John Paul Stevens

Now that President Obama has interviewed the four finalists for the U.S. Supreme Court seat he has to fill — Judge Merrick Garland (D.C. Cir.), Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Judge Sidney Thomas (9th Cir.), and Judge Diane Wood (7th Cir) — the nominee could be announced any day now. Who will it be? We realize […]

For Article III groupies, the InterContinental Hotel in Chicago was the place to be last night. The annual meeting of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association and Judicial Conference of the Seventh Circuit attracted a bevy of judicial superstars, who mixed and mingled at the conference’s grand banquet. The most notable luminary was Justice John Paul […]

For weeks, the media laundry machine has been circulating news of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’s impending retirement. Now that the buzzer has gone off on that, it’s time to switch to the next cycle: speculation as to who President Barack Obama will nominate to replace him. President Obama has been dragging his feet […]

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is done with his teasing. He’s been hinting for weeks that he could announce his plans to retire at any moment. Today, he finally made it official. He sent a letter to President Barack Obama this morning — available after the jump — consisting of a single sentence (Souter […]

With apologies to John Paul “I’m not dead yet” Stevens, speculation has been rampant about who will replace him, if he decides to retire. Many of the names that came up after Souter retired are bubbling back to the surface, but U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has to be considered the front runner. Obama hasn’t […]

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday’s discussion of whether Justice John Paul Stevens’s failure to hire a full complement of law clerks for October Term 2010 might shed light upon his retirement plans. In today’s New York Times, Adam Liptak has an excellent article on the subject. It begins: A Supreme Court clerkship is a […]

A few weeks ago, we were emailing with one of our sources about an interesting fact we noticed, based on Above the Law’s real-time coverage of Supreme Court clerk hiring. The fact: thus far, Justice John Paul Stevens has hired just one law clerk for October Term 2010 (Sam Erman (Michigan 2007 / Garland)). We […]

* Feds use real-time tracking data from cellphones to locate criminal suspects. It’s like Dodgeball for the bad guys. [Washington Post] * Barry Bonds to bulk up… his legal team. [New York Times] * Spotlight on Justice Stevens — and the SCOTUS post-JPS. [Los Angeles Times via How Appealing] * Interview with neo-Nazi triggers German […]

Here’s a quick follow-up on Wednesday’s post, reporting on Supreme Court clerk hiring for October Term 2008. That’s not the Term whose clerks will start showing up for work next month — the October Term 2007 clerks are listed here — but the Term after that. Interestingly enough, the two justices thought most likely to […]

From the opinion of Chief Justice John “Sordid Business” Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” From Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent: “John, John, John, you don’t even — you’re glib. You don’t even know what Brown v. Board of Education is. […]

The Supreme Court hasn’t yet finished up for October Term 2006 (which should end tomorrow). The law clerks for October Term 2007 will start arriving next month. But many of them have already started hiring clerks for October Term 2008. We reported on some of those hires back in this post. And now we have […]

When it comes to law clerks, that is. In other words, Justice Stevens does not subscribe to the trend of hiring Supreme Court clerks who are several years out of law school, with a few years of practice under their belts. As JPS explains in an interesting interview in The Third Branch, which a tipster […]

An astute observation about today’s opinion in Scott v. Harris, from Howard Bashman: Here’s a first — A U.S. Supreme Court decision issued today has its own accompanying video: Talk about multimedia rulings! The Court’s opinion today in Scott v. Harris, No. 05-1631 — a dispute about the lawfulness of a high-speed police chase captured […]

[Ed. note: ATL will be on a pretty laid-back publication schedule today. It’s Good Friday, the markets are closed, and many folks are probably traveling for the holiday weekend. We will be posting, but not at our regular pace.] * Stevens’s key role. [USA Today via How Appealing] * Surveillance laws outdated? He’s probably referring […]

A summary of this morning’s Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, from SCOTUSblog: Ruling 5-4, the Supreme Court on Monday found that the federal government had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases that may contribute to global warming, and must examine anew the scientific evidence of a link between those gases contained in the […]

* We took Eve Harrington’s Jan Crawford Greenburg’s quip that Justice Stevens told her when he was planning to retire as a joke. But not everyone did. [Volokh Conspiracy; Althouse] * A juicy rumor. But who on earth could it be? [Concurring Opinions] (Btw, congrats to Concurring Opinions on its one millionth visitor.) * Former […]

Last week was short, thanks to the New Year’s holiday; but it sure was busy. Here are some highlights from a very momentous week: * No more jokes about Harriet Miers: the ill-fated ex-SCOTUS nominee has resigned as White House counsel. Speculation about her successor abounds. * No more jokes about the Dewy Orifice: the […]

Well, not in so many words. But in his interview last night with Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News — his first television appearance network television interview ever — Justice John Paul Stevens seemed healthy, lucid, and far from death’s door. (Our apologies to the ConfirmThem crew. We hate to be the bearers of bad […]

(Yes, this is ridiculously late. But we hope, for the love of God, that you don’t rely upon us for real legal news. News aggregation is not our primary purpose, and there are many other sites that do it better and faster.) * Now that President Ford has passed away, everyone must write the obligatory […]

* Happy Anniversary, Justice Stevens. [Associated Press via How Appealing] * Our low low prices on handmade office furniture are cruel and unusual! [MSNBC] * The Court lights one up for Big Tobacco. [Law.com] * Milberg Weiss’s judgment day: January 2008. [New York Times]