FBA Event: Highlights Of The Supreme Court’s 2013-14 Term
This invitation just arrived in our inbox.
Highlights Of The Supreme Court’s 2013-14 Term
July 17th at 6:00 pm
United States Courthouse, Courtroom 1A
101 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Campaign contributions-government prayer-recess appointments-search and seizure-death penalty-restitution for crime victims-and more to come!
Please come to a free panel discussion about the most significant cases from this Supreme Court term, with a reception to follow. Panelists will include:
- The Honorable Joseph F. Murphy, Jr. retired from the Court of Appeals of Maryland in October 2011 to join Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin and White. His practice focuses on alternative dispute resolution including mediation and arbitration, as well as appellate and litigation consultation services. Prior to his elevation to the Court of Appeals, Judge Murphy was Chief Judge of the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, the state’s intermediate appellate court. Judge Murphy has authored hundreds of published appellate opinions. He also served as a trial judge on the Circuit Court for Baltimore County from 1984-1993. Judge Murphy has served as a former Deputy State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, as an Assistant State’s Attorney, and as a Legal Aid Bureau Staff Attorney.
- Sujit Raman, Appellate Chief in the Maryland US Attorney’s Office, has litigated numerous cases in the US Court of Appeals. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Mr. Raman is appearing in his personal capacity; his statements are not the official position of the Department of Justice, and his position is provided for identification purposes only.
- Jonathan Biran has briefed and argued cases in federal appellate courts including the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. A federal prosecutor for more than 16 years, he served as Appellate Chief in the Maryland US Attorney’s Office before starting the law firm of Biran Kelly LLC, with offices in Baltimore and Washington.
This event is sponsored by the Md Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Please direct any questions to Mike Leotta at Michael.Leotta@WilmerHale.com.
Lively Discussion at MSBA Supreme Court Roundup Panel
Yesterday at the MSBA Annual Meeting in Ocean City, the Appellate Practice Committee and Litigation Section put on a very good program about the U.S. Supreme Court’s soon-to-be concluded term. The panel was comprised of John Elwood, an appellate lawyer in the Washington, D.C. office of Vinson & Elkins; Jesse Holland, an Associated Press reporter who has covered the Supreme Court; and Prof. Louis Seidman, who teaches Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law Center. The moderator was Andrew Baida of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP in Baltimore.
Among the cases the panel discussed were:
Schuette v. BAMN: In this 6-2 decision (with Justice Kagan recusing), the Court upheld Michigan voters’ amendment to the state Constitution prohibiting state and governmental entities in Michigan from including race-based preferences as part of the admissions process at state universities. Read More…
Event: SCOTUS Panel at MSBA Annual Meeting
This week’s MSBA Annual Meeting will, as usual, feature a “United States Supreme Court Year in Review” Panel, sponsored by the Appellate Practice Committee and Litigation Section. The panel will take place from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm on Thursday, June 12, at the Clarion Resort Fontainebleau Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland.
The program chairs are Hon. Robert A. Zarnoch and Andy Baida. This year’s panelists are Jesse J. Holland of the Associated Press, Professor Louis Michael Seidman of Georgetown University Law Center, and John Elwood of Vinson & Elkins LLP (and known in blogging circles for authoring the Relist Watch at SCOTUSblog). We hope to see you there!
Supreme Court to Review Maryland Tax Case
This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in Maryland State Comptroller of the Treasury v. Wynne, 431 Md. 147 (2013). The Order list is here. For prior blog coverage of Comptroller v. Wynne, see the following posts:
Affirmative Action—Past, Present, and Future
Like many pre-law students, I started studying the United States Constitution in college. I remember my professor commenting that the Constitution “protects the minority.” This was not so much a focus on a particular religious or racial category, but more a synthesis of the idea that the majority view easily prevails on any given issue, but it may not be the correct approach for society to use. A prime example has been this country’s civil rights movement—for too many years, the majority view allowed slavery, limited voting rights, and segregation in schools, housing, and employment. Read More…
Solicitor General Urges SCOTUS to Reverse Court of Appeals in Comptroller v. Wynne
We previously reported in January that the Supreme Court of the United States requested the views of the Solicitor General of the United States as to whether to grant certiorari in Maryland State Comptroller of the Treasury v. Wynne, 431 Md. 147 (2013). As reported today by Steve Lash at The Daily Record, the Solicitor General has filed a brief in support of the State’s petition.
