WASHINGTON — A recast Supreme Court kicked off its new term Monday, with novice Justice Sonia Sotomayor immediately taking center stage.
In just an hour, the court’s newest justice asked more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas asks over the course of several years.
Sotomayor’s aggressive role in a Fifth Amendment case, in turn, underscored how she could put her stamp on a court whose 2009-10 docket is still taking shape.
“The Supreme Court is already off to a notable start, and there is so much more to come,” Caroline Fredrickson, the executive director of the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers organization, said before inaugural oral argument Monday.
The 55-plus cases already scheduled for the coming months cover everything from gun rights and patent protection to free speech and the punishment of juveniles. The court is likely to accept another 25 or so cases before the 2009-10 term ends next June.
As always, some cases are acutely technical: dry as dust pension disputes, for instance. Others carry constitutional significance, a compelling set of facts or sometimes both.
Today, for instance, the court will consider the criminal conviction of a man who sold videotapes of pit bulls fighting. Virginia resident Robert J. Stevens was sentenced to 37 months in prison for violating a federal law that bans depictions of animal cruelty.
Stevens — joined by civil libertarians, book publishers and the entertainment industry, among others — argues that the law infringes on free speech. The Obama administration defends the law as reasonable, saying that “the value of the speech” is outweighed by its “social costs.”
An equally anticipated set of cases from Florida questions whether it’s cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
So far, the court’s 2009-10 docket lacks some familiar controversies, including abortion, the death penalty and Guantanamo Bay detentions. That could still change, particularly if the justices agree to hear a pending case called Kiyemba v. Obama, involving the power of a federal judge to order the release of Chinese Uighurs from Guantanamo.
Demonstrators dressed in orange prison jumpsuits and black hoods gathered on the Supreme Court steps Monday morning before the first case was heard, calling attention to the treatment of war-on-terrorism detainees.
Other Supreme Court actions
Document release: Refused to block the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests in Connecticut for alleged sexual abuse. Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.
Energy royalties: Let stand a ruling that the Obama administration says could block the federal government from collecting as much as $19 billion in royalties from energy companies that are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
License plates: Ruled that Illinois need not offer “Choose Life” license plates to motorists, turning down a free-speech claim from Choose Life Illinois Inc., a group that supports adoption and opposes abortion. State officials said Illinois did not want to appear to be taking a position on the abortion issue.
Property dispute: Said it won’t get involved in a dispute between breakaway Episcopalians and their former national church over who owns a California church and its property.
Pledge recitation: Rejected an appeal to review a Florida law that requires public-school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each day unless they have their parents’ written permission excusing them.
