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Big Wins For Gay Marriage

    On the last day of the its term the Supreme Court today handed twin victories to the cause of marriage equality.
    If there was an empty seat in the courtroom I couldn't see it.

 

Justice Kennedy had the first opinion, U.S. v Windsor, in which the Court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

    And of course Justice Scalia read a lenghty dissent.

    The second victory for same-sex marriage was by default in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts where the Court found that the petitioners in support of California's Proposition 8 lacked standing, thereby allowing the lower court's ruling to stand.

    So much will be written about these decisions in the next few days that I won't bother linking to any one. 

 

Supreme Court Waters Down Voting Rights Act

    A 5-4 divided Court today struck down a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, effectively putting the burden on victims of voter descrimination to seek relief.
    Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a majority that included Justices Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy and Alito.
    In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan, Justice Ginsburg wrote, "Hubris is a fit word for today's demolition of the Voting Rights Act".

    Lyle Denniston's take on the opinion is here.

Supreme Court Back From Winter Break

Chief Justice Roberts stopped by the press room Tuesday morning to welcome back reporters. He said the Court would be announcing quite a few opinions, so be prepared to work through lunch.

Below are sketches of arguments the Court heard in Bowman v. Monsanto.

Monsanto sells its brand of genetically engineered soybean seed to farmers with the stipulation that they will not replant the crop seed. Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman abided by Monsanto's rules when he planted his first crop, but for a second late-season crop he decided to plant seed purchased from a grain elevator figuring much of it would seed grown from Monsanto's Rounup resistant strain. He was right, but Monsanto sued.

Bowman's lawyer, Mark Walters, had a hard time convincing Justices that once Monsanto sold its seed the patent was exhausted. "The Exhaustion Doctrine permits you to use the goods that you buy," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. "It never permits you to make another item from the item that you bought."

Monsanto's lawyer Seth P. Waxman said the company "never would have produced what is, by now the most popular agricultural technology in America" if the patent had been so easily exhausted.

WaPo story here.

 

The Supreme Court's Health Care Opinion

My sketches from the announcement of the Court's opinion, and dissents, on the Affordable Care Act. 

As they took their seats Justice Breyer was smiling; Sotomayor looked glum.

Justice Scalia was actually sitting as far back from Roberts as possible. Forgive the artistic license, but I wanted to get his expression in the frame.

This Land Is (Not) Your Land

Things just kept getting better for Arizona governor Jan Brewer, in the right foreground above, and the state's mean-spirited anti-immigration law, SB 1070, especially when the Chief Justice cut off Solicitor General Verrilli before he could even begin his argument saying, “No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?" Which, of course, is the elephant in the room.

When Verrilli later in his argument sought to illustrate the harrasment of legal Latinos by citing population percentages Scalia interjected, "Sounds like racial profiling to me".

The lawyer for Arizona, Paul Clement, on the other hand faced moderate questions from the Justices as he sought to soften the edges of a harsh law.

Dahlia Lithwick's story here.