CourtArtist.com

Motor Voter, Right to Silence and More

2013-06-17T19:51:13-04:00

For a day without a real blockbuster it turned out to be an unusually busy one for me.

Among the Supreme Court decisions today was one that overturned an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. In an opinion announced by Justice Scalia the Court found that the federal Motor Voter law preempts Arizona's law.

In another opinion, this one from Justice Alito, the Court said that if you want to preserve your right to remain silent you've got to speak up.

I also finished a couple sketches I had started earlier, the Great Hall . . .
. . . . and General Suter, the Clerk of the Court, calling up admissions to the bar.

Opinion on Gene Patent

2013-06-13T16:44:19-04:00

Camera crews set up by the Supreme Court plaza on a steamy morning with thunderstorms, and even a possible derecho, forecast. Also in the forecast was the possibility of a major decision in one of the remaining twenty-three cases argued earlier in the term.

The Court did not dissapoint the court-watchers, delivering a far reaching opinion on the patenting of natural genes. In his opinion for the Court in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Justice Thomas said, “Myriad did not create anything.” However the Court also found that a synthetic version of the gene created by Myriad was patentable.

There now remain nineteen undecided cases.

California Raisins and Ex Post Facto

2013-06-10T18:07:39-04:00

No opinions today on any of the big Supreme Court cases everyone has been watching and waiting for, but we did get :
Horne v. Department of Agriculture, in which California raisin growers won the right to challenge the constitutionality of regulatory fees.......

..... and Peugh v. United States, where the Court agreed with Marvin Peugh that the longer sentence he received under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines that were revised upward after he committed his crime were an ex post facto violation.

The Court also announce a third opinion, a class arbitration case, but I didn't finish the sketch of Justice Kagan ....she sits so far away.

DNA Sampling No Different Than Fingerprinting

2013-06-03T16:50:29-04:00

In an opinion delivered by Justice Kennedy today the Supreme Court said that taking a DNA sample from a suspect is the same as fingerprinting someone upon arrest, and that the purpose is indentification of the suspect.

“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," said Justice Kennedy.

"That assertion taxes the credulity of the credulous," said Justice Scalia in a dissent delivered from the bench. "In approving that suspicionless search, the Court has cast aside a bedrock rule of our Fourth Amendment ..."

The case is Maryland v. King

Coming Into The Backstretch ...

2013-05-28T13:19:29-04:00

... only 28 cases remain undecided.

Dashing hopes of a long awaited decision on the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas, argued last October the Court today announced only two opinions of less interest. At least they weren't unanimous.

Today's Orders ...and sketch

2013-05-20T13:22:55-04:00

The Supreme Court today added five new cases to next term's docket including one concerning the constitutionality of prayer at town board meetings.

SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston has more here.

A Day Trip to Philly

2013-05-16T06:32:45-04:00

I got a last minute call to go to Philadelphia to sketch the sentencing of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell - a case I have not followed and therefore am thankfully unable to comment on - so I hit the road at 5:00 a.m. Arriving early I had a few minutes to do the sketch above before the courthouse openned.

After waiting several hours in the courtroom, sketching some of the evidence collected from Dr. Gosnell's, the sentencing itself was very brief.

You can read about it here.

Kagan's Roundup Ready and Breyer's in a Sling

2013-05-14T08:20:45-04:00

A couple sketches from the Supreme Court yesterday:

Justice Kagan annouced the Court's unanimous opinion supporting Monsanto's patent rights on its herbicide resistant genetically altered Roundup Ready seed.

NYT's Adam Liptak has the story here.

It was also Justice Breyer's first appearance on the bench since breaking his shoulder in a bicycle mishap two weeks ago.

Robel Philipos, Dzokhar Tsarnaev's Friend

2013-05-06T21:48:56-04:00

Robel Philipos, arrested last week and charged with making false statements, appeared before a federal magistrate in Boston. Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler allowed Philipos to go free on supervised bond. The above sketch shows Philipos with his lawyers and the magistrate as well as New York sketch and pleine-aire artist extraordinaire Jane Rosenberg in the right foreground.

Here are the rest of my sketches from today.

Funny story told to me by Jane: Philipos' parents walked out of the courthouse with a young man not Robel, probably one of his friends pictured above. The cameras waiting outside assumed it was Robel and gave chase. Meanwhile, when the real Robel came to the front entrance accompanied by his lawyers the coast was clear. By the time the press caught on he was in the back seat of a car driving away.

Before the Justice Take the Bench

2013-04-29T18:54:17-04:00

A little sketch, doodle really, of the Supreme Court press waiting for the Justices to come to the bench and announce the day's opinions.

From left to right, Mark Walsh of Education Week, Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal, the Washington Post's Robert Barnes and Adam Liptak of the New York Times.

Time for a Tricycle?

2013-04-29T15:33:22-04:00

Just kidding, I'm really very sorry to hear that Justice Breyer had fall from his bicycle over the weekend and broke his shoulder. Twice before he has had serious bicycle mishaps and has always climbed back in the saddle. I hope he continues to ride, and wish him a speedy recovery.

