Did you miss your Supreme Court news this week? Let our Weekly Roundup help. (To stay on top of the latest Supreme Court happenings, follow ISCOTUS on Twitter.)
At Monday’s oral argument, Justice Clarence Thomas asked questions from the bench for the first time in ten years. Reactions from NPR, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times.
“The public deserves a court that is more transparent and accountable,” wrote BloombergView’s Editorial Board, in a critique of the Supreme Court’s lack of a code-of-conduct policy for Justices.
The lights went out at the Court On Tuesday during oral arguments in Nichols v. United States, a case about sex offenders traveling abroad. Analysis on the case can be found at SCOTUSBlog.
Discussions on the implications of Scalia’s death continue. The LA Times did a retrospective of the last great clash between president and senate over a Supreme Court nomination during the Reagan Administration. The Guardian put forward the possibility of a Republican nomination, while The Economist discussed the damage the Republicans are doing “to the institution of the Supreme Court as an arbiter of the nation’s disputes and to the American system of justice itself.” CNN discussed its own poll that showed most Americans want to see Obama fill the vacancy with a nomination, but they are divided on what ideological leaning they’d like that nominee to have.
Tuesday, the Justices released two opinions on Lockhart v. United States and Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.. Commentary on Lockhart from Bloomberg View, and Gobeille on Forbes. Politico covered both.
The Court heard one of the most anticipated cases of the Term on Wednesday in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a challenge to Texas’s new abortion regulations. The LA Times wrote that without Justice Antonin Scalia, “it is highly doubtful the Texas case will yield a broad conservative ruling that gives states a green light to adopt ever-stricter restrictions on abortion.“ Previews of the issues can be found at Fox News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and the ISCOTUS blog. The Washington Post highlighted an interview with Justice Ginsburg on how she thought landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade should have gone differently. At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick argued that the powerful presence of three female justices in this case showed that “the gender playing field at the high court was finally leveled.” Other post-argument analysis at USAToday, New York Times, and NPR.