more in installments each year, she said.The other schools involved are the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Washington University Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the political science departments at Princeton University and Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y
In accordance with ACLU Policy 519, this report summarizes the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama on May 26, 2009, to replace Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Law.com this week published my article, Get Your Free Case Law on the Web. No sooner did it appear than I received an e-mail from a reader questioning how several of the sites discussed in the article could claim to have U.S. Supreme Court cases from before there was a Supreme Court. In fact, they claimed to have Supreme Court cases dating back to 1754 -- even before the American Revolution.
Take a look at the entire post; worth while reading.None of the decisions appearing in the first volume and most of the second volume of United States Reports are actually decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period and the first decade after Independence. Alexander Dallas, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania lawyer and journalist, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume, which he called “Reports of cases ruled and adjudged in the courts of Pennsylvania, before and since the Revolution”. This would come to be known as the first volume of "Dallas Reports."
Lawyers have been arguing their cases before the Supreme Court for over two centuries, while the phenomenon of legal blogs is perhaps a decade old. Yet legal blogs cannot be dismissed as merely a sideshow novelty—they are already capable of having a substantial impact on Supreme Court litigation.
[d]emonstrate that blogs can both highlight errors in Court decisions and generate new arguments relevant to ongoing litigation. In addition, legal blogs create the opportunity for Supreme Court advocates to engage in ex parte blogging—posting persuasive material about a pending case in the hopes of directly influencing the Court’s decisions.
Attorneys for parties and amici in cases before the Court already sometimes post arguments online about their cases shortly after oral argument—potentially a crucial time in the Court’s decision-making process—and evidence suggests that the Justices and their clerks may well encounter some of these posts online. Yet no one has analyzed the ethical implications of this practice, or what its effects might be on different groups appearing before the Court. This Note examines the relationship between ex parte blogging and the traditional concepts of prejudicial publicity and ex parte communications.
Two of the candidates touted as possible replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter were commencement speakers at Pace Law School, and both were awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degrees. In 2000, Seth Waxman, former U.S. Solicitor General spoke and in 2003 Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. I am a 2003 alumna of Pace Law School, and recall that Judge Sotomayor's speech was one of the highlights of commencement. She brought her elderly mother with her and spoke sincerely and movingly about her life and her journey to her appointment as a Second Circuit judge. Her honorary degree citation read, in partIf ever there were a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity, it is you, Sonia Sotomayor. The nation, in general, and the people of the Second Judicial Circuit, in particular, benefit from your solid judicial experience. Even in our postmodern, deconstructionist society when the reality of impartiality seems, at times, illusory, you have proven that you maintain the rule of law, uphold the U,S, Constitution, and administer justice impartially and fairly according to law, Your progressively stellar career is evidence of your hard work and intelligence as well as your dedication to public service.
Will Judge Sotomayor soon be Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor? Stay tuned.
With a little bit of a delay, here is an update regarding the health status and post-surgery plans of Justice Ginsburg. Via Suits & Sentences and via SCOTUSBlog.On February 5, 2009 I underwent a complete, successful, surgical removal of a pancreatic cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. In consultation with Dr. Eileen O’Reilly and Dr. Leonard Saltz of MSK, I am scheduled to undergo a precautionary, post-surgery course of chemotherapy at the National Institutes of Health. The treatments, which will commence in late March, are not expected to affect my schedule at the Court. Thereafter, it is anticipated that I will require only routine examinations to assure my continuing good health.
As reported by many newspapers and blogs, the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is currently hospitalized at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York after undergoing a surgical procedure for early-stage pancreatic cancer.Justice Ginsburg will likely remain in the hospital approximately 7-10 days. Justice Ginsburg had no symptoms prior to the incidental discovery of the lesion during a routine annual check-up in late January at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. A Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) Scan revealed a small tumor, approximately 1 cm across, in the center of the pancreas. [U.S. Supreme Court Press Release]
As posted on SCOTUS Blog titled Court limits 'violent felony' definition, the Supreme Court ruled on January 13, 2009 that the crime of failure to report to jail or prison to serve a sentence is not the same as an escape, and is not a 'violent felony' that can lead to a longer prison term under federal law. In Chambers v. United States, No. 06-11206, 2009 U.S. Dist. Westlaw 63882 (Jan. 13, 2009) Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court, and Justice Alito with whom Justice Thomas joined, concurred in the judgment. More information can be found on the SCOTUS WIKI.Seventy seven New Haven firefighters tested for promotion to lieutenant in late 2003. Forty three white firefighters, 19 African-Americans and 15 Hispanics took the written and oral exams. None of the African-American or Hispanic scored well enough to win promotion. There were eight vacancies for lieutenant, but the top 10 exam scores were all white. The top Hispanic candidate ranked 27th and the top African-American Candidate ranked 14th. So, New haven opted not to promote any of the candidates. The city said it feared an employment discrimination lawsuit.
The first edition of “Petitions to Watch” for the October 2008 term features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ opening conference of September 29, as featured on SCOTUSBLOG.
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