Gorsuch Seen as a Maverick:  In several cases over the just-ended Supreme Court term, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has parted ways with conservatives to buttress the rights of individuals over government authority.  David Savage of the Los Angeles Times reports on how Gorsuch has strayed from the court's conservatives, mostly writing dissents, in cases including one involving an Alabama man who was prosecuted twice for carrying a gun in his car, and another involving two African American men from Texas who were sentenced to more than 50 years in prison for robbing gas stations. But the reporter also included Gundy v. United States, where Gorsuch wrote a 33-page dissent, joined by Thomas and Roberts arguing to rein in the administrative state.  While, on the surface, one might expect the conservatives to drop the hammer on a sex offender convicted of failing to register with the state of Maryland under a law adopted two years after his crime.  But it was the liberals, led by Justice Kagan and joined reluctantly by Alito, who upheld Gundy's conviction in a holding which strained to preserve the administrative state..  Gorsuch and company noted that it was unconstitutional for Congress to delegate to the Attorney General the authority to restrict someone's liberty.    

Courts Split on CA Accomplice Murder Law:  A 2018 law signed by Governor Jerry Brown (SB 1437), which severely limits a prosecutors ability to charge accomplices to homicide with first-degree murder, is being held unconstitutional by judges in some California counties and is allowing judges in other counties to free accomplices.  J.K. Dineen of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that a bay area judge cited SB 1437 to release a 29-year-old accomplice to a 2008 robbery-murder, while 400 miles to the south, San Bernardino County judges are rejecting petitions for release from accomplices, finding that new law is unconstitutional.  In some counties local judges are divided on the validity of the law.  Gretchen Wenner and Megal Diskin of the Ventura County Star report that last Friday a Ventura County judge refused the petition of an Oxnard woman convicted of being an accomplice to a 2008 robbery and murder.  Weeks earlier, another Ventura judge upheld a gang-murderer's petition for resentencing under the new law.  Prosecutors argue that SB 1437 violates initiatives adopted by voters in 1978 and 1990 which included accomplice murder.  The issue is almost certain to end up before the California Supreme Court.