HIV, Prostitution and the First Amendment

2013-04-23T21:27:49-04:00

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the U.S. government can require NGO's working overseas to fight HIV and AIDS to espouse an anti-prostitution policy as a requirement to receiving funds.

The case is Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Scociety International.

You can read about it here.

Remind Me To Update My Will

2013-04-23T18:01:53-04:00

After federal employee Warren Hillman divorced his wife Judy Maretta and married Jaqueline Hillman he never changed the beneficiary on his life insurance. When he died the approximately $125,000. benefit went to his ex-wife.

Maybe, as Justice Breyer asked, "he secretly wants to leave the insurance in the name of his first wife while pretending to the second wife it was just an oversight."

Lyle Denniston covers the argument here.

The Indian Child Welfare Act

2013-04-17T21:05:18-04:00

The Supreme Court Justices had a tough time yesterday trying to balance the interests of a child, known as Baby Veronica, with the shameful history of removing American Indian children from their families. The Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, enacted in 1978, gives tribes a strong role in the adoption of Indian children.

In the case of Adoptive Parents v. Baby Girl an unwed mother gave up for adoption her child fathered by a part-Cherokee father. The father had expressed no interest in the upbringing of the child until he was informed of the adoption. After being raised by its adoptive parents for about a year the baby girl was transfered to her father who won custody in federal court under the ICWA.

Mark Walsh has the story here.

Of Chocolate Cookies, Baseball Bats and the Amazon

2013-04-16T16:17:40-04:00

In considering whether human genes may be patented the Justices of the Supreme Court searched near and far for analogies to help them grasp the complexities of bio-science. Here are a few sketches from the oral arguments along with a few choice quotes.

Justice Sotomayor : "I can bake a chocolate chip cookie using natural ingredients - salt, flour, eggs, butter ... And if I combust those in some new way, I can get a patent on that. But I can't imagine getting a patent on the basic items ..."

Justice Alito : "To get back to your baseball bat example, which at least I can understand better than perhaps some of this biochemistry. I suppose that in ... I don't know how many millions of years trees have been around, but in all of that time possibly someplace a branch has fallen off a tree .... into the ocean and it's been manipulated by the waves, and then something's been washed up on shore, and what do you know, it's a baseball bat."

Justice Breyer : "... so when Captain Ferno goes to the Amazon and discovers fifty new types of plants, saps and medicines .... although that expedition was expensive, although nobody had found it before, he can't get a patent on the thing itself."

And here's a quick sketch of people lining up outside the Supreme Court in the rain Monday morning to get a seat for the arguments.

SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston has the argument recap here.

Sketches of DOMA Oral Arguments

2013-03-27T21:46:00-04:00

The above sketch shows members of the Supreme Court bar waiting on the ground floor before being led up to the "great hall" were they will stand in line before being seated to hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Windsor, the second of two same-sex marriage cases heard by the Court this week.

Once again I'm just too beat after a long day to comment, so I'll just post the sketches.

Allison Trzop has the SCOTUSblog round-up here.

Sketches of Proposition 8 Oral Arguments

2013-03-26T20:39:53-04:00

The Supreme Court today heard arguments in the first of two same-sex marriage cases. I'm just going to post my sketches without comment as I'm totaly beat. But glad to have been there.

The case is Hollingsworth v. Perry

Tom Goldstein's take on the arguments is here.

STUDENTS, IMPORT AND SELL TEXTBOOKS FOR FUN & PROFIT !!

2013-03-19T16:27:02-04:00

Supap Kirtsaeng, a native of Thailand attending college in the U.S., found a clever way to help pay his way. He had his family in Thailand buy and ship to him textbooks which he then resold at a profit netting him around $100,000.

Normally if you purchase a book, or music CD or even a computer you have the right to resell it. But the publisher in this case took the student to court arguing that because the books were printed and sold abroad the "first-sale doctrine" did not apply.

Today, in an opinion by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court came down 6-3 on the side of the student.

You can read about it on SCOTUSblog, here.

Arizona Voter ID Law v. Federal "Motor Voter"

2013-03-18T16:06:14-04:00

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, right, watched as Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne defended Proposition 200, a state law that requires additional proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. O'Connor was on a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that rejected the law.

The case is Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Cuoncil of Arizona

Lyle Denniston writes about it here.

From the Dustbin: SCOTUS Anthrax Scare

2013-03-15T09:32:56-04:00

When anthrax started showing up in the mail shortly after 9/11 it was detected in the Supreme Court as well. The Court kept to its schedule by moving a few blocks away to convene in the D.C. Circuit's ceremonial courtroom.

I'd been looking for this sketch for several years thinking it had been lost, but in fact had matted and framed it for exhibit and never returned it to the files. I found last week while moving stuff to storage. It shows Solicitor General Ted Olson arguing in Adarand Constructors v. Mineta. Seated in the foreground are NYT's Linda Greenhouse, left, and NPR's Nina Totenberg.

CNN story on the Court's move is here.