Covering the Supreme Court and the Judiciary in (mostly) Plain English

In 2012, the Obama administration established a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented young adults who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation. Applicants who meet a variety of criteria – for example, who have graduated from high school or served in the… Read More

In June 2010, 15-year-old Sergio Hernandez was playing on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border when a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Jesus Mesa, fired shots across the border, hitting Hernandez in the face and killing him. Next week Hernandez’s family will be at the Supreme Court for the second time, seeking to hold Mesa… Read More

The justices refused to halt the execution of South Dakota inmate Charles Rhines, who was sentenced to death for the 1992 murder of Donnivan Schaeffer during the burglary of a donut shop in Rapid City. Rhines had been scheduled to die this afternoon, but news reports indicated that the state had postponed his execution until… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued more orders from the justices’ private conference last week. As expected, the court did not add any new cases to its merits docket for this term. The justices denied review in Time Warner Cable v. Sprint Communications, a dispute that arose when Sprint sued Time Warner for patent infringement… Read More

With less than two weeks to go before the Supreme Court hears oral argument in the challenge to the Trump administration’s decision to end the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the justices today expanded the time devoted to the argument from 60 to 80 minutes. The federal government will have 40 of… Read More

When the Supreme Court hears oral argument early next year in the challenge to the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership structure, the CFPB itself will not be defending statutory restrictions on the president’s ability to remove the CFPB director from office. Before the justices granted review last week, the CFPB had agreed… Read More

Three days after adding another blockbuster case, involving the president’s ability to fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to their docket for this term, the justices this morning issued additional orders from their private conference last week. Today’s orders were significantly less eventful. They were perhaps most noteworthy for the fact that… Read More

The website of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in 2010 under the Dodd-Frank Act as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, describes the CFPB as a “U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat you fairly.” Today the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the constitutionality… Read More

It has been 17 years since John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, known as the “D.C. snipers,” shot and killed 12 people and injured six more. The Washington, D.C., area was paralyzed with fear until the then-42-year-old Muhammad and Malvo, who was then 17, were arrested at a Maryland rest stop. Muhammad was sentenced… Read More

The Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in a dispute over the validity of appointments to a board created by Congress to bring financial stability back to Puerto Rico. With billions of dollars potentially at stake, the courtroom was packed with spectators, many of whom had flown in from Puerto Rico. And although the… Read More