Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday, March 18, 2022

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 a quick note to either (1) Dan Real at DReal@Creighton.edu or on Twitter @Daniel_L_Real or (2) Catharine Du Bois at DuBoisLegalWriting@gmail.com or on Twitter @CLDLegalWriting.

US Supreme Court Opinions and News

• The Supreme Court denied two emergency petitions and allowed to stand court-drawn congressional voting maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In both states, republican gerrymandered maps had been challenged by democrats. However, both the concurrence and the dissent in the North Carolina case indicate that at least four justices are interested in hearing the “exceptionally important and recurring question of constitutional law, namely, the extent of a state court’s authority to reject rules adopted by a state legislature for use in conducting federal elections.”  See the North Carolina order and a report from The New York Times.

• The Supreme Court issued a news release concerning the March session. Although the Court will continue to hear arguments in the courtroom, “[o]ut of concern for the health and safety of the public and Supreme Court employees, the Courtroom session will not be open to the public.” Live audio feed will continue to be available on the Court website.

• SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe provided a list of the March 2022 session arguments with descriptions of the cases.  Find it here.

Appellate Court Opinions and News

The Fourth Circuit approved a permanent injunction that prevents South Carolina’s removing Planned Parenthood from the list of approved Medicaid providers. The panel found that allowing “the State to disqualify Planned Parenthood would nullify Congress’s manifest intent to provide our less fortunate citizens the opportunity to select a medical provider of their choice, an opportunity that the most fortunate routinely enjoy.” See the order and reports from Bloomberg Law, Reuters, and Courthouse News.

State Court Opinions and News

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that state regulators cannot enforce the State’s near-total ban on abortions and thus cannot be sued to challenge the law.  See the ruling and reports from Reuters, The New York Times, and Bloomberg News.