In a Supreme Court battle between the right of a law school to enforce rules barring discrimination and students’ First Amendment right to free association, the American Bar Association has taken the side of the law school.

In an amicus brief filed at the Court Tuesday, the ABA acknowledged the importance of both rights, but urged the Court to affirm the balance struck in the 9^th Circuit decision.

The 9^th Circuit held that the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law did not unduly suppress students’ speech rights when it denied funding and the use of the Hastings name to a Christian student group that excluded gay students and non-Christians from its membership.

“While public universities have a unique interest in protecting free speech, they also have a substantial and justified interest in enforcing neutral nondiscrimination policies by refusing to subsidize student organizations that discriminate against members of the school community on bases that the school deems inconsistent with its own mission of creating an educational environment characterized by equality and fairness,” the brief states. “[A]s this court’s government-funding cases make plain, even though organizations that receive government financial assistance have a protected interest in the integrity of their message, public institutions may impose reasonable regulations on receipt of financial and other assistance.”

Oral arguments in the case are set for April 19.

Links to the briefing on both sides can be found on the ABA web page.

Yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder told House lawmakers that the decision of where and how to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is “weeks away.”

Holder’s decision to try Mohammed in a civilian criminal court in New York has faced increased criticism, with Republican lawmakers and some Democrats arguing that terror suspects should not receive the same rights afforded to those tried in civilian courtrooms. Earlier this month White House advisers reportedly recommended to President Barack Obama that Mohammed be tried before a military tribunal.

But Holder defended his decision to push for a civilian court trial yesterday.

“They are tested … they are secure, we have tried these cases in a safe manner,” Holder told a House Appropriations subcommittee according to Reuters. “Our allies around the world support us in bringing these cases in (criminal) courts.”

In answering a lawmaker’s question of whether Osama bin Laden would be Mirandized and tried in a civilian court, Holder said that would never happen because bin Laden would likely be killed. “We would be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden,” Holder said.

As you know, Justice Antonin Scalia had a birthday recently. So did Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Well, it turns out the justices also have similar tastes, because they both showed up the same venue Saturday to celebrate their respective birthdays. They spotted each other in the dining room at the Inn at Little Washington Saturday.

The justices were surprised to see each other 60 miles away from their Capitol Hill office, the Washington Post reports, but they greeted each other warmly. Then they dined at separate corners of the restaurant, each receiving a little birthday cake to mark the occasion.

News of the new conservative activist group founded by the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has ignited a bit of media firestorm.

The Thomases at the justice's oath ceremony

As DC Dicta noted briefly last month, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas founded Liberty Central, a website that will, according to a description made a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee last month, provide “history and philosophical instruction to Tea Party activists and those dissatisfied with the current direction of American government.”

The site went largely unnoticed until some news organizations took notice over the past few days, noting in particular that the new venture could benefit from the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Under that ruling, nonprofit groups like Liberty Central can receive unlimited corporate donations.

While Mrs. Thomas’ participation in the group violates no ethical rules, political and legal watchers said the potential for conflict does exist.

“There is opportunity for mischief if a company with a case before the Court, or which it wants the Court to accept, makes a substantial contribution to Liberty Central in the interim,” New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics, told the Los Angeles Times.

A Supreme Court spokesperson told the Washington Post that Justice Thomas would not comment on his wife’s website or on how he might recuse himself should a conflict arise.

Sue Hamblen, Liberty Central’s national coordinator, defended Mrs. Thomas’ right to launch the new political project.

“She did not give up her First Amendment rights when her husband became a Supreme Court judge,” Hamblen told the Post.

When asked about the potential impact of the new endeavor on her husband’s work, Virginia Thomas told the Times: “I don’t involve myself in litigation. Are you asking that because there’s a different standard for conservatives? Did you ask Ed Rendell that question?” She referred to the Democratic Pennsylvania governor, who is married to a federal appellate court judge.

Things should be quiet at the U.S. Supreme Court for most of this week. The justices are not set to meet until a private conference this Friday. The break allows Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg time away from the office to celebrate her birthday. Ginsburg turns 77 today. Oral arguments at the Court resume next week.

Meanwhile, Justice John Paul Stevens told the New Yorker‘s Jeffrey Toobin that he’ll decide within the next month whether this term will be his last on the Court. Speculation about Stevens’ future swirled since last fall when the Justice hired only one law clerk for the 2010 term instead of the customary four. Retired justices traditionally have one clerk while active justices have four.

Stevens told Toobin that his bases are covered should be decide to return.

“Well, I still have my options open,” Stevens said. “When I decided to just hire one clerk, three of my four clerks last year said they’d work for me next year if I wanted them to. So I have my options still. And then I’ll have to decide soon.” See Toobin’s full profile of Stevens here.

And in other justice-related news, an effort by Butler University students to invite Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. to speak at the commencement ceremony on May – where Roberts’ niece will be among the graduating class – was nixed by school officials. The reason? Supreme Court justices are just way too political, officials said.

“We try to steer clear of political divides if possible,” pharmacy school Professor Jeanne VanTyle, president of Butler’s faculty senate, told the Indianapolis Star.

The decision not to allow Roberts, who grew up in Indiana, to speak drew the ire of some students and conservative faculty members.

And in other headlines:

Reid’s wife recovering: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s wife has been released from a Metro D.C. hospital, where she was taken after being seriously injured in a traffic accident last week. (AP)

Open discussion: The Food and Drug Administration is seeking input from the industry it regulates on how the agency can improve its training and education about the regulatory process. (Lawyers USA)

Ginsburg’s with O’Connor: Justice Ginsburg said she believes states should give up the practice of electing judges. Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been campaigning against judicial elections since leaving the Court in 2006. (The Washington Post)

Behind the plate: Justice Stevens is on a set of baseball cards. He is the catcher on the Supreme Court Sluggers team. (ABA Journal)

Will the SCOTUS-POTUS beef ever end? White House senior adviser David Axelrod defended President Barack Obama’s scathing criticism of the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision during his state of the Union address. (AP)

The winning party in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established new recusal standards for state court judges was not a winner in the end.

