Live blog of orders and opinions June 25...
 
Monday June 25, 2012
8:55
Kali: 
Good morning everyone, thanks for joining us for the Live Blog this morning.
Monday June 25, 2012 8:55 Kali
8:56
Kali: 
Kevin Russell (who will be joining us this morning) has taken some photos from outside the Court this morning. Here's one http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P6250001.jpg
Monday June 25, 2012 8:56 Kali
8:57
Amy Howe: 
Yes, good morning to all, and welcome to our Live Blog, sponsored by Bloomberg Law.
Monday June 25, 2012 8:57 Amy Howe
8:57
Kali: 
Here's another:http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P6250005.jpg
Monday June 25, 2012 8:57 Kali
8:57
Amy Howe: 
We're under-rested and over-caffeinated here at SCOTUSblog HQ in Friendship Heights. This should be fun.
Monday June 25, 2012 8:57 Amy Howe
8:58
Amy Howe: 
We have 4000 readers already, which is amazing. And many of you are asking questions, which we will try very hard to respond to before the Court gets started at 10, but there are already dozens of comments and questions in the queue, so please be patient with us.
Monday June 25, 2012 8:58 Amy Howe
8:59
Amy Howe: 
To reiterate, today is the only day on which the Court is scheduled to sit to release opinions (as well as orders from last week's Conference), but it is very, very possible that it will add at least one more day. We don't know whether that will happen or what days they would be; the conventional wisdom is that they will finish up by Thursday at the latest, though.
Monday June 25, 2012 8:59 Amy Howe
9:00
Amy Howe: 
We don't know what opinions we are getting today. The conventional wisdom (which again is just speculation, albeit generally by people who follow the Court) is that the Court will do health care later in the week. But this is all just speculation; we could get any of the opinions remaining today.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:00 Amy Howe
9:01
Lyle: 
Good morning from the Court's press room.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:01 Lyle
9:01
Amy Howe: 
The Court will release orders from last week's Conference at 10 am and then move right into opinions. We get them as they are announced at the Court -- e.g., one at a time. The Court starts with the Justice with the least seniority and then moves up through the ranks in reverse order of seniority, finishing with the Chief Justice.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:01 Amy Howe
9:03
Amy Howe: 
We think it is slightly more likely that we will get an opinion in Arizona v. US today (again, however, this is all just speculation), particularly if there are only two opinion days this week. The conventional wisdom is that the Court would try to avoid doing Arizona and health care on the same day.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:03 Amy Howe
9:04
Kali: 
There are six remaining merits cases to be decided assuming one opinion is issued in health care. In case you missed Amy's "In Plain English" post over the weekend, here are the issues in the remaining cases.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:04 Kali
9:04
Amy Howe: 
Lyle can correct me, but we won't know whether the Court has scheduled additional days until they finish announcing opinions; if there are additional cases, we can expect an additional day or days. And then when the Court recesses, if there are additional days, the Court would announce when they would return again.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:04 Amy Howe
9:04
Kali: 
First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards  Plain English Issue: Whether lawsuits under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which allows homebuyers to sue banks and title companies when they pay kickbacks for the closing of a mortgage loan, are constitutional if the kickback does not affect the price or quality of the services provided?
Monday June 25, 2012 9:04 Kali
9:05
Amy Howe: 
Thursday was the last scheduled Conference before the summer recess; however, the Court has traditionally held a "clean-up" conference after it has issued all of the opinions, and sometimes it grants one or two cases from that Conference.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:05 Amy Howe
9:05
Kali: 

United States v. Alvarez Argued on February 22, 2012

Plain English Issue: Whether a federal law that makes it a crime to lie about receiving military medals or honors violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to free speech.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:05 Kali
9:06
Amy Howe: 
Yes, to answer another popular question, we could hear something about the Montana campaign finance case, American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, today; it was on last week's Conference.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:06 Amy Howe
9:07
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, the opinions are released to the public as well, in a separate line. They are also released on the Court's own website within a few minutes after they are announced, although I would put the chances that the Court's website crashes at very high.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:07 Amy Howe
9:07
Tom: 
Thanks to you for taking the time, and thanks to the terrific sites that have linked to us. We really appreciate it.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:07 Tom
9:07
Tom: 
Special thanks go out to SCOTUSblog’s exclusive sponsor, Bloomberg Law. It’s a fantastic service, and they have been unbelievably good to us.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:07 Tom
9:07
Kali: 

Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs

Argued separately on March 20, 2012

Plain English Issue: Whether a sentence of life without parole for someone who was convicted of murder when he was fourteen violates the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:07 Kali
9:08
Tom: 
To remind you of how this morning will play out, at 10am EDT the Court will release “orders” – i.e., it will act on the petitions for certiorari asking the Court to hear various cases. It will then immediately begin releasing opinions. We don’t know at this point how many there will be today.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:08 Tom
9:08
Amy Howe: 
To answer another popular question, there has been zero indication of any leaks from inside the Court about health care, which is not at all surprising.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:08 Amy Howe
9:08
Kali: 
Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida

Plain English Issue: (1) Whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to require virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty; and (2) whether the Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits taxpayers from filing a lawsuit to challenge a tax until the tax goes into effect and they are required to pay it, prohibits a challenge to the Act’s provision requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty until after the provision goes into effect in 2014.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:08 Kali
9:09
Kali: 
Nat’l Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

Plain English Issue: (1) Whether Congress can require states to choose between complying with provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or losing federal funding for the Medicaid program; and (2) whether, if the Court concludes that the provision of the Act requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional, the rest of the Act can remain in effect or must also be invalidated.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:09 Kali
9:09
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, the Court will not be releasing the audio of the opinion announcement today. (There were requests that it do so, but no one expected the Court to accede to those requests.) The opinion announcements, which are the Justices reading summaries of the opinions, in all likelihood will be released sometime later this year.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:09 Amy Howe
9:10
Kevin Russell: 
Here's a prediction: the Court will decide First American Financial today, Justice Thomas will be the author, and the bank will win.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:10 Kevin Russell
9:10
Kali: 
Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services

Plain English Issue: (1) Whether Congress can require states to choose between complying with provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or losing federal funding for the Medicaid program; and (2) whether, if the Court concludes that the provision of the Act requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional, the rest of the Act can remain in effect or must also be invalidated.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:10 Kali
9:10
Amy Howe: 
Yes, welcome to all of you waiting on the decision in First American. It's the real sleeper case of the Term.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:10 Amy Howe
9:11
Kali: 
Here is the last of the six, for those of you just joining us, scroll up to see the "Plain English" issues in all the remaining cases, including First American. 

Arizona v. United States Argued April 25, 2012 Plain English Issue: Whether an Arizona law that, among other things, requires police officers to check the immigration status of anyone whom they arrest, allows police to stop and arrest anyone whom they believe to be an illegal immigrant, makes it a crime for someone to be in the state without valid immigration papers, and makes it a crime to apply for or hold a job in Arizona without proper papers, is invalid because it is trumped by federal immigration laws. 

Monday June 25, 2012 9:11 Kali
9:11
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, the Court could push a case like health care over to the next Term, but it would be highly unusual for it to do so. It did push another case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, over to next Term, but it ordered additional briefing on a new question.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:11 Amy Howe
9:12
Tom: 
We’ve ramped up the resources we’re throwing at the last week of the Term, by a lot.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:12 Tom
9:12
Tom: 
On the technical side, our Deputy Manager Max Mallory has been working night and day to make sure that we don’t crash.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:12 Tom
9:13
Tom: 
That’s important because the way things are trending, on the last day of the Term we may have 250,000 people on the liveblog at once.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:13 Tom
9:13
Tom: 
We hired a firm to redo a lot of the code that drives the blog. This weekend, we hired a second firm to do even more. So www.scotusblog.com should load more efficiently.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:13 Tom
9:14
Tom: 
We also moved the load of the liveblog off of the www.scotusblog.com site. This liveblog is run on an entirely different server run by a different company. The site is also obviously much simpler, without any of the other widgets and gizmos of the main site that slow down loading times.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:14 Tom
9:14
Tom: 
For the time being, the blog’s main site redirects to here. But if you’re sending anyone the links, use this one directly: http://scotusblog.wpengine.com/. That will save a step, and reduce the load on the main site.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:14 Tom
9:15
Tom: 
For the time being, the main site isn’t doing much. But you can access anything over there other than the main page. So we can give you a link, for example, to a case page. But we’re going to try and keep that to a minimum – again, to minimize the load on the servers.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:15 Tom
9:15
Tom: 
Instead, we’ve tried to identify ahead of time the kinds of earlier content of ours that we’ll want to provide. We’ve then pdf’d that and uploaded it to yet a third set of servers – the Amazon cloud. So we can give you links here, and they can handle that load without any problem.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:15 Tom
9:16
Tom: 
It has been quite an effort for Max, but hopefully all the work – and the roughly $10,000 we’re spending on everything – will pay off.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:16 Tom
9:16
Tom: 
Max will also be monitoring both of the sites through the morning. He has four sets of rosary beads. Say a prayer for him.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:16 Tom
9:17
Tom: 
The live blog will continue until the Court finishes the release of opinions. But if it decides the health care case, it will stay up until 1pm EDT. We’ll be writing regular posts in the meantime and posting pieces by the participants in our snap health care symposium; we’ll just put the urls for the posts (along with links to what others are writing) into the liveblog itself.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:17 Tom
9:17
Tom: 
Moving past the technology, we’ve staffed way, way up. Usually, the liveblog for us is Lyle dictating developments to Amy by phone from the press area. We’re still doing that, but now it is all hands on deck for us.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:17 Tom
9:17
Tom: 
To remind you of how this morning will play out, at 10am EDT the Court will release “orders” – i.e., it will act on the petitions for certiorari asking the Court to hear various cases. It will then immediately begin releasing opinions. We don’t know at this point how many there will be today.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:17 Tom
9:21
Tom: 
If you want to want to see the issues in all the remaining cases in Plain English, here is a pdf.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:21 Tom
9:22
Tom: 

