Justice Anton Scalia announced a decision from the bench today:

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present.

The Michigan ruling applied even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, and read his dissent from the bench: [More...]

President Obama will begin the announcement of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court any moment. I'll do some live-blogging of his remarks.

Obama enters with Joe Biden and Sonia Sotomayor who is smiling very broadly (who wouldn't be?)

Few of a president's responsibilities are more serious than selecting a supreme court justice. I don't take this decision lightly. It was made after careful deliberation. Qualities needed: Rigorous intellect, mastery of the law, ability to hone in on issues. Recognition of limits of judge's role. Commitment to impartial justice, not to make law but interpret it. But we need more: [More...]

Update: CNN factsheet on Judge Sotomayor.

Thanks to ScotusBlog for its analysis of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's legal opinions in civil cases and cases in which at least one judge dissented. There are some criminal cases in the "dissent" category.

• Decisions in which at least one other judge dissented
• Civil Opinions, Part IV
• Civil Opinions, Part III
• Civil Opinions, Part II
• Civil Opinions, Part I

As for the arguments that will be made against her appointment, ScotusBlog lists and analyzes four. [More...]

President Barack Obama will make history today, nominating the first hispanic justice for the Supreme Court, 2nd Circuit appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor. NYTimes:

President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.

If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

The announcement will come at 10:15 am. Analysis of her 2nd Circuit opinions. More . . .

The California Supreme Court will issue its long-awaited decision on gay marriage today. Some recent news coverage:

• Hundreds pray on eve of Prop 8 ruling
• Weariness and confidence as foes and backers of Proposition 8 await court ruling
  
• California Supreme Court to issue same-sex marriage decision today
• Gay-Marriage Fight to Persist in California
• California Couples Await Gay Marriage Ruling

Predictions, anyone?

I'll be watching The Bachelorette and posting on PopLeft.

The Lakers and Nuggets square off again in Game 4 of the WCF at the Pepsi Center. the Lakers are leading 2 to 1. Go Nuggets! (But they can't compete with The Bachelorette.)

I hope you all had a good weekend, we had three days of rain.

A legal question from the TL kid for any lawyers reading: Defendant is being re-tried and the victim is unavailable. Can the prosecutor call a juror from the first trial as a witness at the retrial to testify about a gesture the victim made while on the stand? The record of the victim's testimony at the first trial does not reflect the gesture.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

In January 2008, after writing for many months about Barack Obama's Clinton/Third Way campaign, I found agreement from E.J. Dionne:

Obama's not particularly original insight was a central premise of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. . . . In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he'd be advising Obama and cheering him on.

Of course the problem here is it is 2008, not 1992. As I have written, I believe Bill Clinton would NOT be running his 1992 campaign today. . . The politics of today demand a politics of contrast from Fighting Democrats. . . . It is ironic that it is Barack Obama who is reliving 1992.

Today, Dionne argues that Obama is succeeding in creating a Third Way:

In the wake of the housing collapse there's naturally been a lot of debate about the role of homeowners who took on risky mortgages (or houses they simply couldn't afford) in inflating the bubble.

But this is a distraction from the real causes of the credit and housing bubbles which as Calculated Risk recently pointed out were driven by: [More...]

Glenn Greenwald points to Sen. Russ Feingold's letter (PDF) to President Obama regarding, in part, the issue of preventive detentions. Feingold's letter is one I hope we can all applaud. For example, Feingold writes:

It is hard to imagine that our country would regard as acceptable a system in another country where an individual other than a prisoner of war is held indefinitely without charge or trial.

(Emphasis supplied.) I agree. It has been my view since the issue of "preventive detention" came into view (during the Bush Administration) that the issue of defining "enemy combatants" and establishing a proper process of review for such a designation by the Executive are the critical questions raised. To be clear, they are raised in Gitmo, in the United States AND in Bagram, Afghanistan. More . . .

A little history of Memorial Day:

It was first observed in 1865 as Decoration Day by liberated slaves, who independently set up, decorated and proclaimed an ad-hoc graveyard – a field of "passionless mounds" – to honor dead Union soldiers.

Here's the original Memorial Day Order: [More...]

A name to remember. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed an emotionally charged proposal late Friday to allow terminally ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes, but signed into law a plan to disburse hundreds of millions of dollars from the Legacy Amendment passed by Minnesotans last year.

A bill Pawlenty didn't veto:

He also signed a bill late Thursday that allows police to pull over drivers solely because they or their passengers are not wearing seat belts. Currently, officers must spot another traffic offense before they can stop a vehicle and ticket someone for not being strapped in. The new law is effective June 9, and carries a $25 fine.

In 2008, Pawlenty has the most vetoes of any MN Governor. Here's what he had to say about the pot bill: [More...]

If you're looking for another source of unnecessary anxiety -- if Harry Reid's dread of Guantanamo detainees being housed in American prisons isn't enough to make you hide under your bed -- you should read the Wall Street Journal's alarmist warnings that the dark forces of Islam will find "fertile ground for terrorist recruitment" in the nation's prisons. This latest fear arises from the "possibility" that the four men charged with plotting bombings in New York are Muslim and that "some may have converted in prison." As usual, the WSJ story ignores the likelihood that the "plot" was devised and/or encouraged by the government informant who gave them away.

Terrorist recruiters looking for a collection of people with antisocial tendencies will certainly find them in prison. To convert criminals into terrorists, however, the recruiter must himself be sent to prison, and must build relationships with violent inmates who are willing to betray their country by engaging in risky mayhem without profit. His recruitment pool will be limited to inmates who will be released while they're still young enough to do some harm -- a serious limitation since the most violent criminals will be serving lengthy sentences. And since prisons are filled with snitches, the recruiter must do his work without being exposed to prison officials who will happily lock him up in segregation on an informant's say-so. On the whole, the threat that inmates will join an Islamic terrorist cell seems less dire than the threat that they'll join a violent group of white supremacists like the Aryan Brotherhood.

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