Yesterday the West Virginia Supreme Court declined to reconsider a ruling overturning a $50 million verdict against Massey Energy in the case Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. The plaintiff in the case originally won the verdict on a claim that the company fraudulently usurped business contracts from its smaller competitor.

After the verdict, Massey’s CEO gave $3 million in direct and indirect contributions to the election campaign of an appellate judge hopeful. That amount was more than half the total spent in the campaign. That judge won, assumed a seat on the bench, and was ultimately the deciding vote overturning the $50 million verdict.

But in a 5-4 decision last year, the Supreme Court held that the judge’s failure to recuse himself violated the Due Process Clause.

Yesterday the plaintiff’s attorney Bruce Stanley told the Charleston Gazette that he wasn’t expecting to win the battle in the end, despite the high court victory. “We certainly are not surprised at the outcome, but rather only by the amount of time it took the Supreme Court to reach it,” Stanley said.

Here are more headlines to take you into the weekend:

I’m a what? Bankruptcy lawyers disagree on the impact of this week’s Supreme Court ruling that they are “debt relief agencies.” (Lawyers USA)

Help for women, or for trial lawyers? At a Senate hearing on legislation aimed at closing the gender pay gap, lawmakers, federal agents and experts spent much of the time discussing whether the bill would result in a flood of litigation if passed. (Lawyers USA)

Putting the ‘men’ in ‘harassment’: The number of sexual harassment claims filed by men has doubled in the past two decades, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports. (Lawyers USA)

Dangerous slings: The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that baby slings – the soft carriers used by parents to carry infants against their chests – are a suffocation risk, and several babies have already died. (Lawyers USA)

Big Mac attack: Want to know Supreme Court justices’ favorite McDonald’s food? (WSJ’s Law Blog)

Lawyer for ‘D.C. Madam’ suspended: Montgomery Blair Sibley had his law license suspended for three years by the D.C. Court of Appeals. (BLT Blog)

Impeached: The House of Representatives Thursday unanimously approved the four articles of impeachment against New Orleans Federal Judge Thomas Porteous. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

We know that Justice Antonin Scalia is a singer, and that that he usually does the honors of crooning “Happy Birthday” during celebrations for his colleagues. But if you happen to see him today, you can do the same for him.

Justice Scalia was born on this day 74 years ago.

Oh, it’s on now.

The jabs keep on flying between Congress and members of the Supreme Court in the wake of its ruling in the campaign finance case Citizens United v. FEC, which lifted a limit on corporate campaign spending.

Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid jabbed at Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., who was part of the Court’s 5-4 majority in the case.

Reid said the chief justice has no understanding of the impact of its ruling. “Do you think John Roberts knows or cares how people get elected?” the Reid said at a meeting of liberal bloggers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Reid’s comments are just the latest evidence of the tensions between Congress, the Court and the White House in the aftermath of the Citizens United ruling. President Obama openly criticized the ruling during his State of the Union address, drawing an immediate reaction from Justice Samuel Alito – one of six Supreme Curt justices who attended the address – who grimaced, shook his head and said “not true.”

Tuesday Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. criticized the politicized atmosphere of the State of the Union address, saying the event has devolved into a “political pep rally.” Roberts said it was “troubling” to sit through the address expressionless as members of Congress were “cheering and hollering” all around him.

In February Justice Clarence Thomas said the rancorous atmosphere at the annual speech before Congress caused him to stop attending years ago.

When the president gives his next State of the Union address, don’t be surprised if the nation’s chief justice is not sitting front and center.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. said he found President Barack Obama’s address to Congress  - during which the president chided the Court’s campaign finance law decision and Justice Samuel Alito winced and said “not true” – to be “troubling.”

“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling,” Roberts said in a speech at the University of Alabama Law School yesterday.

Roberts said he was inclined to agree with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who stopped attending the president’s addresses years ago. Sitting expressionless “like a bump on a log” while members of Congress cheer or hiss around the justices was unseemly, Scalia has explained. Thomas also eschews the atmosphere of “catcalls” and “whooping and hollering.”

Roberts echoed their sentiment.

“To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there,” Roberts said.

UPDATE: Here is video of Roberts’ remarks, care of C-Span:

Roberts also said the Senate confirmation process for Supreme Court justice was “broken down,” since it consists largely of lawmakers asking nominees questions they are prohibited by judicial ethics rules form answering. More here from the AP.

Television cameras and term limits at the Supreme Court?

That seems to be what the majority of Americans want, according to a new poll.

A survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind shows that 60 percent of respondents think televising oral arguments and other Supreme Court proceedings would be “good for democracy,” the National Law Journal‘s Tony Mauro reports.

The results of the poll are similar to those found in a study by C-SPAN, which would air Supreme Court proceedings if the ban on cameras is ever lifted. Some lawmakers including Sen. Arlen Specter have pushed for legislation allowing cameras in the Court, but some justices and the Judicial Conference have expressed apprehension.

Despite the strong support for putting cameras in the courtroom of the nation’s highest court, it seems not many folks would set SCOTUS TV on their TiVos to watch Justice Antonin Scalia crack wise. Only 17 percent of those surveys said they’d watch such programming regularly, and about a third said they’d watch it at all.

The poll also shows support for 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Currently four jurists on the high court – Justices John Paul Stevens, Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas – have been on the court longer than 18 years.