William K. Suter, the clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court, will retire at the end of August after 22 years of service, the Blog of the Legal Times reports. Suter is the 19th person to serve as clerk. Before taking that position, he was an Army major general and served in numerous positions around the world including appellate judge, deputy staff judge advocate of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, staff judge advocate of the 101st Airborne Division, commandant of the JAG school, and assistant judge advocate general of the Army. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Parachutist Badge. 

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal judges may not delay executions indefinitely on the chance that condemned prisoners will become mentally competent enough to help their court-appointed attorneys mount new appeals. “At some point, the state must be allowed to defend its judgment of conviction,” Clarence Thomas wrote for the unanimous court. The decision will hasten the end for two death row inmates, Arizona’s Ernest Gonzales and Ohio’s Sean Carter.

In a wrapup of Supreme Court activity over the past few days, ScotusBlog reports that the court denied review in several notable cases including Sherley v. Sebelius, in which the court said it will not stop the government’s funding of embryonic stem cell research. The court also refused to hear an appeal from anti-abortion group The Real Truth About Abortion, which wanted to stop the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department from enforcing fundraising and advertising regulations against it.

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case testing whether police must get a warrant before forcing a drunk driving suspect to have her blood drawn, NPR reports. The court has long held that search warrants are required when government officials order intrusions into the body, such as drawing blood. However, opponents of the law state that time is of the essence since a person’s blood alcohol starts to dissipate after they stop drinking so the need for quick blood-alcohol testing is necessary.

The justices on Monday ruled unanimously that federal employees appealing certain discrimination rulings from the Merit Systems Protection Board may take their cases directly to the district courts rather than be forced to appeal to the Washington, D.C.-based Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Writing for the majority Justice Elena Kagan chastised the federal government for trying to complicate the appeals process. “It would be hard,” she wrote, “to dream up a more round-about way” of setting up judicial review than the one laid out by the government. SCOTUSblog reports

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday chose Harvard constitutional law professor Vicki C. Jackson to argue that it does not have the authority to rule on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Jackson will file a brief and appear to argue two procedural issues that the court itself raised in agreeing to consider the law’s validity. Those issues are whether the court has jurisdiction to rule on the law and whether Republican members of the House of Representatives have a right to appear in the case. SCOTUSblog explores the issues.

Infamous file-sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to review a jury’s conclusion that she pay the recording industry $222,000 for downloading and sharing two dozen copyrighted songs on the now-defunct file-sharing service Kazaa. Thomas-Rasset, the first person to defend herself against a file-sharing case, said the damages were unconstitutionally excessive and were not rationally related to the harm she caused to the labels. The court previously declined two other file-sharing cases brought before it. Learn more about the case on Wired.com

The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether American courts have any further say in a custody dispute between a U.S. soldier and a Scottish woman over their daughter, the Associated Press reports. In a complicated international custody fight, the justices seemed concerned by the idea that a foreign parent could escape U.S. court jurisdiction simply by leaving the country. WDEF.com has the story. 

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up California’s ban on same-sex marriage, allowing the justices the chance to rule on whether gay Americans have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. On Monday, justices will review a federal appeals court ruling that struck down California’s gay marriage ban. The court will also decide whether Congress can deprive legally married gay couples of federal benefits otherwise available to married people.

U.S. Supreme Court justices were to meet privately today to begin discussing if they will accept any of 10 pending cases testing whether the constitution offers a fundamental right of marriage to homosexuals. According to court observers, three separate issues confront the justices: federal benefits, state benefits and state referendums. If they agree to hear any of the cases, oral arguments could be held in March with a ruling by late June. WCYB Channel 5 has this story from CNN.