Justice Alito Comments On Life Outside the Cert Pool: Last Friday, Tony Mauro posted on a rare in-chambers interview with Justice Alito. Beginning with a candid look at Justice Alito's post-World Series excitement, Mauro eventually moves on to "Supreme Court related subjects," such as the Justice's decision to leave the cert pool this year. Mauro report's Alito "just wanted to see what it would be like," and is "very pleased," with his decision.

Academics Propose New Way To Grant Cert: At Dorf on the Law, Mike Dorf reports on a new academic proposal by emeritus Cornell Law Professor Roger Cramton and Duke Law Professor Paul Carrington. The two professors propose a restoration of "a good deal of the Supreme Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction," with a new Supreme Court division, consisting of experienced federal appeals court judges deciding what cases the Court will decide. Supreme Court Justices would not lose all influence in the certioriari process, Cramton and Carrington propose allowing Justices to add to the cases selected by the appeals court judges. Dorf writes that the proposal could restore "more 'mundane' cases" to the Court's docket. Dorf also states that appeals court judges would likely have a better sense of what circuit splits need resolving than the Justices or their law clerks. Dorf also briefly discusses Cramton and Carrington's claim that their proposal would "rein in the tendency of the Supreme Court (and the emulating tendency of lower court judges) to act as a 'super-legislature.'" This is not the authors' first proposal for Supreme Court reform, in 2005 Cramton and Carrington had another idea for the Supreme Court: 18 year term limits for each Justice.

Is the Death Penalty "Dying a Slow Death"?: Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy seems to think so. Today, Berman posted that the "slow death" of the death penalty in America can be seen in "data showing the reduction of death penalty indictments brought by prosecutors and death sentences imposed by juries." He references this article from the Columbus Dispatch by John Futty, to support his argument. However, what is true in Franklin County, Ohio, may not be true for the rest of the country. In the Dispatch article Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien cited two reasons for the declining number of death-penalty indictments: a more critical review of the cases before presenting them to a grand jury, and a change in state law.

Errant Juror: Mike Scarcella at BLT has this post on the juror who left the Sen. Ted Stevens trial in D.C. due to the death of her father in California. Turns out Dad is alive and well, but the juror wanted to attend the Breeders' Cup race at Santa Anita.