Justice Kagan gave a fairly candid interview at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference on July 25. She touched on a code of conduct, separate opinions, collegiality, reading dissents from the bench, Chevron, and more. Pretty good stuff.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?537234-1/justice-elena-kagan-speaks-us-court-appeals-ninth-circuit-conference

Following up our last post, President Biden discussed his proposed SCOTUS reforms in an op-ed in the Washington Post today–basically, term limits, a code of conduct with an enforcement mechanism, and a constitutional amendment abolishing presidential immunity. The administration released a fact sheet on the proposals.

For what it’s worth, term limits and an…

From today’s story in the Post:

President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an enforceable ethics code, according to two people briefed on the plans.

He is also weighing whether to call for

Adam Unikowsky has a fascinating Substack article about running SCOTUS briefs through Claude 3 (h/t Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution). Here’s a taste:

. . . I decided to do a little more empirical testing of AI’s legal ability. Specifically, I downloaded the briefs in every Supreme Court merits case that has been decided so

At the VTLA’s annual meeting earlier this month, Kyle McNew moderated an appellate panel featuring Justice Mann and Judges Malveaux and Ortiz. High-level takeaways:

• Letting Judge Ortiz respond to a moderator opens the door for some quality shithousing. This probably only works with a quick moderator like Kyle, but more bar associations should try it.

The Court of Appeals of Virginia recently handed down its opinion in Tatusko v. Commonwealth, 79 Va. App. 721 (2024). It’s a reckless-driving case where the defendant was clocked doing 103 in a 60 mph zone. Tatusko doesn’t strike me as especially interesting on the merits; many of the issues raised were discretionary rulings…

Jesse Wegman has an editorial in The New York Times about the challenges of teaching constitutional law in the current environment. This should give you a flavor of the proceedings:

Under the pretense of practicing so-called originalism, which claims to interpret the Constitution in line with how it was understood at the nation’s founding, these

I am an introvert and a try-hard. This makes me a lot of fun at parties. (Just kidding I never get invited to parties.) It also means that I encounter most of the words I see in print as opposed to real life. So I’m not always 100% sure about how they are supposed to…