SCOTUS slaps down CASC on Specific PJx; Qualified Immunity up for Review?

This week, on the first edition of the Weekly Appellate Report podcast, Rulings Editor Brian Cardile and three guests speak about two recent rulings of significance. The first is Vergara v. State of California (B258589), filed earlier this month in the 2nd District Court of Appeal, a reversal that salvages multiple state statutes pertaining to public school teacher tenure and dismissal policies. Catherine Fisk, a professor at UC Irvine, tells Brian why she thinks the ruling got it right; Jeremy Rosen, a partner with Horvitz and Levy who filed a brief on behalf of the case's respondents, offers an opposite viewpoint.
The second ruling discussed on this episode is the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Welch v. United States (15-6418), which deemed substantive and, thus, retroactive, a criminal justice ruling from last term pertaining to a particular clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act that mandated 15 year minimum sentences for certain defendants. Professor Hadar Aviram, from UC Hastings College of the Law, discusses the impact this case may have on California habeas practitioners, as well as the larger trend in courts and legislatures to reconsider automatic sentencing structures.
Note that one hour of CLE credit is available for listeners of the podcast who complete a short series of questions at its completion (see the link on this page for more details). We thank you for listening and hope you'll tune in again next Friday to another episode of the Weekly Appellate Report.