I have to admit, I never thought I would be using the name "Anna Nicole Smith" in the same sentence as "Supreme Court."

Law blogger, Ann Althouse, reflects on the case and ultimately decides the legal issue at stake is rather "boring" although the individual justices made the whole affair much more interesting by seemingly siding with Anna Nicole. Add to that the fact that the President himself sided with her legal position and sent the Assistant Solicitor General to argue on behalf of her legal claim plus the legions of paparazzi outside the Court trying to get pictures of Anna Nicole's outfit (and perhaps other things, *ahem*) and you have a slightly less boring case.

Justice Scalia started off the questioning in his usual warm fuzzy manner by asking Anna Nicole's attorney:

"Do you want to stand on that position or do you have a lesser position? One that might cause you to win?"

Ouch. But Professor Althouse points out that that isn't really reason for Anna Nicole to despair as you could basically ask that of any attorney appearing before the Court.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick did a nice job of summarizing the legal issue, which actually turns on more than simply who gets Daddy Marshall's buckets of cash (ie. his wife Anna or his son).

This litigation has seen the inside of four courthouses already. First there was the Texas probate court, which determined that Anna was entitled to nothing, save the $6 million in gifts she had already earned while her husband was alive. Then the California federal bankruptcy court weighed in, when Anna declared bankruptcy there. That court found that the widow was entitled to $449 million, plus $25 million in punitive damages, for E. Pierce's alleged acts of fraud in messing up her inheritance. Then a California district court reduced that amount to $88 million, but nevertheless concluded that J. Howard loved his wife and planned to take care of her, and that his son and weasely lawyers had cooked the documents and fooled the old man as he lay dying. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in turn reversed that decision, contending that the federal bankruptcy court in California had no business meddling into the affairs of a Texas probate court in the first place.

Today's dispute is about the boundaries between state and federal courts-whether there is a zone outside ordinary federal court jurisdiction known as the "probate exception." (Try dancing naked to that.) Even though federal bankruptcy courts have rather broad jurisdiction, they have, for centuries, butted out in the areas of domestic relations and probate-under the theory that state courts are better-positioned to decide them. The 9th Circuit said the bankruptcy court should butt out here, meaning Anna gets nothing. She appealed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari, thus making for the happiest crop of law clerks in modern memory.

I have to admit to being a bit perplexed about the administration's taking the position on behalf of expanded federal jurisdiction but I haven't actually read the Solicitor General's argument yet.

Whatever the ultimate decision, no one can argue that Anna Nicole hasn't had her day in Court.