Tomorrow is a Big Day for the Detainees: At Scotusblog, Lyle Denniston provides a "primer" detailing detainee cases that federal courts will hear tomorrow, and next week. He also comments on the significance of each of the cases. Beginning at 9:30 am a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit will hold a hearing in Bismullah, et al., v. Gates, to determine whether the D.C. Circuit has lost the authority to decide detainees’ challenges under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The DTA had wiped out the courts' authority to decide these challenges, but, Boumediene v. Bush found the current DTA to be inadequate. With the DTA process still intact under the ruling, the Justice Department is arguing Boumediene left open only one avenue of review for detainees - habeas. Next up, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon is expected to issue his first ruling. He is expected to orally announce whether, with respect to six of the detainees, "the government, using both public and secret information, justified continued confinement of those captives? If not, what remedy will the judge impose?"

California Supreme Court Agrees to Decide the Constitutionality of Prop. 8: At Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh comments on this AP article about the high court's decision to hear three challenges to the constitutionality of Prop. 8. The petitioners in each of the cases have claimed Prop. 8 abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. Each argues "that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change...." Volokh is optimistic about the Court's resolution of the issue. He states it is "important to know what the law is on this, especially given the likelihood that Prop. 8 invalidates same-sex marriages that had been entered into after the earlier court decision but before Prop. 8's enactment." He also believes the court will hold that Prop. 8 was a valid amendment which "amends the state constitution in a way that supersedes the court's interpretation of the preexisting constitutional provisions."

North Carolina's Death Penalty: Hat tip to Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy for providing a link to a Charlotte Observer article by Dan Kane that details yesterday's oral arguments over North Carolina's death penalty. Apparently, the North Carolina justices chided doctors and legislators for not resolving the lethal injection deadlock sooner. Earlier posts and news articles reported that North Carolina has effectively endured a two-year stalemate on executions.