Briefing schedules set for indecency remands
As we all know, last April the Supreme Court affirmed the FCC’s re-cast indecency policy on APA grounds, and sent the matter back down to the Second Circuit for further consideration. For those of you who have lost track of the case amid various summer distractions, here’s a heads up: the Second Circuit has established a briefing schedule for the remand phase.
Fox’s brief is due September 16, along with any amici briefs supporting Fox’s position. The FCC and its friends are set to file their responsive briefs on October 28, and Fox et al. will have until November 12 to file their replies. The Court has apparently decided to hold additional oral arguments at some point after it has had a chance to review the briefs, but it won’t be announcing a schedule for the arguments until after all the paperwork has been filed. Even if the current briefing schedule doesn’t get extended for any reason (and there are never any guarantees), it’s clear that the Court won’t likely be issuing any new opinions in the case until mid-2010, at the earliest – if you figure that arguments won’t likely happen until the middle of the first quarter of 2010 (again, at the earliest) and then the Circuit takes a few months to crank out its decision.
With that schedule, the parties would not likely be asking the Supremes to take another look at it until the latter part of 2010, which in turn means that we’re not likely to see a second Supreme Court take on the matter until 2011 or later.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the Third Circuit folks got a slight jump on their Second Circuit colleagues by calling for briefs in the CBS case (involving L’Affaire Janet Jackson) starting earlier this month, with the last round of reply briefs currently due toward the end of September. No word yet about plans for oral argument. While the Third Circuit’s six-week head start over the Second may result in the CBS case getting to the Supremes’ door step before the Fox case does, we’re still probably looking at 2011 as the earliest before we’ll be seeing another Supreme Court decision on the merits of the FCC’s indecency policy.
