Forget the Supremes, Our Eyes are on the D.C. Circuit

[WSJ_law_blog]

We typically save our “upcoming-term previews” for the Supreme Court. But today, we’re going to bring it down one notch and take a look, courtesy of Legal Times, at what the D.C. Circuit has in store this fall. Why the D.C. Circuit? For starters, the Bush administration is involved in several cases, cases which could help define the administration’s legal legacy. Second, we figure you’ll have a leg up when these cases inevitably make their way to the Supremes down the road.

U.S. v. Philip Morris: Topping the list is United States v. Philip Morris, an appeal of the decade-long civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry. Philip Morris, now known as Altria Group, is challenging the 2006 verdict which found that it and six other Big Tobacco defendants conspired for years to deceive the public about the health risks of tobacco. In addition to upholding the lower-court verdict, the government is asking the court to order the tobacco industry to pay more than $12 billion to fund a smoking cessation program and to fund an educational, counter-marketing campaign. Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn and Michael Carvin of Jones Day plan to argue the case on behalf of Altria.

NAM v. Taylor: Is the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 constitutional? The National Association of Manufacturers doesn’t think so. Later this month, the D.C. Circuit will hear arguments over whether the law’s requirement that private associations reveal information about members who’ve given more than $5000 violates the First Amendment. Quentin Riegel, NAM’s deputy general counsel, says the internal deliberations of the association are not for the prying eyes of the government. “Some of our issues are quite controversial,” says Riegel. “Congress wants to know who of our members participated and that has the potential for damaging our member companies.”

Mo Gitmo: As the Legal Times writes, no D.C. Circuit term would be complete without a Guantanamo case or two. This time, it’s about whether federal judges can force the government to give detainees, their attorneys, and the court 30-day notice before any transfer and removal from the military base. The government claims that the notice requirement would ‘’illegitimately encroach” on foreign relations and national security, thereby damaging the government’s ability to coordinate counterterrorism efforts with other countries. However, the petitioners, Chinese Muslims, want advance notice of any transfer in order to raise an objection.

Photo: M.V. Jantzen, from Flickr