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

President Donald Trump returned to the Supreme Court on Tuesday in the dispute over efforts by a Manhattan district attorney to obtain access to the president’s financial records. Telling the justices that a federal trial judge had “stacked the deck against the President,” Trump asked the justices to freeze a ruling by the U.S. Court… Read More

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would continue to hear oral argument by telephone for the rest of the calendar year. In a press release from the court’s Public Information Office, the court indicated that, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the justices and lawyers will participate in the arguments scheduled for the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday put off action on a request from the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate a federal requirement that a pill used to induce abortion in the early stages of pregnancy be picked up in person from a health care provider. A federal district court in Maryland had suspended the requirement… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from Republicans in Montana to block a plan that will allow county election officials to choose whether to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters in the state on Oct. 9. Justice Elena Kagan, who fields emergency requests from the geographic area that includes Montana, denied the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea by Republicans in Maine to block the state from using ranked-choice voting in the upcoming presidential election. Justice Stephen Breyer, who handles emergency appeals from the geographic area that includes Maine, turned down the request without comment and without referring the appeal to the full court, suggesting… Read More

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday morning on whether a federal law passed in 1993 to protect religious freedom allows three Muslim men who allege that they were placed on the “no fly” list after they refused to become FBI informants to sue FBI agents for money damages. Although the format of the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday gave election officials in South Carolina the green light to enforce a state law that requires voters to sign absentee-ballot envelopes in the presence of a witness. The lower courts had barred the state from imposing the witness requirement, concluding that doing so during the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to… Read More

The Supreme Court heard the first oral argument of its new term on Monday morning. The scene was starkly different from the first Monday in October last year: Rather than meeting in the courtroom, the justices gathered by telephone because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept…. Read More

After adding seven new cases to their docket on Friday, the Supreme Court issued more orders on Monday morning from last week’s “long” conference. The justices called for the views of the federal government in three new cases and set the latest chapter of a long-running water dispute between Florida and Georgia for oral argument… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear argument on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by three Muslim men who contend that they were placed on the “no fly” list after they refused to become FBI informants. At issue in the case, known as Tanzin v. Tanvir, is whether a federal law passed in 1993 to protect religious… Read More