Today at the Supreme Court: Live blog of orders and opinions - June 19, 2019

[mahatmakanejeeves]

From SCOTUSblog:

Live blog of orders and opinions
By Andrew Hamm on Jun 19, 2017 at 9:10 am

We expect orders from the June 15 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m. There is also a possibility of opinions on Monday. On Thursday the justices will meet for their June 22 conference; our list of "petitions to watch" for that conference will be available soon.

{snip}

You might want to go through them to see if anything of interest happened today. I've got other fish to fry.

Edit: 10:00 a.m. Opinions about to start.

We have Matal v. Tam, formerly known as Lee v. Tam. The judgment of the lower court is affirmed.
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MATAL, INTERIM DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE v. TAM

Alito has already moved on to the second decision, which is Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court. The decision is reversed and remanded. This is a Goldstein & Russell case.
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BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB CO. v. SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY, ET AL.

We have McWilliams v. Dunn, a capital case out of Alabama.
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It is by Justice Breyer. The Eleventh Circuit is reversed and remanded.
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The court rules that the decision by an Alabama state court denying relief to a death -row inmate who argued that the state had failed to provide him with the expert mental health assistance that the Constitution requires was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.
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In this case, Breyer writes, the clearly established federal law was the court's 1985 ruling in Ake v. Oklahoma, which he says "clearly established that, when certain threshold criteria are met, the State must provide an indigent defendant with access to a mental health expert who is sufficiently available to teh defense and independent from the prosecution to effectively assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense." McWilliams, the court says, did not receive that assistance.
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It's 5-4. Breyer writes, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
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MCWILLIAMS v. DUNN, COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, ET AL.

Alito dissents, joined by Roberts, Thomas, and Gorsuch.
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The next opinion is in Packingham v. NC, per Kennedy.
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This is the case of a NC man who was convicted of violating a NC law barring convicted sex offenders from social networking sites after he posted on Facebook thanking God for the dismissal of a traffic ticket.
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PACKINGHAM v. NORTH CAROLINA

The court rules that the NC statute impermissible restricts lawful speech in violation of the First Amendment.
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An AEDPA ruling against the state! That almost never happens at SCOTUS
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Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

Who said something about a busy day for Kennedy? The last opinion of the day is also from Kennedy, in Ziglar v. Abbasi.
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This is the challenge by Middle Eastern men who were in the country illegally and were detained after September 11.
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ZIGLAR v. ABBASI ET AL.

[MineralMan]

1. Thanks. I wonder what cases they'll

issue orders and opinions on today. I'll keep an eye on the live blog.