UPDATE: Our story on today's oral argument appears here at legaltimes.com.
The Supreme Court issued only one ruling this morning, the latest in a series of "ineffective assistance of counsel" cases that pepper the Court's docket. As it often does, the Court struck down a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- in this case a decision that would have given a convicted California murderer a new trial because his lawyer abandoned an insanity plea at trial.
Ruling for a unanimous Court in Knowles v. Mirzayance, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that state courts did not violate clearly established federal law, as established by high court precedent, when they dismissed Alexandre Mirzayance's ineffective-assistance claim. The 9th Circuit later found the defendant had ineffective assistance, according to Thomas. because it felt the lawyer had "nothing to lose" by making an insanity defense. "This court has never established anything akin" to a "nothing to lose" standard, Thomas wrote.
Also on Tuesday, the Court heard spirited disagreement over whether a 90-minute anti-Hillary Clinton movie that was released during the 2008 presidential campaign should be regulated under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law barring "electioneering communication" paid for by corporate treasury funds. Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher argued in Citizens United v. FEC that the law's restrictions violated freedom of speech in part because the movie, funded by the conservative group Citizens United, was almost impossible to distinguish from a documentary deserving First Amendment protection.
The justices seemed divided -- and confused -- until Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, under tough questioning, said that under his theory, the government could legally bar a corporation or union from publishing a book deemed to be an electioneering communication before an election. That did not seem to sit well with the justices. Whether Stewart's concession turns the Court against the government and McCain-Feingold, however, remains to be seen. More later on legaltimes.com.
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