College's Supreme Court Preview on C-Span
The Law School's Supreme Court Preview panel
will be featured Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. on C-Span’s American and the Courts.
Check local cable programming for channels.
Each fall for the last 20 years participants have gathered at the
William and Mary Law School for its annual Supreme Court Preview. Legal
experts, scholars and journalists who cover the Court come to examine
its upcoming session and dissect its rulings from the previous term.
This year, participants came to the mid-September event sponsored by
the College’s Institute of Bill of Rights Law to talk about the court
led by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
“The 2007 - 2008 was the best Preview ever. Nearly all panelists had
argued cases before the Supreme Court and their real world experience
translated into amazing insights about the workings of the Court,” said
Neal Devins, director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law and
Goodrich Professor of Law at the William and Mary Law School.
During the two-day preview journalists and scholars closely examined
issues surrounding the constitutionality of the Military Commissions
Act and how the Act affects the ability of Guantanamo detainees to seek
habeas relief from federal courts. This Moot Court case was argued by
Pam Karlan of the Stanford Law School and University of Utah S.J.
Quinney School of Law professor and federal appeals court judge Michael
McConnell.
“The Moot Court session was particularly interesting this year. Both in
terms of the case that was argued, and the discussion on that case, as
well as having Judge Michael McConnell acting as one of the advocates
in the case said Christine Nemachek, author of Strategic Selection:
Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover
Through George W. Bush and associate professor of government at William
and Mary.”
Preview panels also addressed the Supreme Court's role in policing
presidential war making, issues pertaining to business law, criminal
procedure, election law, individual rights, and judicial modesty.
Several William and Mary Law School faculty members participated in the
discussions including, Nancy Combs and William Van Alstyne. Former Bush
Justice Department official John Yoo (author of the so-called terror
memo); former Clinton Justice Department official Walter Dellinger;
Donald Virelli of Jenner & Block; Erwin Chemerinsky from Duke Law
School and journalists Joan Biskupic from USA Today, Stuart Taylor from
National Journal and Linda Greenhouse from the New York Times also
participated in the panel discussions.
As in years past, C-Span taped the event for broadcast on its American and the Courts series. The first panel will be aired Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. on the C-Span network.
