This week in appellate news features a diverse portfolio of cases and discussions, touching on everything from online forums contributing to the cause of law, to potential ulterior motives behind justices’ decisions.
online forum users took an active part in legal debates, with the mods of Reddit’s r/law and /r/scotus submitting an amicus brief in the Netchoice case. You can find more on this in a post by orangejulius here and access the amicus brief itself here.
Trump’s appeal of the Jan. 6 immunity ruling also garnered attention. The appeal has initiated a process that, if not handled promptly by the appeals court and the Supreme Court, could delay the trial until after the 2024 election. The Washington Post provides more insights into this in this report.
Another notable topic was Justice Thomas’s unintentionally ironic concurrence in the self-appointed tester case. You can learn more about this topic in a post by Michael C. Dorf here.
Further, questions were raised about the vulnerabilities of judges to threats as a result of inadequacies in the US Marshals’ system. You can find more details in a report by Lydia Wheeler of Bloomberg Law here.
In another development Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were noted for fiercely defending workers’ rights. But was there an ulterior motive? Mark Joseph Stern shares his take on this in an essay here.
The week ended with an interesting blend of college football, legal realism, and constitutional litigation in a blog post by Eric Segall, which can be read here.
For more legal news, you can check out the complete weekly roundup on Howard Bashman’s “How Appealing” blog via this link.