here.
Before we discuss changes to the Supreme Court’s docket this week, a word about last week’s post. As anticipated, the court decided to review the question whether the First Amendment prohibits public officials from blocking constituents from their private social media accounts on which they discuss official business. The court wound up taking both the case brought by two school board members, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, and the case brought by a blocked constituent against a city manager, Lindke v. Freed. The cases will be argued in the fall; so far at least, the court has not consolidated them, meaning they’ll likely be argued back to back instead of in a single hearing.
The petitioner in four-time relist Burns v. Mays wasn’t so lucky. The court denied review in the case, which involved a death-row prisoner’s claim that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at his capital sentencing procedure after his murder trial. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed an opinion dissenting from the denial, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – thus falling just one vote short of the four votes necessary to grant review. The opinion argued that there were several noteworthy errors that combined meant that Kevin Burns “now faces execution despite a very robust possibility that” he is innocent of murder. All of the rest of the cases from last week’s installment are back again this week.
That brings us to this week’s new business. The justices will be...
Over the last year, beyond traditional healthcare and federal procurement matters, the government has pursued federal False Claims Act (FCA) investigations and enforcement across high-risk areas, i...