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By John W. Dean; Barry M. Goldwater, Jr.
By Tom Segev
$22
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Flickr / dbking
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The Supreme Court examined the District of Columbia’s handgun ban Tuesday, a case that could at last yield a conclusive ruling on the Second Amendment. So far, it doesn’t look good for gun control advocates.
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supremecourtus.gov
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The Supreme Court rejected an appeal related to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretap program on Tuesday, offering no explanation. The American Civil Liberties Union and others have had a hard time proving the plaintiffs were spied on because the evidence they need is considered a government secret.
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AP photo / Emilio Morenatti
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The death of Benazir Bhutto in December, tensions within the country and concerns over President Pervez Musharraf’s leadership (and his regime’s relationship with the U.S. government) registered in a loud and clear message from Pakistanis at the polling booths Monday: Musharraf is standing on shaky ground.
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AP photo / Dennis Cook
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Activists around the world took to the streets Friday wearing orange jumpsuits in protest of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which Amnesty International calls an “unlawful black hole.” Eighty demonstrators were arrested in or near the Supreme Court building, where justices are reviewing the legality of the government’s detention program.
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By Marie Cocco — The most revealing indicator of the state of our democracy is not to be found in the snowdrifts of New Hampshire but in the marbled chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon enough, we will discover whether the court under Chief Justice John Roberts will become a partisan tool in the national Republican drive to place constraints on voting that are targeted at those who tend to support Democrats.
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supremecourtus.gov
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The Supreme Court decided on Monday that federal sentencing guidelines, a kind of back seat judging considered by many to be racist, should be treated as “advisory” and not at all mandatory. Justices Alito and Thomas, to no one’s great surprise, were the only dissenters.
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By Marie Cocco — The Supreme Court will soon revisit the constitutionality of Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds of men languish without any real legal recourse.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The Supreme Court will rule on the Second Amendment for the first time since 1939, when it examines whether a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., is constitutional. A decision is expected next summer, so expect to see a lot of tap dancing from the candidates, particularly those who’ve changed their minds about gun violence or suddenly discovered a love of hunting.
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AP photo / Anjun Naveed
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is showing signs that he’s feeling the heat from the West, loosening his regime’s steel-trap grip by lifting some of the most severe measures he enforced since imposing a state of emergency rule in his country. As of Tuesday morning, in fact, 3,416 people who were jailed during the initial crackdown had been released, according to a government spokesman.
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AP photo / Pakistan Television
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If any further proof was needed that Pakistan represents a major global concern at present, President Pervez Musharraf just provided it by declaring a state of emergency and storming the Pakistani Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the U.S. is “deeply disturbed” by these developments.
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The Supreme Court has placed a temporary moratorium on the death penalty while it considers the legality of lethal injection, which should take months. Justices Scalia and Alito dissented from the opinion, which spared prisoner Earl Wesley Berry only minutes before he was to be killed.
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cnn.com
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In a 4-3 decision, Georgia’s Supreme Court ordered the release of 21-year-old Genarlow Wilson, whose case drew national attention after he was sentenced to 10 years for engaging in oral sex with a consenting 15-year-old girl when he was a 17-year-old high school student.
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By Marie Cocco — By simply deciding that something is a “state secret,” the Bush government has avoided answering for its brutal treatment of innocent victims in the war on terror. This is a perversion of the principle of American justice.
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laapush.org
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German citizen Khaled el-Masri’s quest for justice, following his “extraordinary rendition,” has come to an end. Masri claims he was kidnapped by CIA operatives in late 2003 and tortured for months in an Afghan prison, but his case was closed on Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider his appeal.
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youtube.com
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Get ready for the inevitable barrage of jokes on late-night television: The Washington state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a law holding politicians legally accountable for lying about their opponents is unconstitutional.
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AP Photo / Ivan Sekretarev
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is busily offering olive branches, and even pledging to resign his military post in the near future, during the final hours before Saturday’s presidential election. It looks like his strategy may work, as the election is expected to result in victory for Musharraf, even as his legitimacy as a candidate is being contested and reviewed by the nation’s top court.
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By Marie Cocco — If American politics is “an arena for angry minds,” then Clarence Thomas is in the right business. His new autobiography is filled with the predictable narcissism, but also a rage that raises questions about the merit of the lifetime appointment.
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wonkette.com
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The Supreme Court, arguably the most powerful institution in our democracy, manages to fly a bit under the radar. Take, for example, the $1.5-million advance Rupert Murdoch paid Clarence Thomas to write a book. Conflict of interest, perhaps? The Nation’s Jon Wiener thinks so.
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By Eugene Robinson — I believe in affirmative action, but I have to acknowledge that there are arguments against it. One of the more cogent is the presence of Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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By Ellen Goodman — The columnist honors the anniversary of women’s suffrage by recognizing those who have done their worst to turn back the clock on women’s rights.
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Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized Monday (and released Tuesday) after experiencing a seizure, his second. Doctors were unable to find a cause in either case, leading one neurologist unrelated to the episode to observe: “Having two seizures so many years apart without any known culprit is going to be very difficult to figure out.”
