Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup January 27 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).
SCOTUS Rejects Texas Voter ID Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court declined an appeal by Texas seeking to revive voter-identification requirements in Abott v. Veasey. In 2016, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law imposing the requirements was violative of federal law barring racial discrimination in elections. On Monday, SCOTUS declined to hear Texas’ appeal. Chief Justice Roberts issued a statement, noting that litigation on the matter continues in the lower courts and that all the legal issues presented can be raised on appeal at a later time.
More:
Microsoft Victory in Warrant Case Upheld
In July, Microsoft won a victory in Microsoft v. U.S. when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit RULED that Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on an overseas server when the emails were sought for a domestic narcotics case. Microsoft was the first US company to challenge a domestic search warrant seeking data being stored abroad.
This week, the Second Circuit let stand that July decision in a 4-4 decision refusing to reconsider the prior ruling.
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Supreme Court Short List Narrows
According to CBS News, sources close to President Trump indicated this week that Trump’s short list of potential nominees to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy has been trimmed to two names: U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch and U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hardiman. Trump is expected to announce his nominee next week.
More:
Above The Law (information on Gursuch and Hardiman, as well as Pryor)
SCOTUS Justices’ Gendered Interactions
Adam Feldman and Rebecca Gill have a paper discussing the interactions of SCOTUS justices during oral argument. According to the abstract, in the paper the authors examined whether gender dictates the nature of interactions between justices during oral arguments, when they are vying with one another to interact with attorneys and with each other. They concluded that male justices interrupt female justices at a significant level, while the opposite does not hold true.
Legal Writing Tip: Avoid Use of Intensifiers
Joe Fore posted a link on Twitter this week to a series of blog posts by Wayne Scheiss. The series looks at the overuse of intensifiers in legal writing, notes why it is problematic, and provides tips for avoiding overuse. Clearly, this is good advice.