An en banc ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals contends that corporations are actually not people, when the case in question considers an individual writing and mailing “death threats” to corporations.

A federal court has upheld on appeal a ruling that telecom companies can receive legal immunity from Congress for participating in the warrantless wiretapping program under George W. Bush.

Republicans in the US Senate filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, despite her receiving majority support from the Senate on a cloture vote. The nomination failed to achieve cloture by a count of 54-45.

A panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has affirmed a lower court ruling that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. In a 2-1 decision the Appeals Court concluded that the commerce clause does give Congress the power to make individuals obtain health insurance.

A decision by the Administration to bypass an intermediate appeal from an adverse decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court means it’s now possible the Supreme Court could rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate by June 2012, right in the middle of the election season.

The Justice Department will seek a short-term emergency stay to the bar on the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a puzzling twist to a court case that appeared to end the policy outright.

The courts are following the evolving determinations of one of the litigants in the case. If repeal has passed and is about to be certified, and if the same Administration is withdrawing their support for laws discriminating against same-sex couples on the grounds that they are unconstitutional, the court had no choice but to lift the stay. “The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed,” wrote the Ninth Circuit, “and [the government] can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay.”

This is a fairly astounding happening as Liu was first nominated to the 9th in February of 2010, but the nomination died at the end of the 2010 session from lack of even an attempt to call for a floor vote. President Obama promptly renominated Liu, and he was again promptly reported out of the Judiciary Committee on a straight party line vote, but it appeared as if the nomination would be again be left to die a quiet death. Apparently not.

The Supreme Court declined to fast-track a challenge to the health care reform law, and will allow the circuit courts of appeal to take up the question of the constitutionality of the individual mandate. This likely means that they won’t get around to a ruling of their own, assuming that whatever the appeals courts decide will get appealed up to them, until 2012 at the earliest. In fact, a decision could come right in the middle of the Presidential election.

A standard tactic of the last two Administrations has been to operate in secrecy and then accuse those who have been denied access and information of not having standing to sue over, in this case, wiretapping, because they don’t have evidence that they’ve been targeted. It’s a cynical technique, but a successful one, until now.