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Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup December 1, 2017

By Daniel Real

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Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure to include, feel free to send Dan a quick email atDReal@Creighton.edu or a message on Twitter (@Daniel_L_Real).

Supreme Court Opinions and News:

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would not take up the Westboro Baptist Church’s challenge to Nebraska’s law barring protests near a cemetery, mortuary, or church from one hour before the beginning of a funeral to two hours after.  More HERE  and HERE.

The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments concerning the propriety of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reviewing its own decisions to issue a patent.  The issue is whether the office should be able to administratively review its own decisions and invalidate previously issued patents, or whether that should only be done by a federal court.  During the arguments on Monday, the Court appeared to be divided, with conservative justices seeming to view the non-judicial review system as unconstitutional and more liberal justices seeming to be inclined to uphold it.  More from Bloomberg  the New York Times.

The Supreme Court will consider whether to accept an appeal challenging Arizona’s death penalty statute.  An op ed in the Washington Post by Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) argues the Court should take the case and should end capital punishment once and for all.  And a group of Arizona judges, former prosecutors, and legal experts are also urging the Court to take the case and rule the use of capital punishment unconstitutional:  

For the second time this year, the Supreme Court has made a mistake in identity in suspending a lawyer from the Court.  This time the victim, Jim Robbins, is an attorney who actually previously spent 7 years working AT the Court. More HERE and HERE.   

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a major Fourth Amendment case addressing whether law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain cell tower data to track and reconstruct the movements of cell phone users.  More HERE and HERE.   

Appellate Practice Tips and Tools:

Hat tip to  Bob Loeb (@BobLoeb) – a link to the Supreme Court Clerk’s Office advice about oral argument and preparing for it being like packing for a cruise.

Hat tip to Howard Bashman (@howappealing) – a link to the ABA Council of Appellate Lawyers’ latest issue of Appellate Issues.  

This week’s Practice Tuesday (@practicetuesday) blog post by Joe Fore (@joe_fore) had great advice for giving more effective writing feedback. 

Appellate Job Postings:

Arkansas Court of Appeals Staff Attorney position:  https://courts.arkansas.gov/content/arkansas-court-appeals-staff-attorney 

NYU School of Law Brennan Center Attorney position:  http://brennancenter.theresumator.com/apply/sEH2BhM6Nb/Counsel-Justice-Program