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

A group of nonprofits challenging the layoffs of thousands of probationary employees urged the Supreme Court to leave in place an order by a federal judge in San Francisco that would require the federal government to reinstate more than 16,000 employees who were fired by six agencies in February. “It strains credulity that returning employees… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday was divided over whether Planned Parenthood has a legal right under federal civil rights laws to challenge the order by South Carolina’s governor barring abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood, from participating in Medicaid. During more than 90 minutes of oral arguments, the justices struggled to determine whether the Medicaid law… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday largely upheld the Food and Drug Administration’s denials of two companies’ applications to sell flavored liquids for use in e-cigarettes. In a unanimous ruling, the justices threw out a ruling by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that the FDA had improperly pulled a “regulatory… Read More

Lawyers for alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to leave in place an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that prohibits the federal government from removing them, or anyone else, from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law that until… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared inclined to allow a lawsuit by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization to go forward. A majority of the justices appeared skeptical of contentions by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization that a law allowing those victims… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a case that, at first glance, appears to involve only a technical interpretation of the federal Medicaid Act. But the dispute has drawn widespread attention because of the context in which it came to the justices: an attempt by South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in the latest chapter of the justices’ efforts to lay out rules for personal jurisdiction – whether courts have the power to hear a case against certain defendants. Tuesday’s case is a particularly high-profile dispute, and one that the federal government says has national security and… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared sympathetic to the argument by a Catholic Charities chapter that Wisconsin violated the Constitution when it refused to give the group the same exemption from the state’s unemployment tax that it provides to churches, religious schools, and some religious groups. Justices from both sides of the ideological spectrum seemed… Read More

Under the federal law governing efforts by state prisoners to seek post-conviction relief in federal courts, prisoners who lose at the trial level can only appeal that decision if they can show that reasonable judges could disagree with the ruling or that the case should be allowed to move forward. The Supreme Court declined on… Read More

With most of the 2024-25 term behind them, the justices’ final stretch of oral arguments is stacked with all three religious rights cases of the year. All three cases look to the justices to take up an expansive view of the Constitution’s religious protections. The first of those cases, on Monday, could significantly shift the… Read More