PROFESSOR POLL REVEALS THEIR VOTE FOR MOST IMPORTANT SUPREME COURT RULINGS TO COME IN 2008

East Lansing, MI – Michigan State University College of Law surveyed its full-time law professors in order to get their opinions on which current Supreme Court cases will have the biggest impact on the United States and the American public once the Court rules on the cases in 2008.

More than 40 MSU College of Law professors were asked to review the Supreme Court descriptions of the top ten cases that would have the biggest impact on the American people and select choose one that the professors felt would most greatly affect American citizens in the years to come.

The survey results are:

Docket numbers 06-1195 (Boumediene v. Bush) and 06-1196 (Al Odah v. United States): Boumediene and Al Odah were combined on the Court’s docket and are the “leading cases determining the significance of the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul, the rights of non-citizens to challenge the legality of their detention in an offshore U.S. military base, and the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.¹”

Tied for second were Docket numbers 06-179 (Riegel v Medtronic, Inc.), 06-730 (Washington v. WA republican Party) and 06-713 (Washington State Grange v. WA Republican Party), 07-5439 (Baze v. Rees), and Washington, D.C. v. a person individual’s right to keep guns in homes of private use, which has not been given a docket number by the Supreme Court.

The poll was conducted December 4 through December 14, and represents only those MSU Law professors who participated in the survey.

MSU College of Law was in founded in 1891 and is a private institution of higher learning devoted exclusively to professional education in law. The Law College is one of only a few private law schools to be affiliated with a research university, enabling it to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary legal education program. Classes offered in its state-of-the-art facilities provide students the benefits of a Big Ten campus while maintaining the small school culture. The Law College is one of the oldest continuously operating independent law colleges in the nation. For more information about the Law College, visit www.law.msu.edu.

¹http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/al-odah-v.-united-states

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