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Scalia’s footnote 6 in Maryland v. King may be one of the best uses of a parenthetical in a long time:

I therefore dissent, and hope that today’s incursion upon the Fourth Amendment, like an earlier one,6 will some day be repudiated.

6 Compare, New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981) (suspicionless search of a car permitted upon arrest of the driver), with Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332 (2009) (on second thought, no).

Scalia’s conclusion, warning about a “genetic panopticon” is frightening!

Today’s judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver’s license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.

There are remands to the  5th, 6th, and 8th Circuits. Let’s see how far this one gets extended.

Update: Apparently, some of these GVRs were from noteworthy cases:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sent the cases of six Texas death row inmates, including one of the infamous “Texas 7” gang of escapees, back to a lower court for reviews of whether attorneys in earlier stages of appeals let the men down . . . .

Among the condemned prisoners is Donald Newbury, 51, one of seven inmates who broke out of a South Texas prison in 2000. One fugitive killed himself as Colorado authorities closed in on the gang. The remaining six were convicted of killing a suburban Dallas police officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery in Irving in 2000. Two of the six already have been executed.

Another prisoner who won a review Monday was John Balantine, 44. He was convicted of the 1998 slayings of Mark Caylor Jr., his ex-girlfriend’s 17-year-old brother, and two other teenagers – shooting all three while they slept in Amarillo. In 2011, Balantine got within an hour of execution before the high court stopped it.