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AP Photo / Arjun Naveed
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Pakistan’s Supreme Court delivered a ruling Friday that smacks of a smackdown between the country’s other top legal players and President Pervez Musharraf, and in this round, Musharraf didn’t win: The court flouted Musharraf’s decision, made earlier this year, to suspend Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry (pictured) and voted that he be reinstated to his post.
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By Ellen Goodman — Let me wish the Supreme Court justices a fond farewell as they set out on their summer vacation. We can all rest assured now that they won’t do any more damage until the first week in October.
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After almost six years since suspected enemy combatants started serving time without being able to challenge their detainment at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed its stance, giving prisoners—and their lawyers—some hope that their cases may eventually be heard.
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s time for those of us who are old enough to remember when the U.S. Supreme Court was a major force for racial integration and justice to stop living in the past. We need to realize that, for the foreseeable future, any progress our increasingly diverse country makes toward fairness and equality will come in spite of the nation’s highest court, not because of it.
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By Ellen Goodman — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman left on the Supreme Court, has been forced to watch as a pack of ideologues undoes her life’s work. Once dismissed as a moderate, Ginsburg is ready for a fight.
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In his “free-speech experiment” five years ago, senior Joseph Frederick displayed a large banner outside his high school in Juneau, Alaska, with the message, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” As a result, he was suspended. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against him.
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By Marie Cocco — A majority of Democratic primary voters are women, and their support for Hillary Clinton goes beyond mere gender profiling—she’s led the fight against the kind of discrimination the Supreme Court now seems eager to protect.
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AP Photo / Todd Plitt
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Anyone who has seen “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” or anyone who knows about the famous Supreme Court battle between Flynt (center) and the late Rev. Jerry Falwell (right) over the First Amendment, would probably be shocked to know that the two former enemies became friends after appearing together on “Larry King Live” 10 years ago.
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In an apparent rebuke to the Supreme Court’s recent abortion decision, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told Fox News that the law “shouldn’t change just because the faces on the court have changed.” O’Connor, who time and again swung the court in favor of a woman’s right to choose, also criticized lawmakers who try to put political pressure on the judicial process.
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By Ellen Goodman — Justice Kennedy’s opinion that a woman’s right to have an abortion should be limited because, in some cases, that decision is regretted harkens to a more primitive time and the Supreme Court’s sometimes ugly legacy on women’s rights.
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By Marie Cocco — Make no mistake, the Supreme Court’s recent abortion ruling stands between a woman, her doctor and the choices that could save her life.
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By Ellen Goodman — The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected decades of precedent and the rights of women to satisfy an ideological agenda. Is it any wonder that those most eager to legislate the womb are the lawmakers and judges without one?
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In a ruling that supports President Bush’s abortion politics, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in favor of the ban on partial-birth abortions that Bush pushed and Congress approved in 2003. The Court’s move struck some pro-choice proponents as the (further) politicization of a woman’s personal, and medical, decision.
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The Supreme Court dismissed a racial discrimination lawsuit brought by Robert Jordan, an African-American former employee of IBM in Maryland who said he was fired a month after protesting to higher-ups about a racist comment made by a white co-worker in 2002.
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By Marie Cocco — In his quest to expand presidential authority, George W. Bush has claimed extraordinary powers, whether to imprison American citizens without charge or ignore the laws of nature. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the EPA is a breath of fresh air, not just for the environment but for our democracy.
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AP Photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Robert Scheer — The Supreme Court may not be interested in applying American values to Guantanamo Bay, but at least one soldier has taken a principled stand against the prison’s tortured justice system.
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reports.eea.europa.eu
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The Environmental Protection Agency is being spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court to revamp its regulatory policies regarding greenhouse gas emissions from cars—a major concern in the debate over global warming, and one that the agency had previously reserved the right to ignore.
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thegully.com
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Guantanamo Bay detainees hoping to challenge their cases in American courts won’t be aided in their quest by the U.S. Supreme Court, at least for now. Six of the nine Supreme Court justices have ruled against deciding whether the “anti-terror” law that allows for inmates’ indefinite detention at Camp X-Ray is constitutional.
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By Andy Borowitz — The satirist reports that the justices have applied their electoral wisdom to the Academy Awards.
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A federal appeals court has upheld the Military Commissions Act, denying Guantanamo detainees access to the U.S. judicial system. Attorneys for the detainees said they would appeal the 2-1 decision, which fell along party lines, to the Supreme Court.
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law.com
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Chief Justice John Roberts made judicial pay the sole focus of his annual report, calling for a “substantial salary increase” for federal judges. Federal district judges currently earn the same amount as members of Congress—$165,200 a year.
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Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, recalls the magazine’s legal battle over Gerald Ford’s memoirs and the alleged deal the former president struck to pardon Richard Nixon.
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The Supreme Court refused to hear the arguments of a conservative religious group that wants to use public funds to send students to religious schools.
Democracy: 1 Theocracy: 0
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From the AP: “The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.”
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The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week regarding the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed by Congress. The case should indicate how the newly formed court will approach abortion rights without the presence of Sandra Day O’Connor.
Posted on Nov 4, 2006
READ MORE 
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A provision that would grant President Bush the discretion of deciding what is and isn’t torture is likely to land on his desk by the weekend unless there’s a legislative miracle.
We can only hope that the Supreme Court will toss out this travesty.
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