SCOTUS Watch: Order List

The Supreme Court has no oral arguments this week. On Friday, they have a scheduled non-argument sitting. This might be a time to swear in people to the bar. There is a reference to seating being available. 

Seems like a good time to allow cameras, especially since a dodge often is that advocates will play to the cameras or some small sample will be broadcast. Other courts manage to televise so this is bullshit. But, we do not even have that sort of concern here.

Anyway, we start with an Order List. As usual, I wish there was a FAQ to help clarify usual terms and happenings. Also, the website did not just have a "print to file" order list. Why cannot the website provide an order list with links to the docket pages for the cases covered? I do not know why.

The Supreme Court took one case with interesting facts:

Because Diaz could only be convicted of drug trafficking if the government could prove that Diaz knew she was transporting drugs, prosecutors called a Homeland Security agent as an expert witness at her trial. The agent testified that drug couriers generally know when they are carrying drugs across the border. Indeed, he noted, drug traffickers rarely use blind mules to carry large quantities of drugs because they don’t want to risk losing the drugs. Diaz was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Does testimony regarding these so-called "blind mules" like this violate federal rules of evidence? We shall see. We also have a right to wonder why this question was not answered by now. Anyway, expect some law school Q&A when that oral argument arises.

Justice Jackson (with the liberals) dissented from a denial involving conditions of confinement. Michael Johnson is in solitary confinement. She argues that a correct application of the "deliberation indifference" standard. The facts make this not that hard to imagine:

Most notably, Johnson’s mental state deteriorated rapidly. He suffered from hallucinations, excoriated his own flesh, urinated and defecated on himself, and smeared feces all over his body and cell. Johnson became suicidal and sometimes engaged in misconduct with the hope that prison guards would beat him to death.

"Given this indisputable legal error, I would grant certiorari and summarily reverse." An appropriate application of the test very well might warrant that result. Who knows what the application of the six conservatives, including selective libertarian (especially when it's not the federal government) Neil Gorsuch, would look like. But, her role is to dissent for the future.  

The Eighth Amendment has not had much success at the Supreme Court in recent decades.  One exception is a few special cases, primarily involving the death penalty.  And, that often required O'Connor and/or Kennedy.  Things addressed are even narrower now.  Two executions are scheduled later this week.