Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup April 28 2017
As we do every Friday, the Appellate Advocacy Blog 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).
Salazar-Limon v. Houston:
The Supreme Court denied cert this week in Salazar-Limon v. Houston, a case in which the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the State on a qualified immunity claim related to an allegation of excessive force by a police officer who shot a man in the back. The denial of cert drew extra attention because Justice Sotomayor authored a strong dissent, in which she asserted that the trial court and the Fifth Circuit had acted improperly in granting summary judgment and argued that the Supreme Court does not evenly consider appeals from the State and from citizens in such cases. Justice Alito also authored a separate opinion, concurring in the denial of cert.
Some links discussing the decision and the policy implications related to the development of qualified immunity law in such cases:
Justice Alito’s concurrence and Justice Sotomayor’s dissent.
Will Baude post on Volokh Conspiracy at the Washington Post about the Court’s “Double Standard for Qualified Immunity Cases.”
Raffi Melkonian blog post arguing that Sotomayor missed the mark with the reasoning in her dissent.
Supreme Court Arguments:
McWilliams
Monday the Supreme Court heard argument in McWilliams v. Dunn, addressing the question of whether an indigent defendant’s entitlement to meaningful expert assistance includes a requirement that the expert assistance be independent from the prosecution.
NPR Article previewing the oral argument
NPR Article about Justices appearing to be split during oral argument
SCOTUSblog page for McWilliams
Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.
Tuesday the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. and in BNSF Railway Co., addressing the Constitutional law governing where injured people and others can sue companies. The cases could mark further changes in the recently evolving law of personal jurisdiction.
Bloomberg Article previewing the oral argument
ABA Journal Article by Erwin Chemerinsky previewing Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. and its potential impact
SCOTUSblog page for Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.
Maslenjak v. United States
Wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Maslenjak, addressing whether a naturalized American citizen can be stripped of citizenship status in a criminal proceeding based on an immaterial false statement.
SCOTUSblog page for Maslenjak
NY Times article reviewing the oral arguments and the apparent concern by the Court for the government’s very hard-line position that any criminal offense, no matter how minor and no matter whether ever resulting in arrest or other consequence, could be the basis for revoking citizenship.
Appellate Practice:
This week’s #PracticeTuesday discussion on Twitter was all about career changes — when, how, and why. It was hosted by Raffi Melkonian. As always, a lot of great discussion and advice. Check out the main thread HERE or search for the hashtag on Twitter for additional posts.
This week, Jason Steed shared a blog post from last April on the subject of “Choosing the Right Word.” It’s a great read and emphasizes somef quality legal writing stand-bys, such as avoiding the overuse of adverbs and adjectives and, instead, using carefully chosen simple nouns and verbs.
Georgia Court of Appeals Chief Judge Dillard had a discussion going this week on Twitter about concessions during oral argument. Among the responses that don’t appear directly in the thread are a series of thoughts from Steve Klepper, giving the litigants’ perspective.