The Court is scheduled to meet in private conference this Monday and Tuesday. Any new petitions granted or cases resolved should be reflected in the Court’s normal Friday order list.

The Court’s next oral argument sitting begins October 14th.

Articles from the Past Week

• Order List for September 19, 2008

• Interesting U.S. Constitution Resource. Justice Don Willett wrote a piece for the Austin American-Statesman in honor of Constitution Day. Part of that piece mentions a new online resource that should be valuable for those trying to do research on original intent.

• Brimer–Davis Case Moves to Dallas. Just days before its scheduled oral argument, the Fort Worth Court has requested that the pending appeal between incumbent Kim Brimer and challenger Wendy Davis be transferred down Interstate 30 to the Dallas Court.

• Bob Barr Sues To Win the Texas Electoral Votes.

This week, the Court holds its first oral arguments of the Term.

The arguments will be videocast live by St. Mary’s law school. That same page also links to summaries of the issues in each case prepared by the Court’s public information officer.

Tuesday:

• Badiga v. Lopez, No. 05-0801

• Dynegy Midstream Services, L.P. v. Apache Corp., No. 07-0043

• In re Labatt Food Service, L.P., No. 07-0419

Wednesday:

• City of Pasadena v. Smith, No. 06-0948. The Court recently granted argument time in this case to the Texas Solicitor General’s Office.

• Franka v. Velasquez, No. 07-0131

• Smith v. O’Donnell, No. 07-0697

Thursday:

• Retamco Operating, Inc. v. Republic Drilling Co., No. 07-0599

• Marks v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hosp., No. 07-0783

• Spectrum Healthcare Resources, Inc. v. McDaniel, No. 07-0787

Articles from the Past Week

• Order List for September 5, 2008

• Dissension in the Third Court

The Court has a short week because of the Labor Day holiday. The usual order list is expected on Friday.

The Court begins hearing its first oral arguments of the term next Tuesday, September 9th.

Articles from the Past Week

• Labor Day Weekend Briefing Requests. Twelve more cases get selected for full merits briefing.
  

• Order List for August 29, 2008. The year-end orders.

• No Crystal Ball for Tomorrow. Some thoughts about court statistics in the lead up to the year-end order list.

• Can a Trial Judge Use Attorneys Fees To Discourage Appeal?

• The End of an Era. Justice Hecht’s beloved (and much maligned) car finally is retired. No answer yet on what our ongoing curiosity about a judge with a well-worn car says about status symbols in the legal profession.

• Cases in the News 8-26-2008. Ugly wind farms. Corporate officers on the hook, personally, for state taxes.

As last week, the Court is again holding a long conference, meeting on Monday and Tuesday. This week should be a bigger one for court watchers because this Friday is the last business day of the state fiscal year.

In 2007, the Court released opinions in 13 cases on the last day of August. On the same day in 2006, the Court released opinions in 14 cases.

The Court’s next oral argument sitting begins on September 9th.

Articles from the Past Week

• New Briefing Requests 8-22-2008. As it starts to gear up for the fall, the Court requested full briefing in 11 cases.

• Order List for 8-22-2008. Although the Court met for a long conference, its order list was quiet … perhaps the quiet before this week’s burst of opinions.

• Brimer Mandamus Denied, for Now. The Court denied Kim Brimer’s mandamus petition that attempted to accelerate his ongoing appeal in the Fort Worth Court.

This week, the Court has returned to action and is scheduled to hold private conferences today and tomorrow. Any petitions granted or cases decided should be reflected on Friday’s order list.

New Calendar Released

Today I also got an email from Blake Hawthorne, the Clerk of the Court, pointing me to the Court’s new online calendar.

Last year, the calendar was a one-page PDF file. This year, the Court has a hypertext calendar that lets you see which arguments are scheduled for a particular sitting and what those mysterious “other sessions” really are. There is also a link to add a particular calendar event to your own calendar. (( This uses a .vcs file, which seems to work fine for me. ))

If you missed the one-page view, that is also still available on another page.

I’ll explore the calendar more over time, but this is my first take:

Oral Argument Dates

The Court’s oral argument sittings for the Fall are:

• Sept. 9th-11th: The Court has already filled all nine argument slots for this sitting

• Oct. 14th-16th

• Nov. 12th-13th (a two-day sitting; Nov. 11th as Veteran’s Day)

• Dec. 9th-11th

If you have a petition that has already been granted but not yet set for argument, it will very likely be set on the October or November dates. Now that the Court has finalized its calendar, I would expect those argument settings to be made fairly soon.

On the other hand, if you are still waiting for the Court to decide whether to hear your case, the earliest you are likely to get an argument date would be December. And it’s quite possible that even the December argument dates will fill up during the Court’s long conferences of the next few weeks.

There are five argument sittings for the Spring, with the last falling at the very end of April.

Conference Dates

After an initial burst of conferences in August, the Court seems to be having one major conference sitting each month for the rest of the Fall. (November is altered slightly by the holiday.)

In the Spring, the schedule is a little more varied.

Last Week’s Articles

This is for those of you waiting on my “weekly preview” email…

• Order List for 8-15-2008.

• September Argument Calendar. The Court sets nine cases for argument in its September 9th – 11th hearing date.

This week, the Court continues its quiet summer period. No activities are scheduled other than the regular Friday order list.

Articles from the Past Week

• Order List of 7-25-2008. In the course of denying five petitions for review dealing with child custody questions, the Court issued a per curiam opinion explaining that its denial of review did not signal its agreement with the court of appeals’s constitutional analysis.

• Oral Argument Resources from the Texas Supreme Court. The Court’s archives now reach back much farther, and they will soon be joined by transcripts of arguments to make searching and skimming easier.

• Election Case Update. The latest round of litigation in the Kim Brimer – Wendy Davis election dispute.

This week, the Court’s calendar again reflects no activity other than the regular Friday order list.

As has been noted elsewhere, mid-summer is often a quiet time on the Court’s calendar, as the current group of clerks winds down and the Justices have some less structured time before gearing up again in the fall. The Court makes up for this in August, however, with substantial order lists and a traditional burst of opinions just before the end of the fiscal year. (( The Office of Court Administration, which keeps efficiency statistics for Texas courts, generally uses the fiscal year to measure performance. ))

Articles from the Past Week

• Order List for 7-11-2008. Four decisions this week: City of Waco v. Lopez, No. 06-0089; David J. Sacks, P.C. v. Haden, No. 07-0472 and the related opinion in David J. Sacks, P.C. v. Haden, 04-0487 (per curiam); and Sells v. Drott, No. 07-0848 (per curiam).

  Other coverage: Jeff Rambin of the Tyler Appeals blog has a short post about Sells v. Drott. The Texas Appellate Law Blog has its own summary of the order list.

• Cases in the News 7-8-2008

Last week, the Court held a private conference but didn’t issue its regular Friday order list due to the holiday. The last time that happened (Good Friday back in March), the Court decided nineteen new cases the following week.

No promises about this week’s order list.

Articles from the Past Week

• More Election Cases in the Pipeline. Cases in both Fort Worth and Austin district courts raise a question of Texas election law that has tripped up several challengers this year — how far in advance of the election must a challenger quit a government job to avoid violating Texas’s rule against dual office-holding?

• Perils of Fifty-State Surveys: Kennedy v. Louisiana. When declaring that there was a national “consensus” that rape was never appropriate for crimes against individuals that fell short of homicide, the U.S. Supreme Court overlooked a 2006 federal statute that imposed the death penalty for child rape under the UCMJ. The Washington Post has now called for the Court to rehear Kennedy because this kind of error calls the legitimacy of its decision into question.