U.S. Supreme Court Opinions: SCOTUSblog has posts on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions released today. Today the Court announced rulings in Begay v. United States, Baze v. Rees, and Burgess v. United States. Lyle Denniston's in-depth post on the opinion in Baze can be found here, and a quick summary of Breyer's majority opinion in Begay can be found here.

Kennedy v. Louisiana: Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kennedy, a case addressing Louisiana's implementation of the death penalty for child rape. Corey Rayburn Yung's summary of the arguments can be found at Sex Crimes Blog.

Concurring Opinions: Dave Hoffman at Concurring Opinions has an interesting post comparing Stevens' and Scalia's concurring opinions in Baze. Both Scalia and Stevens address whether empirical studies support the deterrence theory of capital punishment. Stevens notes recent scholarship supporting the deterrent effect but then claims, without explanation, that the criticisms of those studies constitute "an equal, if not greater, amount of scholarship." Scalia asserts the Court cannot rely on empirical studies when making this judgment - at least not yet. Hoffman says, "Justice Scalia has the better of the argument here."

Giles Preview: Richard Friedman at The Confrontation Blog has this post on an article he wrote for the ABA's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. Giles will be argued on April 22 and addresses whether an accused forfeits his right to confront a witness who would have testified against him if he murders the witness. Friedman is an amicus in Giles, taking the unusual posture of supporting the petition for certiorari at the petition stage but supporting the respondent on the merits. His article can be found here.