This morning, I’ll be participating actively, along with Amy, Kevin Russell and Tejinder Singh.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:22 Tom
9:22
Tom: 

Amy will be answering your questions before the argument, then will handle getting word from Lyle onto the blog, as usual.  In addition, if the Court decides either the Arizona immigration case or health care, she will quickly put out a “Plain English” summary of the decision.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:22 Tom
9:22
Tom: 

My responsibilities are split.  I’m handling the orders, which we’ll get right at 10am EDT.  The Court had a really large number of serious petitions before it at last Thursday’s conference, and it will act on most of those petitions this morning.  I’ll be getting you information on those grants.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:22 Tom
9:22
Tom: 

The only exception will be if the Court summarily reverses the Montana Supreme Court in the campaign finance case.  If that happens, Lyle will have responsibility for it.  That is, unless health care comes down the same day.  In that instance, the site will melt and this will all be moot.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:22 Tom
9:23
Tom: 

Kevin and Tejinder have dual responsibilities.  Before the Court starts at 10am, they will join Amy in answering your questions.  That will start after I finish these introductory notes and provide you with links to some of our prior content; I’m mostly done.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:23 Tom
9:23
Tom: 

As of 10am, question-time is over, and they will shift into analysis mode, writing up what the Court has done.  Some of that will appear here directly.  The rest will be in posts on scotusblog, which we will link here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:23 Tom
9:23
Tom: 

For those of you who haven’t used the blog much, and wonder about our qualifications, Lyle is the dean of the Supreme Court press corps, having covered it for more than 50 years (!); Kevin, Amy, and I have taught Supreme Court litigation together for many years, and each of us has argued multiple cases; and Tejinder works in our firm on lots of Supreme Court cases.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:23 Tom
9:25
Tom: 

Incidentally, we’re not the only ones on our call.  Editors from a variety of newspapers and television networks are listening in, to try and guide their own coverage.  (We put them on mute.)  So it’s nice to be able to provide them that service as well.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:25 Tom
9:26
Tom: 

As I mentioned earlier, to give you the background of the cases that are going to be decided, we’ve prepared pdfs of our background pieces and argument recaps on the remaining cases.  The links follow.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:26 Tom
9:27
Tom: 

For the First American financial case on Congress’s power to create rights to sue, the preview is here and the argument recap is here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:27 Tom
9:29
Tom: 
Sorry for the problems with the links; we're working on it.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:29 Tom
9:31
Tom: 

For the Alvarez case on whether the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment, the preview is here and the argument recap is here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:31 Tom
9:33
Tom: 

