The VLW Blog

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times reports the Senate vote was 63 to 37. Kagan is the fourth woman to be named to the court and joins two other women currently serving. By Peter Vieth

[Read more →]

Con law scholar A.E. “Dick” Howard notes the U.S. Supreme Court seems to have gained ethnic and gender diversity while losing much of its geographic and career diversity in the past five decades. Speaking to a Law Day gathering in Roanoke Friday, the University of Virginia professor observed today’s Supreme Court is made up of [...]

[Read more →]

Two George Mason University law school professors have the audacity to suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court justices have become a bunch of spotlight-chasing celebrities. This contention, by Professors Craig Lerner and Nelson Lund, is no mere cocktail chatter or stand-up routine. The two academics have penned a forthcoming law review article aimed at reforming [...]

[Read more →]

Justice John Paul Stevens made official today what he had given strong indications that he planned to do for almost a year: retire from the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s the text of his letter to President Obama: My dear Mr. President: Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to [...]

[Read more →]

The U.S. Supreme Court declined today to review the finding by the Supreme Court of Virginia that Virginia Beach’s noise ordinance was unconstitutional on its face. Many localities in the state, including Virginia Beach, have reworked their noise ordinances since the Virginia court’s ruling in April. But Virginia Beach also filed a petition for a [...]

[Read more →]

The U.S. Supreme court revisited yesterday the effort of states to allow laboratory analysts to present their findings in drug cases through affidavits rather than by live testimony. The case is from Virginia, which already has changed its laws to conform with Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. All eyes were on Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose vote could [...]

[Read more →]

We’ll never know if former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement had persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity. But he was certainly persuasive to the defendants in a case in which two men contended that they had served 25 years in prison because prosecutors had doctored the evidence [...]

[Read more →]

Conservative groups are joining with liberals in opposing what they see as government overreaching on crime.  The anomalous unity is playing out in appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, reports The New York Times. The paper notes signs of an “emerging consensus on the right that the criminal justice system is an aspect of big [...]

[Read more →]

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wanted to use a case from Virginia to decide whether an anonymous tip is enough to stop a car on suspicion of drunken driving. But the only colleague who agreed with him that the U.S. Supreme Court should take on the issue was Justice Antonin Scalia. Under the Supreme [...]

[Read more →]

The Los Angeles Times looks at an issue that may be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court – whether juvenile offenders should be eligible for life without parole. At issue is whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentance a minor to a lifetime of incarceration when the crime does not involve a homicide. [...]

[Read more →]