The Solicitor General’s brief is available here. Below is the Solicitor General’s argument summary, from pages 6 and 7 of that brief: Read More…
Four Reasons to End Calls for Justice Ginsburg’s Retirement
By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)
[Updated, 6:21 p.m., March 17, 2014. See comment below for details.]
One gift that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received for her 81st birthday was yet another editorial – this time by Erwin Chemerinsky– calling for her retirement. As soon as chatter dies down, we can expect a new round of editorials criticizing Justice Thomas’ silence at oral argument, followed by another round of calls for Justice Ginsburg to retire. (Maybe I should have saved my “Time Is a Flat Circle” reference for this post.)
A few quick thoughts: Read More…
The Elite Federal Bar in Baltimore, 1818 to 1834
by Steven M. Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)
[On the anniversary (plus one day) of William Wirt’s argument before the Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland, I am reprinting below an article that has previously appeared in The Federal Lawyer and Maryland Litigator. I would like to dedicate this re-print to my late cousin, Kevin Rooney, who passed away last June. When this article appeared in The Federal Lawyer in 2011, Kevin—who attended seminary in Baltimore before deciding to become a lawyer—emailed me regarding our Wirt connection. When Kevin served as Assistant Attorney General for Administration, he chose Wirt’s portrait to hang in his office at the U.S. Department of Justice. Kevin, however, found the happy balance between career and family that eluded Wirt.]
[The article is Copyrighted 2011, Steven M. Klepper.]
As the federal bar took shape in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Baltimore, Maryland, was home to a disproportionate share of that bar’s elite members. G. Edward White, in his volume of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court, observed that the “period from 1815 to 1835 was one of the highwater marks in the history of the Supreme Court bar.”[1] Of the six pre-eminent attorneys whom Professor White profiled, three—Luther Martin, William Pinkney, and William Wirt—centered their trial practices in Baltimore. After the deaths of Martin and Pinkney in the early 1820s, future Chief Justice Roger Taney, himself an accomplished advocate before the Marshall Court, moved his practice to Baltimore. In a time when United States Attorney General was a part-time job, Pinkney, Wirt, and Taney all served in that role while maintaining private practices in Baltimore. Read More…
McCulloch v. Maryland—Revisited With Newly Discovered Document
By Michael Wein
A recently auctioned document[1] puts a few historical facts in context of the historic Supreme Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), holding that a Maryland law seeking to tax the Second National Bank in Baltimore was unconstitutional, under an expansive reading of the Federal Government’s implied powers through the “Necessary and Proper” Clause. Here’s the link to the Ebay auction. Read More…
Supreme Court Abrogates Fourth Circuit Rule on Time to Appeal Contractual Attorney’s Fee Award
Until this morning, the following rule prevailed in the Fourth Circuit:
[A] claim for legal costs based on a contractual provision that is not limited to expenses incurred during the underlying litigation is an element of damages to be proved at trial under the substantive law governing the action, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2), 58(c), and that a judgment that leaves open such a claim is not final and appealable.
Carolina Power & Light Co. v. Dynegy Marketing & Trade, 415 F.3d 354 (2005)
No more. This morning, the Supreme Court cited Carolina Power as standing on one side of a circuit split, and the Court unanimously went the other way: “Whether [a] claim for attorney’s fees is based on a statute, a contract, or both, the pendency of a ruling on an award for fees and costs does not prevent, as a general rule, the merits judgment from becoming final for purposes of appeal.” Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v. Central Pension Fund, __ U.S. __ (Jan. 15, 2014).
Anyone litigating contract actions in the Fourth Circuit should take note. Decisions from the Third, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits also were cited on the losing side of the circuit split.
Maryland Appellate Blog 