For the Miller and Hobbs cases on whether life without parole as a sentence for a murder by a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendment – two cases that were argued separately but raise essentially the same issue – the preview is here and the argument recap is here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:33 Tom
9:34
Amy Howe: 
To return to some of your questions, the Court will take the bench at 10 am. We'll get orders (most notably, an announcement of which new cases the Court has decided to review on the merits next year, and which ones they have declined to review) and then opinions in argued cases. We will get the opinions one at a time as they are announced.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:34 Amy Howe
9:35
Amy Howe: 
There will not be any audio or video of the opinion announcements. You are stuck with us.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:35 Amy Howe
9:35
Tom: 

For the Arizona case on SB 1070, the preview is here, the argument recap is here, and the Plain English argument summary is here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:35 Tom
9:35
Amy Howe: 
Yes, to answer another question, opinion = decision as we are using it here.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:35 Amy Howe
9:36
Kevin Russell: 
In addition to one or more opinions, we will be getting an orders list with grants (and denies) from the Court's conference last Thursday -- the last conference of the term. The conference considered a bunch of interesting cases, including 12 in which the Court had called for the views of the Government. So there should be a fair number of grants.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:36 Kevin Russell
9:36
Amy Howe: 
There are six (depending on how you count them) cases still outstanding from this term, including health care and Arizona v. US. We don't know how many of them we will get, nor do we know which ones.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:36 Amy Howe
9:36
Tom: 

For the health care case, we really have more material than you could ever hope to digest, if you are of sound mind.  For the basics, look at our post-argument analysis for the individual mandate.  Lyle’s analysis is here and Kevin’s discussion of particular Justices is here.

Monday June 25, 2012 9:36 Tom
9:37
Amy Howe: 
If we don't get all of the decisions today, we expect the Court to sit again later this week; it will announce when it will sit at the end of the session.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:37 Amy Howe
9:38
Kevin Russell: 
Among other things, the Court considered on Friday petitions concerning the Mount Soledad cross and the Montana campaign finance law.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:38 Kevin Russell
9:38
Tejinder: 

Hi everybody, it's great to be here with all of our readers, and thank you all for your questions. To answer a few questions about the likely authors of imminent opinions, our prediction is that Justice Kennedy will do the juvenile life without parole cases (Miller and Hobbs) and that Justice Thomas will author the opinion in First American. Of course, those are only predictions based on past authorship and practice. We don't have strong intuitions about any other cases. 

Monday June 25, 2012 9:38 Tejinder
9:38
Amy Howe: 
In plain English, a "grant" means that the Court has decided to review the case on the merits. That is, it will have briefing and oral argument in the case, and then issue a written decision. It does that with only 78 cases or so each year, out of the thousands of requests it receives.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:38 Amy Howe
9:39
Kevin Russell: 
In answer to a question -- the Court asked the SG for his views on a dozen cases. He recommended denial in all of them. However, while those recommendations carry a lot of weight with the Court, it is likely that the Court will grant a few of them over the SG's objection.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:39 Kevin Russell
9:39
Amy Howe: 
So today is one of the last days before the summer recess on which the Court will announce which new cases it has granted and will review on the merits next Term, which starts in October. There are, as Kevin and others have explained, a number of interesting cases that the Court considered at its Conference last Thursday, and we will hear today which ones it has granted.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:39 Amy Howe
9:40
Amy Howe: 
Is there a chance that the Court will carry the health care cases over to next Term? Yes, but only a very, very small one.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:40 Amy Howe
9:40
Lyle: 
To all those folks who have commented on Twitter, we love you.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:40 Lyle
9:41
Amy Howe: 
I apologize, but we have literally hundreds of questions and comments, and we can't answer them all. But we're trying to do the best we can.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:41 Amy Howe
9:41
Amy Howe: 
Yes, SG = Solicitor General, the government's top lawyer at the Court.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:41 Amy Howe
9:42
Amy Howe: 
We're Carolina alums, so we have to go with MJ.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:42 Amy Howe
9:42
Amy Howe: 
This was a question about Lebron v. Michael Jordan, to those of you who may wonder and care.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:42 Amy Howe
9:43
Amy Howe: 
The public is indeed able to attend the announcement of opinions, at which the Justices read summaries of their opinions (and, occasionally, their dissents). I expect that the line this morning was quite long, and will be even longer next time if health care doesn't come out today.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:43 Amy Howe
9:44
Amy Howe: 
And we have not independently confirmed this, but we are told that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is celebrating a birthday today. Will it be a happy one? We wish her the best, in any event.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:44 Amy Howe
9:45
Amy Howe: 
I expect that there are many people from the Solicitor General's office in the Courtroom today.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:45 Amy Howe
9:45
Amy Howe: 
And thanks to our factcheckers on Justice Sotomayor's birthday. It truly takes a village.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:45 Amy Howe
9:46
Amy Howe: 
Thanks to everyone joining us from Drudge (and thanks to Drudge for the link). To answer another question, here at G&R I have moved from coffee onto Vanilla Coke Zero. Like I said, overcaffeinated and under-rested.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:46 Amy Howe
9:47
Kevin Russell: 
Someone asked whether the Soliciter General gets advanced information about opinions (or otherwise gets more information than the public) -- the answer is No.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:47 Kevin Russell
9:47
Amy Howe: 
Also, a big shout-out to my high school typing teacher, Mrs. Beggs.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:47 Amy Howe
9:48
Amy Howe: 
I am pretty sure that the answer to the question about when a decision has been so anticipated is NEVER. In Bush v. Gore, it all moved so quickly and we didn't know when we would get a decision.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:48 Amy Howe
9:48
Amy Howe: 
Also welcome to those of you joining us from The Atlantic Wire.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:48 Amy Howe
9:48
Tejinder: 

