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

The Supreme Court on Monday morning turned down requests from the House of Representatives to expedite the date on which the court’s ruling on access to the president’s financial records will officially go into effect. The orders came three days after Chief Justice John Roberts granted a similar request, to which the president had consented,… Read More

Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday granted a request from a New York district attorney to accelerate the date on which the Supreme Court’s ruling on access to the president’s financial records will officially go into effect. The court did not act on similar requests from the House of Representatives. The ruling does not mean… Read More

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she began treatment earlier this year for liver cancer. The 87-year-old justice, who has battled cancer on four previous occasions, indicated that chemotherapy is “yielding positive results,” and she emphasized that she remains “fully able” to do her job. In a statement released by the Supreme Court’s Public… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request by Florida voters and civil rights groups to reinstate a ruling that would have cleared the way for thousands of Florida residents who have been convicted of a felony to vote in the state’s upcoming elections. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the ruling, writing an opinion that… Read More

Two days after a flurry of late-night filings culminated in an early-morning order by the Supreme Court that allowed the federal government to proceed with the first federal execution in 17 years, the justices cleared the way early Thursday morning for a second execution. In a series of unsigned orders, the court permitted the government… Read More

Update, July 15: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been discharged from the hospital a day after being admitted for a possible infection, a Supreme Court spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon. “She is home and doing well,” the spokesperson said. The original post is below: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted Tuesday morning to a Baltimore hospital… Read More

In the early hours this morning, after a flurry of last-minute filings, a divided Supreme Court cleared the way for federal executions to resume for the first time in nearly 20 years. According to news reports, the federal government then moved quickly to carry out an execution that had been scheduled for Monday afternoon, executing… Read More

Today the Supreme Court released its calendar for the October argument session, which begins on Monday, Oct. 5, and continues through Wednesday, Oct. 14. The justices will hear 10 hours of oral argument over five days; they will not hear argument on Monday, Oct. 12, which is a federal holiday. All of the cases scheduled… Read More

This afternoon the Supreme Court issued a final set of orders – often called the “clean-up” orders – before its summer recess. The justices sent several cases back to the lower courts for another look in light of the court’s recent decisions holding that, for purposes of the federal Major Crimes Act, much of eastern… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited rulings in the battle over efforts to obtain financial records belonging to President Donald Trump. By a vote of 7-2, the justices sent a pair of cases challenging congressional subpoenas for the records back to the lower courts for another look, holding that subpoenas involving the president… Read More