Here:
Briefs are here.
oral argument
Ninth Circuit Decides Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation v. Yakima County
Here is the opinion. An excerpt:
This case presents the question whether the State of Washington may exercise criminal jurisdiction over members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation who commit crimes on reservation land. To answer that question, we must interpret a 2014 Washington State Proclamation that retroceded—that is, gave back—“in part,” civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Yakama Nation to the United States, but retained criminal jurisdiction over matters “involving non-Indian defendants and non-Indian victims.” If “and,” as used in that sentence, is conjunctive, then the State retained jurisdiction only over criminal cases in which no party—suspects or victims—is an Indian. If, by contrast, “and” is disjunctive and should be read as “or,” then the State retained jurisdiction if any party is a non-Indian. We conclude, based on the entire context of the Proclamation, that “and” is disjunctive and must be read as “or.” We therefore affirm the district court.
NYTs: “Does John Roberts Need to Check His Own Biases?”
Here.
Worth a read, and then check out the QuaranTICA webinar on oral arguments!
Ninth Circuit Rejects Two Challenges to North Fork Rancheria Gaming
Leah Litman on Interruptions of Women Justices in SCOTUS Oral Arguments by Phone
Really interesting chart about how often the Chief Justice interrupted RBG, Sotomayor, and Kagan that has a LOT of instances from the McGirt argument.
Here is “Muted Justice” on SSRN.
Seventh Circuit Oral Argument in Wisconsin Oneida Reservation Boundaries Case
SCOTUS Will Hear McGirt Argument Remotely in May — No Date Set Yet
Update in Pinoleville Pomo Nation Gaming & RICO Dispute [updated]
Here are the updated materials in JW Gaming Development LLC v. James (N.D. Cal.):
184 Defendants Motion for Summary Judgment
191 Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment
Prior post here.
Case tag here.
UPDATE (7/7/2020):
220 Individual Tribal Defendants Opposition to 191
221 Plaintiffs Opposition to 210-212
New Scholarship: “The Loudest Voice at the Supreme Court”
Darcy Covert & A.J. Wang have posted “The Loudest Voice at the Supreme Court: The Solicitor General’s Dominance of Amicus Oral Argument” on SSRN. The NYTs profiled the article here.
Here is the abstract:
Over the last century, amicus participation in oral argument at the Supreme Court has become common, but only for one litigant: the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States (“OSG”). Between the 2010 and 2017 Terms, the Court granted only 8 of 26 motions for amicus oral argument by litigants other than OSG. During that time, it granted 252—all but 1—of such motions by OSG. Since the early 2000s, OSG has often argued more frequently in a Term as an amicus than as a party.
This Article presents the first history of amicus oral argument and how OSG came to dominate this practice. Drawing on an original database of every motion for amicus oral argument filed from 1889 through 2017, we offer the first quantitative history of the practice of amicus oral argument before the Court. We supplement this with a qualitative account of the historical and modern use of amicus oral argument based on archival research and interviews with frequent Supreme Court litigators, including current and former members of OSG. We find that the Court grants OSG virtually unlimited access to amicus oral argument without regard to the strength of the federal interest or the political nature of a given case.
The Court’s special solicitude towards OSG has profound consequences. The Solicitor General already occupies a special role at the Court as the “Tenth Justice.” We argue that OSG’s seemingly unlimited ability to appear before the Court systematically biases the perspectives heard at the Court and therefore undermines due process principles and the adversarial process. We conclude with a proposal for reform.
