July 26 DeBoer by Darrow v. DeBoer, 509 U.S. 1301 (decided July 26, 1993): Stevens denies (on grounds of lack of a federal issue) couple’s petition to stay Michigan Supreme Court’s order to hand over to biological parents the baby girl they had cared for for two years, due to papers signed by biological mother were defective and did not have required 72-hour waiting period. (Years ago when I ran a crisis center I allowed it to serve as the site for giving up children, or for

Wasmuth v. Allen, 85 S.Ct. 5 (decided July 25, 1964): Harlan refuses to stay enforcement of a New York statute requiring chiropractors to pass exams in various medical topics before licensure; chiropractors were bent out of joint (sorry) by this allegedly arbitrary exercise of legislative power (14 N.Y.2d 391), but Harlan says a public health measure should not be stayed except in “demanding circumstances” and no federal issue anyway warranting granting certiorari. No furthe

United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (decided July 24, 1974): Court denies President Nixon’s motion to quash the Special Prosecutor’s subpoena; rules that he has to hand over “the tapes” which included the June 23, 1972 “smoking gun” tape which depicted what everyone in those days (including Nixon, a well-read lawyer) understood to be obstruction of justice: he had agreed with his Chief of Staff Haldeman’s suggestion that the CIA be told to lean on the FBI to stop the Waterga

In re Discipline of Quinn, 567 U.S. 955 (decided July 23, 2012): Brian S. Quinn suspended from the Supreme Court bar; he later consented to be stricken from the rolls; Pennsylvania Supreme Court disciplinary decision recounts drug convictions and related malpractices; he became advocate for overcoming addiction (and does presentations on the topic for the same CLE outfit I did presentations for)

King v. Greene, 524 U.S. 965 (decided July 22, 1998): denying stay of execution and also cert.; Stevens and Ginsburg would have granted stay (i.e., they didn’t want this guy ever to be executed); King had kicked, choked and stabbed a woman to death; the Fourth Circuit had rejected arguments that he wasn’t properly “Mirandized” (judges hate when lawyers use that term) and wasn’t provided with a lawyer when he asked Socialist Workers Party v. Rockefeller, 400 U.S. 1201 (decided

NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 463 U.S. 1311 (decided July 21, 1983): White (a former NCAA star himself) stays decision against NCAA because certiorari would probably be granted (lower courts had held that arrangement banning televising of teams not selected by networks was illegal price-fixing under antitrust laws); cert was granted but White got tackled (i.e., the Court affirmed) Delo v. Blair, 509 U.S. 823 (decided July 21, 1993): stay of execution den

July 20 Califano v. McRae, 434 U.S. 1301 (decided July 20, 1977): Marshall turns down request to stay Court’s previous order allowing Medicaid abortion ban to go into effect; movants were in effect rearguing two recent Court decisions allowing states to have their own bans on public funding for abortions (Marshall dissented in those cases) Hedrick v. Kelly, 548 U.S. 928 (decided July 20, 2006): Denying stay of execution (Stevens and Ginsburg would grant the stay); Fourth Circ

Rostker v. Goldberg, 448 U.S. 1306 (decided July 19, 1980): Does the draft (applicable to males only) discriminate? The District Court said yes and enjoined enforcement. Here, Brennan grants a stay of that order (as to males born in 1960 and 1961), noting likelihood of cert. As it turned out, cert was granted and Court upheld males-only draft, with Rehnquist’s opining that males and females were not “similarly situated”, 453 U.S. 57 (1981). (For years it was obvious that

Hamblen v. Dugger, 492 U.S. 929 (decided July 18, 1989): Staying execution pending decision on certiorari, with the stay to dissolve if cert was denied. Cert was denied on 6/28/90, 497 U.S. 1031, with Brennan and Marshall as usual dissenting, “adhering to our views that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments”. For some reason execution did not happen then; it happened the day after another ap

Rubin v. United States, 524 U.S. 1301 (decided July 17, 1998): Rehnquist denies motion to stay subpoenas for testimony of Secret Service officers as to what they overheard Clinton say in regard to the matters Kenneth Starr was investigating; Rehnquist concedes that “confidentiality” and “the physical safety of the President” are implicated, and assumes for the purpose of the motion that cert would be granted, but then denies the application on the grounds that the Circuit Cou

