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Historically, the debate over the judicial role has centered on the constitutional and administrative law decisions of the United States Supreme Court, with an occasional glance at the Federal Courts of Appeals. It has, moreover, been concerned solely with the "in-court" behavior of Article III appellate judges as they carry out their power and duty "to say what the law is" in the context of resolving "cases and controversies." This Article seeks to deepen the discussion of the appropriate role of Article III judges by broadening it to trial, as well as appellate, judges; and by distinguishing between an Article III judge's "decisional" activities on the one hand, and the judge's "hortatory" and other activities on the other. To that end, the Article focuses on a cohort of deeply respected federal district judges-many of whom, although not all, experienced Clinton appointees in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York-who, over the last decade, have challenged conventional norms of judicial behavior to urge reform of fundamental aspects of the federal criminal justice system. These "new" judicial activists have made their case for reform in the pages of their judicial opinions, often in dicta; in articles and speeches; and through advocacy within and beyond the judicial branch. This Article summarizes this activity, places it in historical context, and assesses its value as well as its risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lower courts face a dilemma when forced to choose between older Supreme Court precedent that directly controls the present legal dispute and an intervening Supreme Court ruling that relies on rationale which erodes or undermines the rationale of the direct precedent. Nearly thirty years ago, the Supreme Court announced a rule requiring lower courts to follow the older precedent and disregard any inconsistency resulting from intervening rulings, effectively barring lower courts from "under-ruling" the older Supreme Court precedent. This prohibition on "under-ruling," here referred to as the "Agostini Rule," reflects a departure from the core rule-of-law values requiring similar cases to be decided similarly. The Agostini Rule enables the Court to avoid following its own precedents, without explanation. Thus, the Court possesses significant latitude when making policy decisions, only increasing the importance of a Justice's life tenure. The failed nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court magnified the ramifications of the "under-ruling" prohibition, as political mobilization against Garland revealed the belief that replacing Justice Antonin Scalia with a Democratic President's nominee would have enormous consequences. This article proposes a legislative remedy to "under-ruling" by requiring Congress to amend the statutes governing the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to allow federal circuit courts to certify cases for, and effectively "force," mandatory Supreme Court review. Consequently, the Supreme Court would no longer be able to evade its older precedents. This more consistent and transparent Court would both revive faith in the rule-of-law and improve the confirmation process, preventing any potential confirmation gridlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case where the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) has filed a complaint against the Harvard College in a federal district court. It mentions that SFFA has claimed that Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans by holding them to higher admissions standards than other racial group, including whites. It also mentions about judgment of Supreme Court in the U.S. concerning discrimination against Asian students in colleges in the U.S.

