Today in Supreme Court History: October 11

Arlington County Board v. Richards, 434 U.S. 5 (decided October 11, 1977): community can restrict on-street parking to residents and their guests; “rational basis” survives Equal Protection attack (at first I got this confused with the Arlington zoning case from the same year, but this case didn’t seem to be about race; issue was avoiding congestion and pollution)

Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633 (decided October 11, 1937): the Senate had just voted to provide Supreme Court Justices with pensions, so Senator Hugo Black’s appointment to that Court arguably violated art. I, §6, cl. 2 (Congressmen can’t be appointed to an office for which Congress has just increased the salary); suit by citizen dismissed for lack of standing (does this mean nobody can contest a S.Ct. appointment?) (the opinion is “Per Curiam” and no note about Black recusing himself)

Oklahoma v. Texas, 272 U.S. 21 (decided October 11, 1926): original jurisdiction case; dispute over a chunk of land bigger than Rhode Island next to southwest corner of Oklahoma (not the panhandle) resolved by looking at the “true 100th meridian” where it intersects with the South Fork of the Red River, and not where bumbling surveyors had declared it to be, even if previously acquiesced in (look at modern map and you see the border wiggles to the south and north of the river, mostly south, to Oklahoma’s benefit; is this due to accretion/erosion?)

Thomas v. Lumpkin, 598 U.S. --- (decided October 11, 2022): Sotomayor dissents from denial of cert, arguing that convicted murder defendant (black man who killed his white wife and their two young children) made out case for ineffective assistance because counsel did not object to placing jurors who said interracial marriage was against God’s law  (trigger warning here! -- defendant later took out both his eyeballs and ate one of them; Sotomayor, who admits the facts are “gruesome”, notes that he had cut out the children’s hearts to remove the Devil); as of this writing, defendant is still on Death Row

Moslem v. United States, 2024 WL 4508991 (decided October 11, 2024): Sotomayor denies bail pending appeal; defendant and his father, owners of car dealership, had been convicted for lying to lenders and the IRS while getting millions in loans and evading taxes (their arguments on appeal sound quite desperate, see 2023 WL 6977467, S.D.N.Y.)