Scotus Roundup: Employment Law, and a Bummer for Winston & Strawn

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Nothing shocking. That seems to be the consensus among High Court watchers today, as the Court issued three rulings. In two cases — CBOCS West v. Humphries and Gomez-Perez v. Potter — the Court gave the go ahead to employees who sue when faced with retaliation for complaining about race and age discrimination.

In a third opinion, Riley v. Kennedy, the Court ruled that Alabama’s governor Bob Riley didn’t need advance approval from the federal government to fill a county commission vacancy with a fellow Republican appointee. (Find more at How Appealing and Scotus Blog.)

On another note, we found it interesting that, in one of its orders, the Court refused to review the conviction of former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan, Sr. Ryan, who’s serving a 6-1/2 year sentence for a racketeering conspiracy related to his handling of state contracts when he was Illinois secretary of state, complained that he’d been deprived of a fair trial because of judicial error. (Here’s a report on the decision from Reuters. Find past LB coverage of Ryan’s case here and here.) The denial of Ryan’s appeal is an unfortunate coda for Winston & Strawn, which took Ryan’s case pro-bono and reportedly spent about $20 million on his defense.

WSJ’s Scotus correspondent, Jess Bravin, had this to say: “The best way to characterize today’s action at the court is to say the justices are notching up the suspense, as they continue to hold back on delivering the remaining big cases we’re all waiting for, such as the Second Amendment and Guantanamo opinions.”