The common law style of judging appears to be on its way out. Trial courts rarely shape legal policymaking by asserting decisional autonomy through distinguishing, limiting, or criticizing higher court precedent. In an earlier study, we demonstrated the reluctance of lower court judges to assert decisional autonomy by invoking the holding-dicta dichotomy. In this Article, we make use of original empirical research to study the level of deference U.S. district court judges exhibit toward higher courts and whether the level of deference has changed over time. Our analysis of citation behavior over an eighty-year period reveals a dramatic shift in judges' practices. In the first fifty years included in our study, district court judges were not notably deferential to either their federal court of appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court. District court judges regularly assessed the relevance and scope of precedents from those higher courts and asserted their prerogative to disregard many of them. Since then, judges have become far more likely to treat a given higher court precedent as dispositive. In so doing, lower courts have embraced a hierarchical view of judicial authority at odds with the common law style of judging. The causes of this shift are multifold and likely permanent; we discuss several of them, including dramatic changes in legal research, the proliferation of law clerks throughout the legal system, the growing docket of lower court judges, the growth of the administrative state, and the Supreme Court's increasing embrace of judicial hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 2005 decision in Granholm v. Heald, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that state alcoholic beverage laws that discriminate against outof- state entities are unconstitutional restrictions of interstate trade under the dormant Commerce Clause. Despite this holding, lower courts have split in their analyses and conclusions regarding protectionist alcoholic beverage laws. Specifically, the Eighth Circuit recently upheld Missouri's residency requirements for alcoholic beverage distributors. Meanwhile, a district court in Michigan has found that a similar law imposing residency requirements on alcoholic beverage retailers was an unconstitutional restriction of interstate commerce. This confusion adversely affects both consumers and smaller producers of alcoholic beverages. Therefore, this Note argues the Supreme Court should, in the appropriate case, clarify that Granholm applies to residency requirements for wholesalers and retailers, thereby subjecting these restrictions to heightened Commerce Clause scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Comment considers whether the federal conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transformed these entities into state actors subject to constitutional constraints. In particular, it analyzes whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must provide homeowners with due process -- namely, notice and an opportunity to be heard -- when they initiate nonjudicial foreclosures. This Comment surveys and applies five state action tests set forth by the Supreme Court to determine whether nonjudicial foreclosures initiated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must satisfy due process requirements. Application of the state action tests from Lebron and Brentwood Academy most persuasively suggest that nonjudicial foreclosures initiated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must satisfy due process requirements. Although a number of federal district courts and one circuit court of appeals hold that the test embodied by Lebron requires permanent government control to render the entity a state actor, this Comment argues that indefinite control -- exhibited by the federal conservatorship -- suffices. Alternatively, this Comment argues that pervasive federal entwinement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac renders their conduct state action under the test set forth in Brentwood Academy, notwithstanding satisfaction of the Lebron test. To the author's knowledge, no case or academic work has explicitly applied the entwinement test to post-conservatorship Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This Comment concludes that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are state actors under the entwinement test. However, because courts are reluctant to find state action where the government regulates the secondary mortgage market, it remains unlikely that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be required to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to homeowners facing nonjudicial foreclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case U.S. v. Mcfadden. Topics include the U.S. Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, denied a rehearing, and construction worker Stephen McFadden subsequently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court having granted McFadden certiorari on January 16, 2015 to determine whether to convict a defendant of distribution of a controlled substance analogue.

Martinez v. Ryan opened a door previously closed to federal habeas petitioners. In the past, where attorney negligence or a pro se defendant's lack of legal knowledge caused ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims to be procedurally defaulted, those claims were likely lost forever. Now, following Martinez, petitioners get a second chance should they satisfy the Supreme Court's four-pronged test. The Martinez test, however, is not a simple one. This Comment addresses some problems concerning the four-pronged test, including multiple and conflicting standards for the same element, tensions between Martinez and the underlying Strickland v. Washington ineffective-assistance-of-counsel standard, and confusion where the same term of art is used in different contexts. The proposed modifications would simplify Martinez for petitioners--ideally resulting in more evidentiary hearings exploring underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims in federal district court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses amendments recommended by the U.S. Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure to the General Rules of Practice to allow audio and video coverage on pilot basis of criminal proceedings, the a petition filed by the Thompson Hall Santi Cerny & Dooley proposing amendments to the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct, and the acceptance of the to the Local Rules 7.2 and 12.1 by the U.S. District court for the Minnesota District court.

The article discusses the University of San Francisco Maritime Law Journal Survey that examines the decisions of the U.S Supreme Court, federal appellate, and district courts. Court cases discussed include Americanwest Bank v. P/V Indian that involved ship mortgage, case Monjasa A/S v. M/V Peristil dealing with maritime lien and summary judgment and Good v. Nippon Yusen Kaisha based on a choice of law waiver.

The article reflects on bias blindness and capacity blindness within the exhaustion doctrine of the U.S. Supreme Court's Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). It discusses the detailed exceptions standard that federal district courts can apply to counteract the biases related to the PLRA integrity. It mentions that the approach of the Supreme Court towards PLRA exhaustion requirement allows prison officials to have control over prisoner's ability to hold them responsible for unlawful conduct.

