Amy Howe

Jan 19 2021

Justices do not act on high-profile cases

The Supreme Court issued orders on Tuesday morning from the justices’ private conference last Friday, Jan. 15. The order list was most notable for what the justices did not do: Not only did they not grant any new cases, but they did not act at all on any of the high-profile cases that they considered last week, including the challenge to Mississippi’s ban on abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy; the dispute – now apparently moot – over whether President Donald Trump can block people from his personal Twitter account; the federal government’s effort to reinstate the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and the challenges to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to extend the deadline for mail-in ballots during the 2020 election.

The justices will meet again for another private conference on Friday, Jan. 22.

This post is also published on SCOTUSblog.

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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