Amy Howe

Apr 20 2023

Court revives DNA evidence case of Texas man on death-row

The Supreme Court on Wednesday revived the case of a man on death-row in Texas who is seeking DNA testing to provide evidence that he asserts will clear him. By a vote of 6-3, the justices reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that Rodney Reed had filed his… Read More

Apr 18 2023

Justices look for common ground in postal worker’s religious liberty case

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in a case that asking the justices to decide how far employers must go to accommodate the religious practices of their employees. Federal law bars employees from discriminating against workers for practicing their religion unless the employer can show that the worker’s religious practice cannot “reasonably” be… Read More

Apr 17 2023

Colorado man’s First Amendment challenge will test the scope of protection for threatening speech

There is no dispute that the Facebook messages Billy Raymond Counterman sent to local Colorado musician Coles Whalen made her feel afraid. For years, Counterman sent increasingly menacing messages in which he suggested that he had seen Whalen – who is identified only by her initials in court documents, but who has discussed the case… Read More

Apr 17 2023

Justices to hear evangelical Christian postal worker’s religious accommodation case

Employees of the U.S. Postal Service are famous for delivering the mail even in the worst conditions. But when Gerald Groff was hired to work as a postal carrier in 2012, postal carriers didn’t work on Sundays. That changed in 2013, when USPS signed a contract with Amazon to deliver the company’s packages, including on… Read More

Apr 14 2023

Biden administration and drug manufacturer ask court to block suspension of mifepristone approval

This post was updated on April 14 at 4:14 p.m. Less than 10 months after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, both the Biden administration and a drug manufacturer have asked the justices to temporarily block a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that suspended the Food and Drug… Read More

Apr 3 2023

Jackson dissents in denial of Louisiana man’s death-row evidence plea

Over a dissent from the court’s three liberal justices, the Supreme Court turned down a request from a Louisiana man on death-row to weigh in on when someone else’s confession is the kind of evidence that the Constitution requires prosecutors to turn over. The court’s denial of review in Brown v. Louisiana came at the… Read More

Mar 27 2023

Court takes up civil rights “tester” case

The Supreme Court will decide whether a civil rights “tester” can bring a lawsuit challenging a hotel’s failure to provide information about its accessibility for people with disabilities when the “tester” has no intention to actually visit that hotel. That case, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, was the only new case that the justices added to… Read More

Mar 21 2023

Court rules for deaf student in education-law case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived a deaf student’s lawsuit against a Michigan school district that failed to provide him with a qualified sign-language interpreter. In a unanimous opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices ruled that federal education law did not require the student, Miguel Luna Perez, to fully pursue his claims against the… Read More

Mar 20 2023

Parties disagree over court’s power to reach decision in election law case

Lawyers involved in a major election law case disagreed on Monday about whether the Supreme Court has the power to reach a decision in the case. In December, the justices heard argument in Moore v. Harper, in which a group of Republican legislators from North Carolina argued that the “independent state legislature theory” – the… Read More

Mar 20 2023

Justices throw out lower-court ruling allowing state court clerk to be sued in parental notification abortion case

In a short procedural order, the Supreme Court on Monday morning threw out a lower-court ruling allowing a state court clerk to be sued for telling a pregnant teenager that her parents must be notified of their child’s desire to seek an abortion without their consent. The justices sent the case back to the lower… Read More

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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Recent ScotusBlog Posts from Amy
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More from Amy Howe

Recent Posts

  • Court appears to back legality of HHS preventative care task force
  • Justices take up Texas woman’s claim against USPS
  • Supreme Court considers parents’ efforts to exempt children from books with LGBTQ themes
  • Justices temporarily bar government from removing Venezuelan men under Alien Enemies Act
  • Court hears challenge to ACA preventative-care coverage
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