When the Supreme Court takes action, it establishes national policy within an issue area. A traditional, legal view holds that the decisions of the Court settle questions of law and thereby close the door on future litigation, reducing the need for future attention to that issue. Alternatively, an emerging interest group perspective suggests the Court, in deciding cases, provides signals that encourage additional attention to particular issues. I examine these competing perspectives of what happens in the federal courts after Supreme Court decisions. My results indicate that while Supreme Court decisions generally settle areas of law in terms of overall litigation rates, they also introduce new information that leads to increases in the attention of judges and interest groups to those particular issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the federal district courts split over whether to apply Twombly's plausibility standard to the pleading of affirmative defenses. Initially, a majority of district courts extended Twombly to defense pleadings, but recently the courts that have declined to extend the plausibility standard have gained majority status. This Note provides a comprehensive analysis of each side of the plausibility split, identifying several hidden assumptions motivating the district courts' decisions. Drawing from its analysis of the two opposing positions, this Note responds to the courts that have applied plausibility pleading to affirmative defenses by identifying several fundamental flaws in their appeals to tradition, policy, and the text of Rule 8. Due to misguided reliance on historical pleading practices, an imprecise reading of Twombly, and an overestimation of the availability of discovery for unpled or stricken affirmative defenses, these courts fail to recognize that extending plausibility pleading beyond the complaint imposes an asymmetrical and unfairly onerous burden on defendants. This Note concludes that the courts that extend Twombly to affirmative defenses do so in violation of both the canons of statutory construction and the principles of the Rules Enabling Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a survey which examines significant maritime decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate, and the district courts within the Ninth Circuit region. Various cases discussed include Institute of Cetacean Research v. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which was concerning admiralty procedure, Habel v. Grove Farm Fish & Poi, LLC which was related to Jones Act, and Moore v. United States which was regarding discretionary function exception.

The article discusses the application of the U.S. Supreme Court case of Garcetti v. Ceballos on the concerns related to union grievances for public workplace free speech jurisprudence. It informs that a citizen analogue requirement is unsuitable in a workplace speech tests encompassing cases of union grievance. It also depicts that the application of official duties analysis of Garcetti case in the U.S. District court case of Weintraub v. Board of Education is also inappropriate.

The article reflects on the writings of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in context to religious liberty with special focus on the U.S. Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. The case addresses the issues related to religion, government funding of expression, and equality. It also presents the views of Ginsburg regarding government funding of expression as depicted in the U.S. District Court of Columbia case of DKT Memorial Fund v. Agency for International Development.

The article discusses several court cases in the U.S. It states that the U.S. District Court refused to consider the validity of unasserted patent claims in the court case Streck Inc. v. Research & Diagnostic Systems Inc. while in another court case the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that inventors own the inventions they conceive. It further states that in the Golan v. Holder court case, the Supreme Court found that copyright protection should be provided to owners of latest developments.

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court announced a new plausibility standard for a plaintiff's allegations. The decisions may have even broader implications, however, as many federal district courts have already applied this pleading standard to a defendant's affirmative defenses. This Article makes sense of Twombly and Iqbal in the context of the affirmative defense. This Article addresses the two possible readings of Twombly and Iqbal: first, that the decisions are limited to a plaintiff's civil complaint, and second, that a defendant must also comply with the Supreme Court's plausibility standard by pleading enough facts to sufficiently state an affirmative defense. This Article explains why a close textual review of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, combined with numerous policy and practical considerations, support the broader second reading of the Supreme Court's decisions. What it actually means to plausibly plead an affirmative defense is a much more complicated question. This Article closely examines this issue through the lens of one of the most complex and important defenses in all civil case law—the affirmative defense to a claim of sexual harassment. By way of this example, this Article explains how the plausibility standard would apply more broadly to defendants in all civil cases. The question whether the plausibility standard should apply to defendants—and if so, how it should apply—is likely to create significant controversy in the coming years. This Article establishes a foundation for that discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes where the U.S. Supreme Court denied the certification of a massive putative class of female employees of Wal-Mart. The putative class, which filed for damages on sex discrimination claims, had been certified by the U.S. District Court based on commonality, typicality, and adequate representation. The Court contended that Wal-mart's operations under a general policy of discrimination was not proven by the class representatives.

