Supreme Court turns away Redskins appeal in trademark case

The court may be stuck in a holding pattern this entire term. Senate Republicans have refused to move forward on the Democratic president’s nominee to replace Scalia, appeals court judge Merrick Garland, saying Obama’s successor should make the appointment.

The Supreme Court opened an unusual term on Monday with a depleted bench, just five of its nine seats filled. But in Buck’s case, Texas continues to argue that Buck has forfeited his right to a new sentencing hearing.

The opening session lasted only about five minutes and consisted largely of admitting new attorneys to the Supreme Court bar. The cases they’ve already made a decision to hear reveal nearly nothing highly controversial. Even though this current term’s cases are bound to be less consequential than in recent years, the possible shifts in the balance of power on the Court could be some of the most consequential in Court history. Columbia, Mo., uses solid waste management funds to resurface playgrounds with a bouncy, rubber-based floor.

The immigration case still could return to the court, but probably not until a later term.

Oklahoma’s highest court struck down on Tuesday, Oct. 4, a law imposing restrictions on abortion providers, including a requirement that they take samples of fetal tissue from patients younger than 14 and preserve them for state investigators. The now eight-member court appears to be avoiding divisive cases on which the justices are likely to split 4-4, so the docket is heavy with intellectual property and criminal law cases (two areas where the justices don’t always split along predictable ideological lines). That could well result in a 4-4 deadlock. A trial court later ruled that he was intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty.

The court’s 9-0 decision called the four sections “unrelated and misleading”.

But United States v. Texas probably will stand out in the court’s history.

Now a new judge is to take up those four cases again. If Kennedy is on board, it could go 5-3 and help specify the correct standard.

Religious liberty is another issue the court will examine in a case out of Missouri concerning a day care facility run by the Trinity Lutheran Church. There is nearly no such thing as a case perfectly worthy of the court’s time. Pena Rodriguez seeks a retrial.

That said, there are some important cases coming up. Among those cases: how to best evaluate suspected insider trading scenarios.

The Supreme Court rejected the Washington Redskins appeal for the reinstatement of its trademarks on its name, which were cancelled in 2014 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the grounds that it is disparaging to Native Americans. There’s a case that could be put on the docket, that’s more of a political hot potato.

Ahead of the VP debate tonight, President Obama has a new op-ed for The Huffington Post today focused on the subject of Republican obstructionism. A policy with this significance, the government lawyers argued, should be decided by the Supreme Court.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg View columnist. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not execute the “mentally retarded”, but it didn’t define what qualified as retardation, leaving that to the states.