A blog post by Keith Lee at Associate’s Mind, found here inspired me to listen to the oral argument made in the U.S. cases listed.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld considered the clarity required to find that the court’s habeas corpus jurisdiction has been suspended by Congress. The most exciting part of the argument, which can be heard here, involved an exchange between Paul D. Clement, 43rd Solicitor General of the United States, and Justice Souter at minutes 62:30-69:40.
Earlier this month, I attended a legal conference in Denver, Colorado, at which Paul D. Clement spoke. I could not resist taking advantage of his good nature.
Paul D. Clement, 43rd Solicitor General of the United States, and Guillermo Schible on September 6, 2013 at Annual Conference of Hispanic National Bar Association in Denver, CO.
United States v. Jones, which can be heard here, considered the constitutionality of warrantless tracking of a suspect’s car by GPS. At minutes 7-8, Deputy Solicitor General, Michael R. Dreeben, suggested to Chief Justice Roberts that it would not be unconstitutional for law enforcement to surreptitiously place a GPS tracking device on the cars of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to track them for a month. He lost.
But the case was remanded; and subsequently the government successfully used cell phone site location data, instead; see.
There was a moment of levity in one of the most significant cases to be argued since 2000, Gore v. Bush at minutes 35:30-38.
I recommend listening to the entire oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas, here. The case involved a constitutional challenge to the consideration of race as an admissions criterion by a state university. An unsuccessful white applicant argued that this violates the Equal Protection Clause. The case was extremely well-argued by all sides. The pièce de résistance, however, was the unusually lengthy reply argument by Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., at minutes 55:30-69. He handled Justice Alito’s question on the “ROTC argument” and addressed the standard of judicial review of any school’s application of its admissions policy, beautifully.
Hit me up with your oral argument recommendations.