#jeffrey wall

[athenabalcoff]

Jeffrey Wall is a Canadian artist best known for his large scale photographs and art history writing. He has been a key figure in Vancouver's art scene since the 1970s.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Abortion rights had a surprisingly hopeful day in the Supreme Court

Louisiana’s lawyer did such a bad job defending an anti-abortion law that she may have lost Chief Justice Roberts.

Ian Millhiser at Vox: 

Wednesday morning’s arguments in the biggest threat to abortion rights to reach the Supreme Court in nearly 30 years went so badly for Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill, who was defending Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law, that by the end even Chief Justice John Roberts appeared uncomfortable with her arguments.

Murrill spent 20 awkward minutes appearing to test whether it is possible to botch an argument badly enough to lose a case widely expected to go her way.

Given that conservatives hold the power on the Supreme Court, Louisiana still remains likely to prevail in June Medical Services LLC v. Russo. But Murrill’s performance was so weak, and the liberal justices successfully exposed so many flaws in her argument, that it raised questions about whether Roberts might join his liberal colleagues to strike down Louisiana’s law.

June Medical involves a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital that is within 30 miles of the clinic where the doctor provides abortion care. If that law sounds familiar, it should: Less than four years ago, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016), the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that is virtually identical to the one at issue in June Medical.

Indeed, the only real distinction between Whole Woman’s Health and June Medical is the makeup of the Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018, was an uneasy defender of the right to an abortion. Though he typically voted to uphold abortion restrictions, he refused to overrule Roe v. Wade (1973) outright. And he joined his liberal colleagues in Whole Woman’s Health.

Kennedy’s replacement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has historically been much more skeptical of abortion rights. And his questions at Wednesday’s oral argument left few doubts that he will vote to uphold Louisiana’s law.

Yet the case appeared to turn on Roberts, who joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health and who almost always votes to uphold abortion restrictions. Roberts repeatedly asked whether there is any difference between the burden the Texas law struck down in Whole Woman’s Health imposes on people seeking abortions and the burden imposed by the nearly identical Louisiana law.

Neither Murrill nor US Principal Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, who defended the law on behalf of the Trump administration, was able to give Roberts a straight answer.

[...]

Justices Alito and Kavanaugh offered competing arguments in defense of the anti-abortion law

Justice Samuel Alito, for his part, did his best to rescue Louisiana by arguing that the wrong party brought this particular lawsuit. In at least eight previous cases, the Supreme Court has allowed an abortion clinic or an abortion provider to bring a lawsuit challenging an abortion restriction. Alito argued that providers and clinics should be stripped of their ability to do so, meaning that future abortion suits would have to be brought by individual patients who are seeking an abortion.

But no other justice really picked up on this argument. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, suggested that maybe the Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health should be limited to just Texas. “What if all doctors in a state could easily get admitting privileges?” he asked at one point. Kavanaugh’s questions seemed to borrow from a federal appeals court opinion, which rather dubiously argued that Whole Woman’s Health should not apply in Louisiana because it is easier for Louisiana doctors to get admitting privileges than it is for Texas doctors to do so.

Roberts, for his part, initially seemed sympathetic to Kavanaugh’s argument. But his sympathy seemed to fade as the argument proceeded. Early in the argument, Roberts asked whether the question of whether a particular law violates Whole Woman’s Health is a “factual one that has to proceed state by state,” or whether all admitting privileges laws should be viewed with skepticism.

But the state was unable to demonstrate that Louisiana doctors will have an easy time getting admitting privileges. At one point, Justice Sonia Sotomayor rattled off individual doctors in Louisiana who struggled to get such privileges. At another point, Justice Stephen Breyer asked Murrill to identify which of the several doctors involved in this case presented the best case that Louisiana abortion providers can, indeed, get admitting privileges.

Murrill named a doctor who, according to the state’s own expert witness at trial, was unlikely to be able to obtain admitting privileges — an error that both Breyer and Sotomayor swiftly pounced on.

Indeed, by the end of the argument, Roberts appeared to explicitly reject Kavanaugh’s attempt to save the Louisiana law — wondering why it would make sense to treat every state differently when the (virtually nonexistent) benefits of an admitting privileges law are the same in every state.

Ian Millhiser writes for Vox about how the oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo went down today at #SCOTUS. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has typically ruled to uphold abortion restrictions, wasn't impressed with Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill's defense of her state's anti-abortion law. That may be a sign that Roberts won't vote to uphold Louisiana's anti-abortion Ac t620.  

[empiricalscotus]

Slicing and Dicing the Court's 2017 Oral Arguments

2017 Supreme Court oral arguments by the numbers (and there are a lot of them) #EmpiricalSCOTUS

While the Supreme Court is lagging in releasing its decisions this term, the justices wrapped up hearing oral arguments almost a month ago.  The justices heard 63 oral arguments between October 2017 and April 2018.  Within that block of time many expectations were reaffirmed while several new paths were blazed.

Aside from those who sit in the Supreme Court’s pews, the only means we have to gauge…

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[kontently]

Invigorating work on branding and positioning of this new Santa Cruz restaurant by Jeffrey Wall.

[stocknewspaper-blog]

"Trump administration switches sides, backs Ohio over voter purges" has been added to my site. Please visit for details. http://www.stocknewspaper.com/trump-administration-switches-sides-backs-ohio-over-voter-purges/