Assessing a year's worth of debate over the 2009 Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, this Article provides a novel explanation for the decision and presents it as radical indeed, but in a way previously unremarked by commentators. The sharp divisions in the responses to Iqbal have masked a deeper consensus and have blocked wide awareness of the decision's constructive potential for diverse interest groups. This consensus is based on a simplified account of the ideal function of pleading in our system of civil litigation, one that first took hold in the early twentieth century. What unsettles many observers about Iqbal is its suggestion that district court judges must interpret a civil complaint in order to decide whether it states a claim. As this Article explains, however, pleading scrutiny always has involved interpretation; if we find that suggestion troubling, it is only because the vocabulary we have long used to discuss the role and treatment of civil pleadings represses this fact. The Article describes the ways this vocabulary has shaped the debate over Iqbal and the contingent historical reasons for its dominance. Looking forward, it shows how Iqbal makes possible a new agenda for procedural scholarship that draws from work on other types of legal interpretation, and it suggests some of the specific ways in which this perspective can guide implementation of Iqbal and clarification of its requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on enactment of the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) by the U.S. Congress. It mentions that various lawsuits were filed under the U.S. District Courts challenging the constitutionality of various provisions under the Act. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that individual coverage requirement under the Act substantially affects interstate commerce under Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Over the past 15 years or so, we have become accustomed to assuming that corporations are proper subjects of litigation for alleged infringements of the 'law of nations' under the Alien Tort Statute ('ATS').1 But, in a dramatic reversal of this line of reasoning, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum ('Kiobel'),2 has dismissed this assumption and concluded that corporations cannot be sued under the ATS. This article explores the Court's reasoning and the ramifications of the decision, highlighting the ways in which the Kiobel judgment departs from both Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent. The authors take to task the critical failure of the majority in Kiobel to distinguish between the requirements of legal responsibility at international law and that which is necessary to invoke ATS jurisdiction in the US District Courts. In the context of the maturing debates over the human rights responsibilities of corporations, the authors point to the political as well as legal policy implications of Kiobel and underscore the reasons why the case has already attracted such intense interest and will continue to excite attention as a US Supreme Court challenge looms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court began to establish and enforce a constitutional requirement for the apportionment of legislative districts at the national, state, and local levels. This requirement, the "one person, one vote" principle, has become a benchmark of the constitutional jurisprudence as well as a conceptualization of the fundamental democratic norm of political equality. Since these early cases, apportionment plans that violate this constitutional requirement-even with levels of intrastate malapportionment of less than 1%-have been held to be unconstitutional. Yet, there is a much more severe form of malapportionment that continues today and will worsen with the reapportionment of the United States House of Representatives after the 2010 Census: interstate malapportionment. The levels of interstate malapportionment are over 9,000% greater than the levels of intrastate malapportionment already found unconstitutional. This Article explores the causes and possible solutions to this problem. It concludes that the constitutional requirement of "one person, one vote" can only be constitutionally addressed-to any considerable degree?by reconsidering the twentieth century statutory requirement that fixed the size of the House at 435 seats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States district courts disagree as to whether the plausibility pleading standard for claims first described by the United States Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly also extends to affirmative defenses pled by defendants in federal courts. The divergent opinions result from conflicting interpretations of the language of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, standards of preferred practice, and notions o f fairness. This Note examines the district courts' arguments in deciding whether the Twombly standard extends to affirmative defenses. It identifies the quiddities of the courts' reasoning through an analysis of their decisions and, based upon this review, argues that the courts should not extend the Twombly standard to affirmative defenses. This Note shows how this conclusion adheres to the text and intention of the Federal Rules, as well as the holding and public policy considerations of Twombly itself. Moreover, it acknowledges that simple injustice would befall defendants on account of an extension of the Twombly standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court case Padilla v. Kentucky on practice in the U.S. district courts. He mentions that the court's decision in this case reminds that the plea process and its implications should never be dismissed. He suggests that the courts should always consider the consequences that might result from a defendant's plea of guilty.

