Guantanamo Detainees Seek to Attend Hearing: Lyle Denniston reports at SCOTUSblog that lawyers for the Uighurs - the Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo - have filed a motion requesting that four of the 17 detainees be flown to Washington, D.C. for the hearing on their plea. The motion also requests that the remaining 13 be allowed to listen live from Guantanamo via telephone. Denniston reports the Justice Department is likely to oppose the plea even though the Pentagon has indicated that five of the Uighurs will no longer be treated as “enemy combatants.” The opposition is consistent with Justice Department's policy of opposing any detainee being brought to the U.S. mainland for any purpose. U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, who is scheduled to hold the hearing on October 7th, has not indicated whether he would allow a detainee to brought into his court. District Judge Richard J. Leon, another District judge handling the hearings, has indicated he would only allow detainee participation through telephone hook-up.

The Winning Brief: David Zaring has this post at Conglomerate Blog asking "How much of a Supreme Court opinion is lifted from the winning brief?" The post discusses a paper written by Pamela Corley, a faculty member at Vanderbilt University, which examines the relationship between the briefs filed and the resulting Court opinion. According to Zaring, results of the study show that during the 2002, 2003, and 2004 terms, "[t]he average overlap between opinion and winning party brief then was roughly 10%." The study also apparently shows "Rehnquist and O'Connor were the justices most likely to borrow from the briefs." Rehnquist reportedly relied on the content of the briefs 14% of the time, and O'Connor 11.5%, during 2002, 2003, and 2004. The study is in an upcoming issue of Political Research Quarterly. Zaring has a link to the gated version here.

Timid Defense Attorney: Nathan Koppel has a post on Wall Street Journal Blog discussing the Ninth Circuit's rejection of a defense counsel's claim that Judge Manuel Real "should be replaced in a criminal case because defense lawyers were allegedly afraid of the judge." The defendant's lawyer claimed that because of "'“a generalized pattern of cowering by attorneys who appear in this district court[,]'" Judge Real should be dismissed. The Ninth found the allegation was not supported by the record. The Ninth Circuit said the allegation was not supported by the record. “We note that neither [the defendant’s] attorney nor the government’s attorney faltered in the least bit in their arguments or retreated from their positions at the sentencing and restitution hearings[.]" Apparently, the attorney told the Daily Journal in Los Angeles (link unavailable, but click here for a blog post from the ABA Journal), “I’m very timid in front of him, and my clients don’t get my best efforts" Of course, it wasn't all good news for Judge Real. Koppel reports the Ninth Circuit found the Judge erred in sentencing and remanded the case back to the judge.