A lot of questions about whether Supreme Court decisions ever get leaked in advance. Quite a few people, including Justices and law clerks, know decisions before they are released, but this is one of the tighest ships in Washington. If they are leaking decisions, we certainly haven't seen them, and to the best of our knowledge, neither have our other friends outside the building. 

Monday June 25, 2012 9:48 Tejinder
9:49
Lyle: 
Today's public session may last as little as 15 minutes, and as long as three times that, depending upon whether there are oral announcements of dissents. Often, the oral dissents take longer than the majority announcement.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:49 Lyle
9:50
Amy Howe: 
I do think that Heller was also highly anticipated, but perhaps not as widely, plus it was not the sitting President's signature legislative achievement in the middle of a presidential campaign. Even a few years ago, as well, I don't think that the social media and blog presences were as broad as they are now.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:50 Amy Howe
9:50
Lyle: 
The last time a decision leaked was in the Thirties, in one of the Gold Clause cases. I was not covering the Court yet.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:50 Lyle
9:51
Amy Howe: 
To answer another comment, I would be very surprised if the White House were to get a heads-up about the decision before it was released.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:51 Amy Howe
9:52
Kevin Russell: 
Someone asked whether the Justices get along despite their ideological differences. The answer is yes, they do. In fact, Justice Ginsburg has a picture in her office of she and Justice Scalia and their spouses vacationing together (I believe in Egypt).
Monday June 25, 2012 9:52 Kevin Russell
9:52
Amy Howe: 
We can count on the Court being very prompt and taking the bench at 10. (It's always a surprise when I go to other courts and the trains do not run precisely on time.)
Monday June 25, 2012 9:52 Amy Howe
9:53
Amy Howe: 
Having said that, even once they take the bench it will be a while before we know whether we get health care or Arizona today, depending on what other opinions we have and who is announcing them.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:53 Amy Howe
9:55
Lyle: 
Heading into the adjoining room for the releases of the day. Orders will come within seconds after 10, and the first opinion will come almost immediately after the orders. The five-minutes-before-sitting buzzer has just sounded in the Court's hallways. The Justices are in the robing room now, we assume.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:55 Lyle
9:55
Amy Howe: 
The Court's promptness is traditional. The current Chief Justice definitely adheres to the tradition of starting on time. However, perhaps as a former advocate, he is more flexible in terms of letting advocates finish their sentences and even giving them a little extra time if it is needed. One of the old Chief Justices, I am told, used to cut people off mid-sentence when their time was up.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:55 Amy Howe
9:55
Tom: 
My prediction: SB1070 decided; by inference we learn CJ Roberts is writing health care.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:55 Tom
9:57
Kevin Russell: 
SB1070 is the Arizona Immigration law.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:57 Kevin Russell
9:57
Kali: 
Nearly 50,000 people on the live blog right now.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:57 Kali
9:57
Amy Howe: 
Reverse seniority of Justices goes as follows: Kagan, Sotomayor, Alito, Breyer, Ginsburg, Thomas, Kennedy, Scalia,and Roberts.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:57 Amy Howe
9:58
Amy Howe: 
Two minutes to go.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:58 Amy Howe
9:59
Amy Howe: 
What is the capacity of the Live Blog. 52K right now. We'll find out.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:59 Amy Howe
9:59
Amy Howe: 
No retirement announcements expected today or this year, for that matter. Not until after the election at the earliest, barring some extraordinary developments.
Monday June 25, 2012 9:59 Amy Howe
10:00
Amy Howe: 
Yes, seniority is by time served except for the Chief Justice, who became most senior the day he arrived.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:00 Amy Howe
10:01
Amy Howe: 
Here's Lyle.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:01 Amy Howe
10:01
Tom: 
Ok, should be any moment.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:01 Tom
10:01
Amy Howe: 
Oops. Hit send too soon. sorry.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:01 Amy Howe
10:02
Amy Howe: 
Here's Lyle for real.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:02 Amy Howe
10:02
Amy Howe: 
Montana campaign is summarily reversed, five to four.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:02 Amy Howe
10:02
Amy Howe: 
Cross cases denied.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:02 Amy Howe
10:02
Amy Howe: 
Juvenile sentencing cases are first.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:02 Amy Howe
10:02
Amy Howe: 
Justice Kagan. One opinion.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:02 Amy Howe
10:03
Amy Howe: 
The Court holds that the Eighth Amendment forbids a scheme of life in prison without possibility of parole for juveniles.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:03 Amy Howe
10:03
Tom: 