The article offers information on Section 7 of the Clayton Act in the U.S. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, Section 7 requires a prognosis of the likely future affect of a merger. The court has held that a proposed merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act if there is a reasonable probability that the merger will lessen competition. It further informs about a rejection by the U.S. district court over the U.S. Department of Justice's challenge for the formation of a joint venture.

This article looks at some practices of the U.S. relating to international law. It discusses the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the application of key provisions of the securities laws to a private suit involving a so-called foreign cubed securities case. It also explains a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissing a habeas corpus petition brought by a Guantanamo detainee. In addition, the article discusses an amendment to the state constitution of Oklahoma to bar state courts from applying international or Sharia law.

The article looks at the legality of political campaign finance in the U.S. after the Davis v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case. It examines the legal challenges brought against the state laws which help political candidates finance campaigns and curtail campaign spending, the logic that courts have utilized to ignore these challenges, and the way in which the Davis case affects that logic. It also examines the U.S. Supreme Court's treatment of campaign finance limitations before the Davis case, discusses the various types of state campaign finance laws, and shows how federal district courts and courts of appeals employed the Supreme Court's pre-Davis decisions to state's election laws. It is concluded that the matching funds of state campaign finance laws are still constitutional.

After the U.S. Supreme Court held that U.S. courts have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to hear legal challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism (Rasul v. Bush), the Pentagon established administrative hearings, called "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" (CSRTs), to allow the detainees to contest their status as enemy combatants, and informed them of their right to pursue relief in federal court by seeking a writ of habeas corpus. Lawyers subsequently filed dozens of petitions on behalf of the detainees in the District Court for the District of Columbia, where district court judges reached inconsistent conclusions as to whether the detainees have any enforceable rights to challenge their treatment and detention. hi December 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) to divest the courts ofjurisdiction to hear some detainees' challenges by eliminating the federal courts' statutory jurisdiction over habeas claims by aliens detained at Guantanamo Bay (as well as other causes of action based on their treatment or living conditions). The DTA provided instead for limited appeals of CSRT determinations or fmal decisions of military commissions. After the Supreme Court rejected the view that the DTA left it without jurisdiction to review a habeas challenge to the validity of military commissions in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the 109th Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) (P.L. 109-366) to authorize the President to convene military commissions and to amend the DTA to further reduce access to federal courts by "alien enemy combatants," wherever held, by eliminating pending and future causes of action other than the limited review of military proceedings permitted under the DTA. In June 2008, the Supreme Court held in the case of Boumediene v. Bush that aliens designated as enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. The Court also found that MCA § 7, which limited judicial review of executive determinations of the petitioners' enemy combatant status, did not provide an adequate habeas substitute and therefore acted as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas. The immediate impact of the Boumediene decision is that detainees at Guantanamo may petition a federal district court for habeas review of the legality and possibly the circumstances of their detention, perhaps including challenges to the jurisdiction of military commissions. President Barack Obama's Executive Order calling for an at least temporary halt in military commission proceedings and the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility is likely to have implications for legal challenges raised by detainees. In March 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new defmitional standard for the government's authority to detain terrorist suspects, which does not use the phrase "enemy combatant" to refer to persons who may be properly detained. The new standard is similar in scope to the "enemy combatant" standard used by the Bush Administration to detain terrorist suspects. The standard would permit the detention of members of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and associated forces, along with persons who provide "substantial support" to such groups, regardless of whether such persons were captured away from the battlefield in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court held that the Federal Constitution provides a cause of action in damages for violations of the Fourth Amendment by individual federal officers. The so-called "Bivens" cause of action--initially extended to other constitutional provisions and then sharply curtailed over the past two decades--has been a subject of controversy among academics and judges since its creation. The most common criticism of Bivens--one that has been repeated in different venues for thirty years--is that the Court's individual liability model, in which the offending officer is personally liable in damages, should be abandoned in favor of a governmental liability model akin to respondeat superior liability. Commentators base their criticism of the individual liability model on two empirical assumptions: (1) Bivens suits are almost never successful; and (2) the defense of qualified immunity, available only to individuals, is a nearly insuperable barrier to plaintiffs' prevailing in Bivens claims. On this account, a move to the governmental liability model will ensure adequate compensation and deterrence while removing a substantial barrier to plaintiffs' success. These empirical claims about the general failure of Bivens suits and the explanation for that failure have never been tested. This Article corrects that oversight by offering the results of the first detailed empirical study of the determinants and outcomes of Bivens litigation. Based on data collected from cases filed in five district courts from 2001-2003, this Article concludes that the truths that scholars and judges have taken as a given are unsupported. Bivens claims succeed at a much higher rate than previously thought, especially compared to other civil rights litigation, and the defense of qualified immunity rarely plays a role in the outcome of Bivens litigation. These data call into question the given wisdom about the characteristics of Bivens litigation, and undermine the policy proposals that have occupied the field of Bivens scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the conflict of the decision made by the district court concerning the lawsuit of firefighters against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. The district court held that Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause and disparate treatment prohibition, was controlling and dismissed the equal protection claim. However, the Supreme Court reversed the decision stating that the action of the City presumptively violated the disparate treatment prohibition of Title VII.

