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

The Supreme Court is scheduled to release more opinions in argued cases on Thursday, June 8, at 10 a.m. With (presumably) less than a month remaining before the justices’ traditional summer recess, the court still has 27 cases to decide — including high-profile cases involving the use of race in college admissions, voting rights, election… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday released three more opinions, leaving the justices with 27 decisions to finish before they can begin their summer recess in late June or early July. Thursday’s opinions did not, however, shed much additional light on who might be writing which opinions yet. Going into Thursday morning, there was only one… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave a Maryland prison official another chance to defend himself against a federal civil rights claim. Last week’s unanimous ruling in Dupree v. Younger rested on procedural issues, but it was an important one for the litigants involved – and, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett observed in announcing it, for… Read More

In 2016, a Minnesota county sold 94-year-old Geraldine Tyler’s condo at auction after she failed to pay her property taxes for several years. The sale yielded $40,000; Hennepin County kept not only the $15,000 in taxes, penalties, and costs that Tyler owed it, but also the $25,000 that was left over. The Supreme Court on… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday established a more stringent test to determine whether the Clean Water Act applies to a wetland. The ruling was a setback for the Environmental Protection Agency and a victory for an Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who have been battling with the federal government for over 15 years in… Read More

As we approach the final opinion day scheduled in May, the court still has 33 opinions to release before the justices’ summer recess. Those 33 opinions include the opinions in high-profile cases involving the consideration of race in college admissions, the challenge to the Biden administration’s student-debt relief program, and the constitutionality of a 1978… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a summary reversal – that is, a decision on the merits, but without additional briefing or oral argument – in a challenge to an order that would bar the former CEO of a Michigan community bank from ever working in the banking industry again. The justices’ ruling in Calcutt… Read More

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government began relying on a public health law, known as Title 42, to quickly expel migrants seeking asylum at the Mexico and Canada borders. On Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court dismissed a dispute over that policy and whether a group of states with Republican attorneys general… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the family of a 2017 ISIS attack victim who sought to hold tech companies liable for allowing ISIS to use their platforms in its terrorism efforts. The lawsuit seeking to hold Twitter, Facebook, and Google liable for aiding and abetting international terrorism cannot go forward, a unanimous court… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request to block state and local laws barring the sale of assault-style weapons in Illinois while a group of challenges to those laws continues in the lower courts. There were no dissents publicly recorded from the unsigned order, nor did the justices provide any explanation for their decision…. Read More