The Court has granted certiorari in 10 cases.

Monday June 25, 2012 10:03 Tom
10:03
Amy Howe: 
The vote is five to four.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:03 Amy Howe
10:03
Amy Howe: 
The decisions of Ark. S. Ct. and Alabama Ct. of Crim. Appeals are reversed.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:03 Amy Howe
10:05
Amy Howe: 
Justice Kagan is still reading in the juvenile cases.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:05 Amy Howe
10:05
Tom: 
More information on the grants:  Northwest Envtl Defense on forest runoff, No. 11-347.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:05 Tom
10:05
Amy Howe: 
Lyle reports that we will have at least one additional opinion, although we don't know which one(s).
Monday June 25, 2012 10:05 Amy Howe
10:05
Tom: 
Los Angeles Flood Conrol on navigable waters, 11-460.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:05 Tom
10:05
Amy Howe: 
The Court's opinion in the MT case is quite short, as is the dissent.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:05 Amy Howe
10:06
Tom: 
Comcast -- a follow up to WalMart v. Dukes.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:06 Tom
10:06
Tom: 
Vance on supervisor liability, 11-556.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:06 Tom
10:06
Amy Howe: 
I don't have the opinions yet, but hopefully we will get more details on MT and on the juvenile cases as soon as others on the team can take a look.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:06 Amy Howe
10:06
Tom: 
Already v. Nike on trademark registration suits.  (Disclosure, we represent the respondent.)
Monday June 25, 2012 10:06 Tom
10:07
Amy Howe: 
Summarily reversed means that the Montana Supreme Court decision was reversed without briefing or oral argument.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:07 Amy Howe
10:07
Amy Howe: 
Justice Breyer writes for the dissent in Montana.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:07 Amy Howe
10:07
Tom: 
Genesis Healthcare, 11-1059 on mootness when the plaintiff receives an offer from the defendants to satisfy all the plaintiff's claims.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:07 Tom
10:07
Amy Howe: 
Breyer is joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. But I bet many of you had already figured that out without my having to tell you.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:07 Amy Howe
10:07
Tom: 
FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health, 11-1160 on local antitrust immunity.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:07 Tom
10:08
Amy Howe: 
We still don't know what the other cases will be. Nearly 76K on the blog now.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:08 Amy Howe
10:08
Tom: 
11-1231, Sebelius v. Auburn Regional on Medicare reimbursement timing.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:08 Tom
10:08
Kali: 
The order list is now up on the Court's website: http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/062512d4f1zor.pdf
Monday June 25, 2012 10:08 Kali
10:08
Amy Howe: 
Tom is covering today's order list because it's so massive.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:08 Amy Howe
10:08
Tom: 
11-1285, US Airways v. McCutchen on ERISA and equitable principles on reimbursement.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:08 Tom
10:09
Tom: 
11-9307, Henderson v. United States -- not sure what that is about.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:09 Tom
10:09
Amy Howe: 
He's doing this while we wait for the next opinion. Justice Alito is reading from the dissent in the juvenile cases.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:09 Amy Howe
10:09
Amy Howe: 
To answer the questions that likely will come, it is relatively rare for a Justice to read a dissent from the bench but not unheard of. It is most likely to happen in these closely divided cases about which the Justices feel strongly.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:09 Amy Howe
10:11
Amy Howe: 
The order list is the list of orders coming out of the Court's Conference last week. The most significant part of the list is usually the Court's announcement of which new cases it has added to its docket to review on the merits -- which we call "grants."
Monday June 25, 2012 10:11 Amy Howe
10:11
Kali: 
