The latest news, practice pointers and resources for Ohio appellate law
Update: On November 1, 2012, the Supreme Court handed down a merit decision in this case. Read the analysis here.
On January 18, 2012, the Supreme Court of Ohio heard oral argument in the case of State v. Emerson, 2011-0486. The issues in the case are whether the state violated the defendant’s privacy rights…
Update: Ohio Attorney General DeWine appealed the stay of execution order in the Lorraine case to the U.S. Supreme Court. On February 8, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift the stay of execution.
As I have previously written here and here, Justice Paul Pfeifer has really stepped up his public criticism of Ohio’s…
Update: On November 1, 2012, the Supreme Court handed down a merit decision in this case. Read the analysis here.
On January 18, 2012, the Supreme Court of Ohio will hear oral argument in the case of State v. Emerson, 2011-0486. The issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in denying…
In my last post, I wrote about recusal at the supreme court level. That’s when a justice has to get off a case because of some kind of conflict. In recent times, the reverse of recusal has emerged. We now have “unrecusal.”
One of the most common reasons a judge has to get off a…
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear more than five hours of arguments challenging President Obama’s signature Affordable Health Care Act . There have been rumblings from the right and the left seeking to force Justices Kagan and Thomas to recuse (remove) themselves from this case, albeit for entirely different reasons. In…
It’s been a quiet December at the high court. January is likely to be busy, as the Court has lots of cases under submission. Oral arguments resume January 17, 2012. Happy New Year to all.
The Supreme Court of Ohio has now set two execution dates in death penalty cases. In the first of these, State v. Philips, case number 94-2208, the order was signed by Justice Paul Pfeifer as acting Chief Justice, because Maureen O’Connor was once involved as a prosecutor in this case. Justice Pfeifer is the senior…
The Supreme Court of Ohio has just done its first complete overhaul of what began in 1985 as the Manual of Citations ( for those of my generation, think bluebook, unless that makes you think of taking law school exams). Revisions were released in July of 1992 and July of 2002 (to conform the revisions…
The case of In re M.W., 2011-0215, argued on December 6, raised once again the argument that when it comes to crime and punishment, juveniles are different from adults. Here are a trio of recent U.S.Surpeme Court decisions on this point, all cited in M.W.’s brief.
In 2005, in Roper v. Simmons, 543…
On Wednesday December 14, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer testified before the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee in favor of a bill to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without the possibility of parole. The bill, House Bill 160, is sponsored by Democrats Ted Celeste of Columbus (brother of former governor…
