Professor Brian Murchison was guest speaker on August 23, 2012, at a meeting of the Federal Bar Association’s chapter in Roanoke. Professor Murchison’s talk, entitled “The 2011 Term: Momentous Struggle for the Center,” addressed the recently concluded Term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Among the cases discussed by Professor Murchison were Zivotofsky v. Clinton, involving the political question doctrine and executive branch policy on the sovereignty of Jerusalem; United States v. Jones, the Fourth Amendment case involving a GPS tracking device; National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Term’s major case, addressing the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Miller v. Alabama, the Eighth Amendment-based challenge to mandatory sentences of juveniles convicted of murder to life imprisonment without opportunity for parole; United States v. Alvarez, the challenge to the Stolen Valor Act on First Amendment grounds; two cases involving contested federal enforcement efforts, Sackett v. EPA and Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC; and Arizona v. United States, where the Court ruled on federal pre-emption of Arizona’s controversial immigration law.
