U.S Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan told law students at the University of Alabama Friday that the confirmation process is “sort of broken,” and she isn’t sure how to fix a system that amounts to little more than theatrics at times. During the speech, Kagan said senators want to know how nominees will rule on cases, yet the would-be justices are limited in what they can say because of both judicial rules and the fear of providing critics with ammunition. WRCBTV has the story. 

Despite the government shutdown, the Supreme Court and the solicitor general's office are ready for opening day of the court's new term on Monday, the Blog of the Legal Times reports. The high court announced it will "continue to conduct its normal operations" at least through Oct. 11, drawing from available funds as has the rest of the federal judiciary. None of the nearly 500 court employees has been furloughed. It is unclear what will happen if the shutdown lingers beyond Oct. 11, especially if it continues beyond Oct. 16, the final day of the court's first cycle of arguments.

The U.S. Supreme Court today granted review of eight new cases, including one from Tennessee seeking to clarify when an individual commits a crime for having a gun after being convicted of domestic violence. Other cases involve questions about the award of attorneys' fees in patent cases; whether it is unconstitutional for a state to require home-care providers to pay a union to represent them before state agencies; whether the federal government has a right to reclaim lands abandoned by a railroad; whether shuttered businesses must pay Social Security and Medicare tax on severance checks; and whether police, after receiving an anonymous tip, must observe drunken or reckless driving before stopping a vehicle. The final case seeks to resolve a long-running copyright dispute in Hollywood over the screenplay for the 1980 movie Raging Bull. Although much of the government is closed because of the budget impasse, the Supreme Court is going ahead with its work, SCOTUSblog reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to decide when an online threat becomes worthy of prosecution. The justices will meet Sept. 30 to decide whether to review the prosecution of an Iraq war veteran who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for posting a YouTube video in which he sang about killing a Tennessee judge. “We think it’s potentially quite a significant case. People say things in the online world that they don’t mean seriously,” said the veteran’s attorney, Chris Rothfeld. “Second, it’s difficult to tell in the online world how a statement is intended. People say things and write things and they are read in an entirely different context.” Wired magazine has the story.

Members of the U.S. Supreme Court continue to communicate with one another through memos printed on ivory paper even as they face cases related to emerging technology and electronic snooping, Justice Elena Kagan admitted Tuesday. In an appearance at Brown University, Kagan said the justices have a ways to go to understand technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and even email. While clerks email one another, she said, "The court hasn't really 'gotten to' email." When asked how the court will approach issues such as technology and privacy, Kagan said, "I think we're going to have to be doing a lot of thinking about that." WRCB-TV has more from the AP.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in a speech before the Federalist Society yesterday that the court is making decisions that should be left to Congress. Citing recent rulings on issues such as wiretapping and gay marriage, he argued it is not the court’s place to “invent new minorities that get special protections." Scalia also addressed what he sees as one of the last remaining issues to be settled with regard to the Second Amendment: determining the scope of armaments that people can keep and bear. Scalia helped launch the Federalist Society more than 30 years ago to fight the perception of liberal bias at the nation's law schools. WDEF has this Associated Press story.

The State of Tennessee has joined with Texas, Indiana and 20 other states in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that prayers by mostly Christian clergy members before legislative meetings are not unconstitutional. The brief cites a history of legislative prayer and the American culture of religious accommodation to argue that, “The establishment clause does not require officials either to edit historically permissible religious expressions or scrub them from the public square.” The brief was filed in response to the court’s decision to hear the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway in its October term. The ABA Journal has more on the story while SCOTUSBlog has details on the case.

As Ruth Bader Ginsburg completes her 20th year on the U.S. Supreme Court, she says she is not ready to retire or slow down anytime soon. In an interview with USA Today, the 80 year-old said she was still the hardest-working justice. "As long as I can do the job full-steam, I would like to stay here," she told the newspaper. "Last term was a good example. I didn't write any slower. I didn't think any slower. I have to take it year by year at my age, and who knows what could happen next year? Right now, I know I'm OK. Whether that will be true at the end of next term, I can't say." The ABA Journal has the story.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she is not surprised that Southern states have pushed ahead with tough voter identification laws and other measures since the Supreme Court freed them from strict federal oversight of their elections. In an interview with The Associated Press, Ginsburg said that Texas' decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington. “The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn't make any sense to me," Ginsburg said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her office at the court. "And one really could have predicted what was going to happen."

A couple who fled Germany to home school their children but have been denied U.S. asylum, say they are preparing to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case. They also told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that they are working with Congress to try to change the law. The Romeikes moved to East Tennessee in 2008 after an escalating fight with German officials. The family initially was granted asylum by a Memphis immigration judge, but that ruling was overturned. In May, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said the family did not meet the criteria for asylum, finding that Germany does not single out religious minorities for persecution. The family’s lawyer, however, disagrees saying Germany uses the mandatory schooling law to limit the growth of religious minorities.