Here's the PC opinion reversing the decision of the Montana Supreme Court in the campaign finance case:  http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-1179h9j3.pdf
Monday June 25, 2012 10:11 Kali
10:11
Amy Howe: 
It also contains the list of cases that the Court has declined to review.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:11 Amy Howe
10:11
Kali: 
Here's the opinion in Miller v. Alabama, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-9646g2i8.pdf
Monday June 25, 2012 10:11 Kali
10:12
Amy Howe: 
As far as I can tell, Justice Alito is still reading from his dissent in the Miller and Hobbs cases.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:12 Amy Howe
10:12
Tom: 
The Henderson case is about plain error - how do you treat an error when it becomes plain during the appeal.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:12 Tom
10:13
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, the cases involving gay marriage could well be at the Court next Term, but they aren't there now.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:13 Amy Howe
10:13
Kali: 
Nearly 90,000 readers now.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:13 Kali
10:13
Amy Howe: 
Lyle has just confirmed that Justice Alito is still reading from his dissent.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:13 Amy Howe
10:14
Kevin Russell: 
The fact that the orders list does not mention the Health Care cases does not mean anything about when the Court will issue its decision. The opinions are announced from the bench, not through the orders list.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:14 Kevin Russell
10:14
Tom: 
Forgive me if we've already played this out, but the dissenters (the four more liberal Justices) explain that they just dissent rather than voting to grant review because there is no prospect the majority would reconsider Citizens United.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:14 Tom
10:15
Amy Howe: 
They won't announce any new decisions until Justice Alito is finished. After he finishes, the Chief Justice will then announce which Justice has the next opinion, and then that Justice will read a summary of whatever that opinion is -- First American, Stolen Valor, Arizona, etc.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:15 Amy Howe
10:15
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, the Justices vote on the case immediately after it is argued. The senior Justice in the majority gets to decide who writes the opinion. Same for the dissent.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:15 Amy Howe
10:15
Tom: 
On the cross case, Justice Alito writes an opinion explaining that the case is interlocutory -- i.e., it could come back to them later.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:15 Tom
10:16
Amy Howe: 
Here's the second and only other opinion in Arizona.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:16 Amy Howe
10:16
Amy Howe: 
Justice Kennedy announces.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:16 Amy Howe
10:16
Amy Howe: 
The Ninth Circuit is reversed in part and affirmed in part. Justice Kagan does not participate.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:16 Amy Howe
10:17
Amy Howe: 
The Court rules that Section 3, 5, and 6 are preempted.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:17 Amy Howe
10:17
Tom: 
Most of the key provisions of SB1070 (3 of 4) are invalidated.  One provision is held not to be proved preempted; it must be construed.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:17 Tom
10:18
Amy Howe: 
It was improper for the lower courts to enjoin Section 2(B), which requires police officers to check the legal status of anyone arrested for any crime before they can be released.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:18 Amy Howe
10:19
Kali: 

We will have more substanative analysis of the decision in Arizona v. US from Lyle later this morning or early this afternoon. We are also looking forward to guest analysis on the decision from Marc Miller and Jack Chin from Univ. of Arizona and UC Davis law schools, respectively, Lucas Guttentag of Yale & Stanford, Jay Sekulow from the ACLJ, Peter Spiro at Temple, John Eastman at Chapman, Rich Samp at the Washington Legal Foundation, and Kevin Johnson, also at UC Davis. Tune back in for their posts. 

