Looks like a couple significant Supreme Court matters popped up while I was gone.
Of course, the big news was that the Judiciary Committee sent Kagan's nomination to the full Senate by a 13 to 6 vote. Nothing surprising about that. Also not surprising was some pretty silly grandstanding by Republicans throughout the vote. Why does anybody take those clowns seriously?
The other big news for the week was the release of the calendar for the October sitting. Here are the cases and argument dates for cases relevant to habeas:
Tuesday, October 5
Michigan v. Bryant (front-end case): whether the use of injured victim’s out-of-court statement made to police at crime scene violates the Sixth Amendment under Crawford v. Washington
Tuesday October 12
Harrington v. Richter: whether counsel was ineffective for failing to call expert witness to counter prosecution’s physical evidence and whether lower court's properly deferred to state court's under AEDPA
Premo v. Moore: standard of review for federal habeas courts when assessing ineffective claim based on the failure of counsel to obtain suppression of a confession (note the change in name for Warden/Respondent; used to be called Belleque v. Moore)
Wednesday October 13
Skinner v. Switzer (1983 case with habeas implications): whether defendant can obtain DNA testing through a 1983 action.
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