Travia v. Lomenzo, 86 S.Ct. 7 (decided July 16, 1965): In this order by Harlan refusing a stay of a District Court decision, we learn 1) that a federal trial court order, even when up for appeal, is “final and binding” on a state’s highest court; 2) how pissed off he was by the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in this case, which he dissented from; 3) how he is bound by Court’s earlier decision regarding a similar application (381 U.S. 431); and 4) how if the Court had explai

Campbell v. Florida, 400 U.S. 801 (decided July 15, 1970): denies cert in murder case where defendant argued it was error to exclude jurors who would impose death penalty only if recommendation for mercy was added (this was between Witherspoon v. Illinois, 1968, which struck a statute allowing peremptory excusals of jurors who generally opposed the death penalty, and Wainwright v. Witt, 1985, can exclude anti-death penalty jurors but not those who merely had reservations abou

Barr v. Lee, 140 S.Ct. 2590 (decided July 14, 2020): stay of execution (actually denial of preliminary injunction) denied to death row inmates because their claim that execution by pentobarbital sodium injection was “cruel and unusual” was unlikely to command four votes for certiorari (the per curiam opinion points out the surprising [at least to me] fact that the Court has never found a method of execution to be cruel and unusual); Ginsburg and Breyer dissent on the basis th

Julian v. United States, 463 U.S. 1308 (decided July 13, 1983): request for bail denied by Rehnquist because grant of certiorari appeared very unlikely (applicant had been caught with drugs while trying to board flight to Peru -- sure sounds like a flight risk to me) Capital Cities Media v. Toole, 463 U.S. 1303) decided July 13, 1983): refusing to rule on stay (affirmed by Pennsylvania Supreme Court) of order prohibiting press disclosure of jury photos and jury information; d

New York Times Co. v. Jascalevich, 439 U.S. 1304 (decided July 12, 1978): Marshall denies stay pending cert. application as to New Jersey subpoena requiring reporter Myron Ferber to hand over documents in murder trial; stay inappropriate with trial in progress and in camera review pending; Marshall points out if reporter refused to comply he could raise his arguments again in resulting contempt proceeding. The day before, White had denied a stay as to subpoena to testify as

Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 80 S.Ct. 33 (decided July 11, 1959): Brennan grants restraining order preventing Alaska from enforcing statute criminalizing fish traps against Native American tribe because Secretary of Interior had granted exemption and its livelihood depended on them. (Question on direct appeal was whether Secretary’s authority superseded Alaska’s. The Alaska Supreme Court ended up ruling against the Native Americans, and the Court affirmed in 1962, 369

Turner v. Quarterman, 554 U.S. 933 (decided July 10, 2008): Stay of execution denied, as it had been by Fifth Circuit, but we learn from the Fifth Circuit dissent that defendant’s argument -- that he was entitled to federally appointed counsel in his clemency proceeding -- though foreclosed by Fifth Circuit precedent, had been decided differently by other Circuits and the Supreme Court had just granted certiorari to resolve the split. (In that case, Harbison v. Bell, the Cou

McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. 894 (decided July 9, 2020): Oklahoma had no jurisdiction to try Native American because alleged crime occurred on what was still technically a reservation despite long history of broken promises and disruption of borders; case can only be tried in federal court under the Major Crimes Act (the decision is a good example of Gorsuch’s casual writing style) Trump v. Vance, 591 U.S. 786 (decided July 9, 2020): grand jury could subpoena Trump’s accounta

Secretary of the Navy v. Avrech, 418 U.S. 676 (decided July 8, 1974): soldier busted down to private for publishing a “disloyal” statement; Court refuses to hear case because service personnel do not enjoy full First Amendment rights (citing Parker v. Levy, 1974) Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 591 U.S. 732 (decided July 8, 2020): “ministerial exception” to First Amendment (as to teachers of religion) precludes age discrimination and disability discrimination

Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833 (decided July 7, 1986): no separation of powers problem with statute allowing CFTC hearing reparations proceedings against brokers to also have (non-exclusive) jurisdiction over state law counterclaims even though not Article III court and no trial by jury Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 (decided July 7, 1986): separation of powers violated by Congressional agency official whose deficit reductions the President was requir