The Obama administration has one week to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court outlining its opinion on California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage. While the Department of Justice would make the filing, the president is almost certain to make the ultimate decision on whether to do so. Gay rights advocates are calling on the administration to file a broad brief not only asking the court to declare the ban unconstitutional but also to make all state bans illegal. The Commercial Appeal has the story. 

The Supreme Court ruled today that police do not have to extensively document and log the work of drug-sniffing dogs to be able to use the results of their work in court. Knoxnews reports Justice Elena Kagan wrote for a unanimous court stating that courts should apply the same tests to dog sniffs they do when they look at other issues of whether police have probable cause to take an action. The court’s ruling overturns a decision by the Florida Supreme Court in a case involving Aldo, a drug-sniffing dog used by the Liberty County sheriff’s department.

The Supreme Court will hear a case challenging campaign finance laws that limit how much an individual can give to political campaigns, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Shaun McCutcheon of Alabama and the Republican National Committee are arguing that it is unconstitutional to stop a donor from giving more than $46,200 to political candidates and $70,800 to political committees and PACs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington DC upheld the limits, but the high court decided to review the decision.

The issue of President Barack Obama’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, as a nursing home company on Monday asked the court to block a board order. Though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg denied the company’s application late yesterday, the company has now filed its petition with Justice Antonin Scalia, The Blog of Legal Times reports. If the court hears the challenge it will be the first opportunity to consider the constitutionality of the appointments, which were invalidated last month by a lower court. That decision found that the appointments – defended by the administration as traditional recess appointments – were an unconstitutional use of executive power because the Senate was in session when the new members were named.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a challenge to new clean air requirements limiting sulfur dioxide emissions, The Memphis Daily News reports. Several corporations, industrial associations and state governments have complained that the Environmental Protection Agency’s required emission levels are lower than mandated by law to protect public health. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused to overturn the EPA's decision and the high court justices refused to reconsider that ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear six cases during its April sitting, which begins April 15. The cases include questions of whether an individual who has not been arrested but is interviewed by police has the right to remain silent; whether federal funds can be withheld from anti-AIDS groups that do not actively oppose prostitution; whether federal law preempts port regulations that limit the operations of federally licensed truckers; whether state or federal law controls the right to receive death benefits from a federal employee’s life insurance policy; whether the federal anti-extortion act applies to a private individual fighting a government recommendation about a pension fund; and whether Congress has authority to make failure to register for a sex crime a federal offense long after the sentence imposed for the crime is completed. Learn more on SCOTUSBlog.

It was just a few words and a joke at that, but Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas broke his seven-year long silence on Monday when he spoke at oral arguments. What Thomas said is not clear, other than he appears to have joked about Ivy League lawyers, reports the Associated Press. The argument transcript only records a few words. It quotes Thomas as saying, "Well, he did not..." Several justices laughed in response. Louisiana lawyer Carla Sigler replied: "I would refute that, Justice Thomas." Two lawyers in the courtroom said Thomas was joking about Ivy League law school graduates, although one said it was at the expense of Thomas' alma mater, Yale. The other said rival Harvard was the butt of the joke. Thomas hasn't asked a question in court since Feb. 22, 2006.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a jury or a judge should have the final say on facts that can trigger mandatory minimum sentences in criminal trials, reports the Associated Press. The justices heard arguments yesterday in the case of Allen Alleyne, who was convicted of robbery and firearm possession. The jury found that Alleyne's accomplice did not brandish a weapon, but the judge said he did, raising Alleyne's minimum sentence from five to seven years on that charge. Alleyne's lawyers say the brandishing decision should have been the jury's, and it should have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, not the lower standard used by the judge.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week turned away a challenge from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and other Social Security recipients who say they have the right to reject Medicare in favor of continuing health coverage from private insurers. The justices did not comment in letting the federal appeals court ruling stand, reports The Memphis Daily News. Also this week, the court considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits. The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers reduce estimates of the damages they seek or use procedural loopholes to keep cases in state court, where according to Justice Antonin Scalia, “generous juries” and “very favorable judges” can be common. The justices appeared receptive to the argument that lawyers artificially lower the amount of money at stake to keep suits in state courts, reports the Washington Post.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week released its oral argument schedule for the March sitting, which will include arguments in two same-sex marriage cases, according to SCOTUSblog. The court will hear Hollingsworth v. Perry, the California Proposition 8 case, on March 26, and United States v. Windsor, involving a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, on March 27.