WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, Feb. 26

The justices will hear oral argument this morning in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Supreme Court to decide if states can control fate of social media (Cat Zakrzewski & Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post)
• Does the First Amendment apply to social media moderation? The U.S. Supreme Court will decide. (Pooja Salhotra, The Texas Tribune)
• Social media cases head to SCOTUS — but conservatives may have already won (Rebecca Kern, Politico)
• Democratic Governors Brace for Supreme Court Abortion Pill Ruling (Ian Lopez & Celine Castronuovo, Bloomberg Law)
• Big Tech Censorship Goes to the Supreme Court (Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal)

RELIST WATCH

Holding protest organizers liable for injuries

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

The Supreme Court took care of a lot of relist business at its last conference, denying review in four serially relisted cases, in each instance with separate writings from the justices.

It finally denied review in the two cases challenging New York rent stabilization laws as a taking, which had been relisted 11 times since the court’s end-of-summer long conference. Justice Clarence Thomas filed an opinion respecting the denial of review, saying that while it was appropriate to deny review because of how the issues were presented here, eventually the court should address the issue in an appropriate case.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, Feb. 23

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• While eyes are on Trump, Supreme Court conservatives prepare to rewrite the rulebook (Joan Biskupic, CNN)
• ‘Josh Is a Show Pony. Erin Is a Workhorse.’ (Kathy Gilsinan, Politico)
• Meet Big Tech’s legal bulldog at the center of two major Supreme Court cases (Issie Lapowsky, Fast Company)
• Roberts and Thomas absent from public information on justices’ travel (Kelsey Reichmann, Courthouse News Service)
• Beating the Clock (Michael Meltsner, The American Prospect)

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, Feb. 22

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read:

• Supreme Court Seems Ready to Block a Biden Plan on Air Pollution (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court weighs blocking a federal plan to cut smog pollution (Akielly Hu, Grist)
• Supreme Court faces continued strong disapproval, poll shows (Christine Zhu, Politico)
• Judge criticizes US Supreme Court’s reliance on historical ‘tradition’ (Nate Raymond, Reuters) 
• Supreme Court Rules for Georgia Man on Double Jeopardy Claim (Lydia Wheeler, Bloomberg)

OPINION ANALYSIS

Double jeopardy clause bars Georgia from retrying man acquitted by reason of insanity

So what would you expect if a state supreme court wrote an opinion directly inconsistent with “perhaps the most fundamental rule” of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in the area, an opinion that would get a failing grade in any law school course on criminal law? Well, your first guess would be that the Supreme Court would unanimously reverse, and if you were bold you’d predict a short opinion assigned because of its triviality to the most junior justice. That is about what we got Wednesday with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s brief opinion for a unanimous court in McElrath v. Georgia.

McElrath involves a tragic crime in which a mentally ill defendant killed the woman who adopted him, based in part on a delusional belief that she was poisoning him. Georgia charged Damian McElrath with malice (that is, premeditated) murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. At the trial, the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity of the most serious charge (malice murder), but guilty on the two lesser charges of felony murder and aggravated assault.