Monday June 25, 2012 10:19 Kali
10:19
Tom: 
The provision that the Court says is not yet preempted is the "check your papers" provision that commands officers to check immigration status.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:19 Tom
10:20
Amy Howe: 
The opinion also says that today's ruling does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:20 Amy Howe
10:20
Tom: 
The court says that it is not clear whether application of this provision will interfere with immigration law.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:20 Tom
10:20
Amy Howe: 
There are ongoing proceedings on Section 2(B) and whether it involves racial profiling; that issue was NOT before the Court today.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:20 Amy Howe
10:20
Kali: 
Here's a link to the opinion in Arizona v. US: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf
Monday June 25, 2012 10:20 Kali
10:21
Tom: 

Justice Scalia would uphold the Arizona statute in toto.

Monday June 25, 2012 10:21 Tom
10:21
Amy Howe: 
Justice Kennedy is still reciting from the opinion.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:21 Amy Howe
10:23
Amy Howe: 
We do not expect any additional opinions today, so NO health care today.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:23 Amy Howe
10:23
Amy Howe: 
For our readers who are not lawyers, "preempted" means "trumped," in essence.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:23 Amy Howe
10:24
Tom: 
We should have word for you on what other day(s) the Court is going to issue opnioins soon.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:24 Tom
10:25
Amy Howe: 
Justice Scalia is beginning to read from his dissent.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:25 Amy Howe
10:26
Amy Howe: 
Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito have each filed opinions in Arizona.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:26 Amy Howe
10:26
Amy Howe: 
Justice Scalia began his dissent by saying that he would uphold all parts of the Arizona law.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:26 Amy Howe
10:26
Tom: 
Justice Scalia is not only dissenting from the bench, but he has produced a written copy of the bench statement for the press.  It is 7 pages long.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:26 Tom
10:27
Tom: 
The upshot of the SB1070 ruling is that, for now, Arizona can apply the "check your papers" provision.  And the Court's opinion is a guide to the State on how to apply that provision without being invalidated.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:27 Tom
10:27
Amy Howe: 
There was no official announcement of no health care. I expect that the Chief Justice in the courtroom said something along the lines of "Justice Kennedy has our second and final decision of the day, in Arizona v. United States."
Monday June 25, 2012 10:27 Amy Howe
10:28
Lyle: 
Justices Scalia and Ginsburg routiinely release to the press and public the oral statements they make from the bench, whether in the majority or in dissent.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:28 Lyle
10:29
Amy Howe: 
We hope to know soon when the Court will sit again. They will likely announce that when they are done announcing decisions (and dissents).
Monday June 25, 2012 10:29 Amy Howe
10:30
Amy Howe: 
To answer another commenter, if the vote had been 4-4, the Ninth Circuit's decision would have stood.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:30 Amy Howe
10:31
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, it is very common for the Court to add extra decision days at the end of its schedule.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:31 Amy Howe
10:31
Tom: 

The Court's decision on the "show your papers" provision strongly suggests it will have to be read narrowly to survive.

Monday June 25, 2012 10:31 Tom
10:31
Amy Howe: 
Justice Kagan was recused from Arizona because she had been involved in the case in her prior post as the Solicitor General of the United States.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:31 Amy Howe
10:31
Tom: 
On net, the #SB1070 decision is a significant win for the Obama Administration.  It got almost everything it wanted.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:31 Tom
10:32
Amy Howe: 
To answer another question, yes, Paul Clement argued on behalf of Arizona in the case, against Solicitor General Don Verrilli. In general, if you don't know who argued a case, Paul Clement is always a good guess.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:32 Amy Howe
10:33
Amy Howe: 
Almost no chance that Justice Kagan will recuse from health care, having participated in the case all along.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:33 Amy Howe
10:34
Amy Howe: 
As part of Scalia's statement in dissent, he is commenting on the president's announcement about suspending deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children -- something that was not part of the case.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:34 Amy Howe
10:36
Amy Howe: 
The Court will sit again on Thursday to announce the rest of the opinions. So there you have it.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:36 Amy Howe
10:37
Tom: 

From the opinion authorship, health care is almost certainly being written by CJ Roberts, perhaps in part with Justice Kennedy.

Monday June 25, 2012 10:37 Tom
10:38
Amy Howe: 
Thanks for joining us today. We almost cracked 100K on the Live Blog. And we didn't crash!
Monday June 25, 2012 10:38 Amy Howe
10:38
Tom: 
So health care Thursday at 10am.  The live blog will start at 9am at the latest.
Monday June 25, 2012 10:38 Tom
10:39
 

 
 
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