Legal News

A Wacky End to the Supreme Court Term

By Ashby Jones

Wow. Interesting day down at the Supreme Court. Upon a quick examination, it appears that the Court’s 5-4 reversal in the Ricci case was the least surprising news to be handed down today, the last day of the 2008-2009 term.

Quickly, on Ricci: The Court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority decision, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Alito filed a separate concurring opinion, which Scalia and Thomas joined. Justice Ginsburg wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer. Click here for the AP story; here for the opinion.

Cuomo Case Brings Strange Alignment: On yet another preemption question: whether states have the power to investigate allegedly discriminatory lending practices by national banks, the Court today ruled in the affirmative. The strange thing about this ruling was the alignment of the justices: Scalia wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by the four “liberal” justices. Justice Thomas wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part which was joined by Alito, Roberts and Kennedy. Click here for the opinion.

Court Punts (For Now) on Hillary, The Movie Case: The Court announced today that it would hear rearguments on the case called Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. At issue in that case: whether a conservative group’s production of a 90-minute movie on Clinton ran afoul of restrictions in the McCain-Feingold Act. Reargument has been set for September 9, according to Scotusblog.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).