The article presents an analysis on the decision of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals on several litigations concerning the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) and its implications to the bankruptcy attorney and client relationship in the U.S. It explains the amendments made to the legislation, with details on the issues regarding the interpretation of debt relief agency and its impact on the client-attorney relationship. It explores the unclear interpretation of BAPCA in the U.S.' lower courts including Circuit Court of Appeals, district courts, and bankruptcy courts. It notes the responsibility of the U.S. Supreme Court to settle issues on BAPCA. It also examines the decision of the Eight Circuit to the Milavetz v. United States trial.

How should courts balance conflicting national security and environmental protection interests? The Supreme Court gave a fact-specific answer in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, finding that the interests of the military outweighed the interests of environmental plaintiffs in this case. Winter is hardly revolutionary--courts have long balanced competing interests when determining equitable relief and that is precisely what the Court did in Winter, based on the unique circumstances presented. The Supreme Court gave greater deference to military commanders than the lower courts in reviewing a preliminary injunction issued to remedy the Navy's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In doing so, the Winter Court substituted its own judgment regarding the public interest among competing national priorities and unmoored itself from traditional standards of appellate review. While saying very little about the underlying merits of the case, the Court majority held that the district court abused its discretion, and on that basis it vacated two of six mitigation measures imposed under the preliminary injunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the case Vaden v. Discover Bank, wherein the plaintiff questions if federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain petitions to compel arbitration under the section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in the U.S. The Supreme Court (SC) clarified that parties can request for a federal district court to enforce arbitrary agreement under section 4 petition. Thus, SC might also clarify state courts' responsibilities over arbitrary agreement if necessary.

The article discusses a courtcase wherein the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit's decision to uphold the preliminary injunction of district courts to the training exercises of the Navy at the Southern Californian coast was reversed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has discovered that the discretion in imposing Navy's sonar shutdown and power-down requirements has been abused by district courts. The brief summary on the arguments of both party have been analyzed by the Supreme Court.

The article discusses the decisions of the U.S. Supreme court and district court of Minnesota related to environmental protection. Topics discussed include rejection of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mercury and air toxics standards by the supreme court in case Michigan v. E.P.A, amendments to the EPA's water standards and endorsement of National Environmental Policy Act exception by district court in Richland/Wilkin Joint Powers Authority v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The article reports on the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the case, Betty E. Vaden versus Discover Bank on March 9, 2009. The court ruled that district courts are authorized to look through for federal question jurisdiction to hear a motion to compel arbitration. It is held that district courts may not find out that they have jurisdiction on the basis of a state law counterclaim. Furthermore, it is concluded that save for arbitration agreement directs the courts to consider if they would have jurisdiction over a dispute.

The article discusses the Supreme Court case of Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, the Court upheld Nevada's "stop & identify" statute, requires a detained person to disclose their name to the police. The Court ruled that this statute did not violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendment; established that requesting identification during Terry stop was routine; and served legitimate government interests without changing the nature of the stop or creating a reasonable danger of self-incrimination.