The battle over immigration through the southern border of the United States came to the Supreme Court today. The federal government asked the justices for permission to enforce a new rule that would bar most migrants from seeking asylum in this country if they pass through another country before arriving in the United States.

The Supreme Court today rejected pleas by Florida death-row inmate Gary Bowles to block his execution. The execution was originally scheduled for 6 p.m. EDT tonight, but – in the wake of two late filings – the justices did not act on Bowles’ requests until after 10 p.m. EDT. There was no indication that any… Read More

On October 1, the justices will meet for the so-called “long conference” – their first conference since late June, at which they will vote on new cases for the upcoming term. In two posts earlier this month, I looked at some of the petitions that had already distributed for the October 1 conference; this post… Read More

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a 40-foot-tall cross, erected nearly a century ago in what is now a traffic circle outside Washington, D.C., as a memorial to soldiers killed during World War I, does not violate the Constitution. Eight days later, the justices agreed to review a decision by the Montana Supreme Court… Read More

On October 1, the justices will meet for the so-called “long conference” – their first conference since late June, at which they will vote on new cases for the upcoming term. There are, at least in theory, over a thousand petitions up for consideration at this conference, but most of those will be denied without… Read More

The Supreme Court tonight agreed to put on hold a lower-court ruling that had barred the government from spending $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The justices were divided along ideological lines: The court’s five more conservative justices voted to grant the government’s request, while the… Read More

John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by President Gerald Ford but became a leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing by the time he retired in 2010, died today at a Florida hospital of complications following a stroke that he suffered yesterday. He was 99. In a statement released by the Supreme Court’s Public Information… Read More

The battle over the Trump administration’s efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border came to the Supreme Court today, as the federal government asked the justices to block a lower-court order that barred the government from using $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds for construction of the wall.

This afternoon President Donald Trump announced that his administration will end its battle to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. The news came two weeks after the Supreme Court blocked the government from including the question, with the court’s four liberal justices joining Chief Justice John Roberts in ruling that the reason… Read More

[Note: This post has been updated to include the district judge’s order in the case, issued on Friday afternoon.] Eight days after the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s stated reason for including a question about citizenship on the 2020 census was a pretext, lawyers for the federal government told a federal district judge… Read More