5-4

(Newser) - Barack Obama isn’t likely to name a Supreme Court justice anytime soon, but he will be shifting the federal judicial balance almost immediately, the Washington Post reports. Democrats currently hold just 36% of appeals court judgeships, but that should jump to 58% by the end of Obama’s first term. These lower appeals courts decide more than 30,000 cases a year; while the Supreme Court hears less than 100. More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama's election is unlikely to transform the Supreme Court, as the four justices of the conservative bloc are unlikely to retire. But if the 88-year-old John Paul Stevens departs, the new president will have an opportunity to make his mark. Court observers speculate that Obama would choose a more moderate voice over a liberal crusader, but everyone agrees: the new president will almost certainly pick a woman. More »

(Newser) - One of the boons for the next president was thought to be the chance to appoint a justice or two to the Supreme Court. But though John Paul Stevens is 88 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg 75, neither has indicated an intention to retire. Ginsberg has twice demurred, saying Stevens, who is “going strong at age 88,” is a role model, writes Jan Crawford Greenburg for ABC. More »

(Newser) - Before electing a “left-wing ideologue,” Americans should reconsider who “moderate-posing” Barack Obama would put on the Supreme Court, Edward Whelan writes in the National Review . The Democrat will select ultra-liberals for a bench already “markedly to the left of the American public,” he cautions: “Simply put, the survival of the historic American experiment in representative government will be in serious jeopardy.” More »

(Newser) - Last summer's Supreme Court decision that ruled citizens have an individual right to possess guns drew hosannas from the American right wing. But now the court's ruling is coming under attack—from conservative legal scholars. As the New York Times reports, two Reagan-appointed judges have called DC v. Heller the conservative version of Roe v. Wade, unjustly transferring a political question from the states into the courts. More »

(Newser) - The next president will be able to either preserve the Supreme Court’s current ideological balance, or set it on a new conservative path, the Wall Street Journal reports. The youngest of the court’s liberals is 69, while the oldest of the conservatives is only 72. Hence, John McCain could deliver the most conservative court in decades, while Barack Obama would be likely to maintain the status quo. More »

(Newser) - The Supreme Court and its Bush-era conservative additions launch a second term today, set to consider "pre-emption" cases that determine whether federal regulation makes drug and tobacco companies immune from state-level lawsuits. Other cases will determine penalties against profanity on radio or TV, a major sexual harassment question, and whether religious groups can erect public monuments, reports NPR.   More »

(Newser) - The Supreme Court misconstrued a key fact in reaching its recent decision banning the death penalty for child rape, reports the New York Times . Swing justice Anthony Kennedy mistakenly noted in his decision that child rapists did not face the death penalty in federal jurisdiction. But in fact the rape of a child was made a military capital crime when the military code of justice was revised in 2006. More »

(AP) - The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in US history. The court's 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with the Second Amendment, the AP reports. But the decision probably leaves most firearms laws intact. More »

(Newser) - The Supreme Court found today that the “death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” striking down a Louisiana law as cruel and unusual punishment. While the court split 5-4 on the hot-button issue—swing justice Anthony Kennedy penned the opinion—there has not been an execution in 44 years for a crime that didn’t involve a victim’s death. More »

(Newser) - Today's Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to challenge their detention "will be one of the most celebrated landmark rulings of this generation," Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon. By upholding habeas corpus—a rebuke to the Bush administration and complicit pols of all stripes—the court rescued one of the nation's most important principles. More »

(Newser) - Terror suspects have the right to challenge their detention in US federal courts, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today, in yet another blow to the Bush administration's terrorism policies. The ruling dismisses the military tribunals currently in effect in Guantanamo Bay as an inadequate substitute for a court review of detainees' status as "enemy combatant." More »

(Newser) - "Get over it," Justice Antonin Scalia tells critics who accuse the Supreme Court of letting political motivations affect its 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore. Plus, Al Gore was responsible for pushing the Florida recount through the courts, Scalia points out in an upcoming 60 Minutes interview. And while he's a self-confessed social conservative, "it does not affect my views on cases," he says. More »