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Florida Supreme Court Joins Twitter

On the main page of the Florida Supreme Court's website, you will now notice a tiny turquoise icon indicating that the Florida Supreme Court is using Twitter as a communication platform.  The first tweet was released on April 5, 2010, with subsequent tweets offering links to briefs, opinions, filings, and court news.  You can subscribe to an RSS feed of the tweets or follow the Florida Supreme Court on twitter via @flcourts.

Hat tip to The Florida Bar News.

Courtroom View Network

Courtroom View Network produces court videos and provides many to Westlaw. CVN covers litigation via web casts, includes a searchable archive back to 2006, and provides content on the CVN website for firms and libraries for a fee.  

Tobacco Verdict Upheld by Florida Court

Prof. Rogow of NSU Law is quoted in this article discussing the recent 3rd DCA appeal upholding a $24 million verdict. He also argued the appeal. Law.com 

All Federal Courts on CM/ECF now

From the Federal Court newsletter the Third Branch: "When the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd and 11th Circuits went live with the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system on January 4, 2010, they completed the transition of all of the federal Judiciary’s 12 regional appeals courts to the system." Article

Debating the Election of Judges

"For years now, judicial reform groups have more or less resigned themselves to the reality that the public likes to elect its state judges and will fight any effort to appoint them instead."

Themes in this timely article come in the wake of Citizens United and include the ethics, reforms, excesses, and arguments for and against judicial elections. Law.com

ABA Sends Letter to Attorney General Holder Supporting Federal Trials for Guantanamo Detainees

Saying that the alternative, trials before the original military commissions, "would have failed to provide the credibility that is essential to acceptance of any final verdict", ABA President Carolyn Lamm expressed the ABA's support of the Justice Department's decision to move the trials to federal court.  Read the BLT blog post for more details, including a link to the full text of the letter.

Would you like a little Xanax with that fill-up?

According to some court watchers, the Supreme Court appears set to unleash a massive wave of corporate political speech.  In an unusual move, the court ordered a re-hearing of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.  The case was a challenge by Citizens United to an FEC ruling that limited the group's ability to broadcast a video that was highly critical of then-candidate Hilary Clinton during the 2008 political campaign.  Corporate money was used in the production of the video, and as the law currently stands, campaign spending by corporations and unions is treated differently from spending by individuals.  These limits on corporations have been in place for more than 100 years.  

Considering the huge advantage in available cash that corporations enjoy, lifting the restrictions on corporate spending is carrying the fiction that a corporation is an artificial person too far.  Given that ExxonMobile had a gross profit of $190,000,000.00 for the last quarter of 2008, while Pfizer grossed a mere $40,184,000.00, I know I would not be alone in feeling that at last I had lost any notional ability to petition my Congressperson, in the rising tide of corporate spending.  Even though lobbying by corporations currently renders private citizens' ability to influence their elected officials risible (check out OpenSecrets.org for a scarifying look at who's spending what to buy whom) , allowing unlimited political spending by corporations would officially put an end to democracy. Unless, of course, you're talking about democracy for corporations.

Judge Sotomayor's Opening Statement

Just in Time for the Fourth, News from the SCOTUS

SCOTUSblog has released its report on October term, 2008.  Among other things, the report shows how many times each Justice voted with the majority, how many decisions each justice wrote, the ideological alignment of each justice, the court's work load, and the majority/dissent break-down of the court on each case decided. 

A particularly fascinating chart shows the number of times each justice was in agreement or disagreement with every other justice.  Chief Justice Roberts, for example, was in full agreement with Justice Alito 85% of the time, with Justice Stevens 37% of the time.  The memo summarizing the Court's year reveals that while seven circuit courts of appeal had all of their decisions reversed, the Eleventh Circuit had a 100% affirmance rate (granted, this was only three cases). 

CQ Video: Notorious Supreme Court Nomination Hearings