News Desk: Top Five Legal Stories of 2012 : The New Yorker

With 2011 just about behind us, it?s time, once again, to look ahead to the coming year?s big legal stories.

1. The health-care cases. This one is an easy call. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear challenges to the health-care-reform law, and it is hard to come up with another case that will be so important on so many levels. First, of course, there are the merits of the case. Is the most important piece of domestic legislation in a generation valid under the Constitution? Second, the implications for the power of the federal government are enormous, especially if the Court strikes down health care. If this law is unconstitutional, there are other dominoes that may fall. Third, the ruling will come next June, in the middle of the Presidential campaign. There are many theories about how the ruling will play out, but in my simple view, winning is good, and losing is bad. If the law is struck down, it?s very bad news for Barack Obama, on every level.

2. Same-sex marriage in California. In August, 2010, the federal district court in San Francisco declared Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. Judge Vaughn Walker declared that Prop 8 violated the guarantee of equal protection of the laws. Since that time, the case has been caught in a procedural morass. The appeal has bounced from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to the California Supreme Court and now back to the Ninth Circuit. In 2012, the logjam will likely be broken. Based on what we?ve seen so far, it looks like the federal courts will strike down Prop 8, meaning that same-sex marriage will soon be legal in California, as it is in New York. Between those two states, that?s one-sixth of the United States. The pace of change may accelerate.

3. Affirmative action, again. In January, 2011, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas. The case offers a golden opportunity for the conservatives on the Supreme Court to gut the most famous opinion of Justice Sandra Day O?Connor?s career, Grutter v. Bollinger, from 2003. The political constituency for race-conscious affirmative action is less than thriving. The Roberts Court may deliver the coup de grace.

4. The Future of football. The health risks of football are becoming increasingly apparent. And a squadron of plaintiffs? lawyers are now looking to argue that the football-industrial complex?from helmet makers to high schools to the N.F.L.?knew that the game was simply too dangerous to play. At least some of this civil litigation will gel in 2012. The game may never be the same.

5. Celebrity arrest. A celebrity will be arrested. Analysis will ensue.

Illustration by Jim Stoten; photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Read more from The New Yorker?s 2011: The Year in Review, at News Desk and at Culture Desk.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/top-five-legal-stories-of-2012.html

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