This morning, the US Supreme Court has asked for the views of the Texas Solicitor General about a pending petition. At least in my memory, that’s a first.
The case is Rhine v. Deaton (08-1596), which I blogged about earlier today. My earlier post includes links that will take you to the Texas Supreme Court briefing and Texas court of appeals opinions.
I would write a little more about this now, but I’m writing from the passenger seat of a car in the mountains of West Virginia.
See also: SCOTUSblog’s first note this morning about the order.
3 responses so far ↓
1 JC // Oct 5, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Seems curious that SCOTUS would request a statement of Texas’ official position from an office whose existence is recognized by neither the Texas Legislature nor the Texas Constitution. No doubt the SG would ultimately provide this statement anyway, but it’s a little funny that they bypassed Mr. Abbott.
2 Don Cruse // Oct 5, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Actually, Abbott takes some pride in the accomplishments of the SG’s office during his tenure. This seems more like a feather in his cap than a personal slight.
As I understand it, the U.S. Supreme Court has not requested the views of a state attorney general in several decades. During that time, several states (including Texas) have established robust SG’s offices on the federal model. With that in mind, directing a request to the state SG seems perfectly natural to me.
3 SCOTUS denies review of petition challenging Texas parental-termination system // Jan 25, 2010 at 3:36 pm
[…] case became notable when the US Supreme Court formally called for the views of the Texas state solicitor general, believed to be the first such request. The Texas SG did file that invitation brief, recommending […]