Speaker 1: General Motors got bad news from the Supreme Court today.
Speaker 1: With a full complement of nine justices in place, the
Speaker 1: court issued orders and herd or an argument a number
Speaker 1: of cases this morning. UH, and it issued an order
Speaker 1: rejecting GM's claims that it shouldn't have to face lawsuits
Speaker 1: over an ignition switch defect that arose before GM went
Speaker 1: into bankruptcy. With us to talk about what the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court did today, including this GM case. UH is Greg's store.
Speaker 1: Greg is our co host on Bloomberg Law and also
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Supreme Court reporter. So, Greg, you've had a busy
Speaker 1: morning at the court. Um. This case with GM could
Speaker 1: be billions of dollars in potential liability for them depending
Speaker 1: on what the courts end up finding, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty keen to get out from under it. What did
Speaker 1: the Court do today? Yeah, the Court rejected GM's appeal.
Speaker 1: GM why the court to hear arguments and overturned this
Speaker 1: lower court order that said you have to face these
Speaker 1: lawsuits potentially involving millions of of car purchasers and and
Speaker 1: an estimate that GM highlighted potentially seven to ten billion
Speaker 1: dollars in claims, much of that by people who were
Speaker 1: involved in very serious accidents because of this ignition switched
Speaker 1: defect or allegedly because of that. Greg there were two
Speaker 1: art oral arguments today and both relating to capital punishment
Speaker 1: or death penalty defendant. Tell us about the first one,
Speaker 1: which involved help from a psychiatrist or mental health of
Speaker 1: a capital punishment defendant. Yeah, this is a case involving
Speaker 1: a guy who in Alabama was convicted of a four
Speaker 1: murder and kind of the underlying question is whether he
Speaker 1: had a mental illness that should be a mitigating factor
Speaker 1: in his death sentencing proceeding. And the court there ordered
Speaker 1: or appointed a state employed psychologist to produce a report
Speaker 1: about his mental health. And that report actually found that
Speaker 1: he had some as as the expert put an organic
Speaker 1: brain dysfunction. And what Mr McWilliams argues is that that
Speaker 1: that was not enough under an earlier Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 1: He says, I am entitled to an independent expert, somebody
Speaker 1: who's not state employed, and somebody who is essentially on
Speaker 1: my side of the case, because this report, had I
Speaker 1: been able to, you know, fully explore it and present
Speaker 1: it to the court, might have been enough to give
Speaker 1: me grounds to avoid the death penalty. So how did
Speaker 1: the justices respond to the arguments today, Well, they seemed mixed.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be kind of an ideological divide that
Speaker 1: we've gotten used to. With Anthony Kennedy in the middle
Speaker 1: of the court, he was somewhat sympathetic. Um, maybe not
Speaker 1: giving the defense Mr McWilliams everything he was asking for,
Speaker 1: but uh he he did suggest that, uh that. And
Speaker 1: the part of this is that a lot of other
Speaker 1: states now have already given these sorts of right that
Speaker 1: he's asking for. Kennedy did seem to suggest that he
Speaker 1: was inclined to give Mr McWilliams at least some of
Speaker 1: what he was asking for, which could mean a new
Speaker 1: sentencing hearing for him. So it seems as if Kennedy
Speaker 1: is still the swing vote. He does, he does seem
Speaker 1: that way. Let me just point out one other interesting
Speaker 1: aspect of this argument today. I've now seen it twice
Speaker 1: two justices to keep an eye on Justice Gorsuch and
Speaker 1: Justice Kagan, the two news justices on the court twice
Speaker 1: now since Justice Corser has been on the court. Justice
Speaker 1: Kagan pushed back at him very hard on something that
Speaker 1: that he said today. She used the word shocking to
Speaker 1: describe a way he was proposing, uh, exploring this case
Speaker 1: before them. What was it, greg What did he say this?
Speaker 1: It's actually a pretty tactical point, but it had to
Speaker 1: do with how the court interpreted this decision. From that
Speaker 1: is really the underlying precedent. And essentially what what the
Speaker 1: way Kagan described what Gorsuch was was saying is that
Speaker 1: he wasn't content just to look at what the court said.
Speaker 1: He wanted to go a little further back to look
Speaker 1: at what the parties were asking the court to do
Speaker 1: in and she said that would be a shocking way
Speaker 1: of reading court precedents. We shall see what happens with that.
Speaker 1: But now the court hasn't granted any new cases today,
Speaker 1: but there are still some interesting possibilities out there and
Speaker 1: some time left. Yeah, and it seems like maybe they
Speaker 1: took it just a little bit of pause to let
Speaker 1: Neil Gorst come up, get up to speed. There's a
Speaker 1: case that seems highly likely to be granted would be
Speaker 1: a blockbuster. That is the North Carolina Voter i. D. Case.
Speaker 1: That's the one where a federal appeals court said the
Speaker 1: state with quote almost surgical precision, targeted blacks with these restrictions. UH.
Speaker 1: The court UH is already indicated that there are four
Speaker 1: of them on the court. This was even before arrived.
Speaker 1: Are are inclined to want to hear North Carolina is
Speaker 1: appealing that this case that could be a really big one.
Speaker 1: One other, if I have a second to describe to you,
Speaker 1: there are a number of petitions that ask a really
Speaker 1: interesting question about digital privacy. Whether police need a warrant
Speaker 1: to get from a telecom company the location of your
Speaker 1: mobile phone has arisen in a number of contexts. UH
Speaker 1: lower course generally have said no, they don't need to
Speaker 1: go to a judge and show probable cause and get
Speaker 1: a warrant in order to get that sort of information
Speaker 1: from a telecommunications company. Well, I'm sure we'll be talking
Speaker 1: about that. We talked about that subject all the time.
Speaker 1: It keeps coming up our thanks to Greg Store from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg new Supreme Court reporter and our co host on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. Coming up, we'll be talking about extensive litigation
Speaker 1: against the agribusiness giant Syngenta over whether it misled people
Speaker 1: about genetically modified corn getting approved