The Supreme Court on Thursday morning agreed to immediately put into effect last week’s ruling in the battle over a Texas law banning almost all abortions in the state. But the justices rejected a request from abortion providers to send the case back to the friendlier confines of a federal district court in Texas, instead… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday morning granted three more cases from the justices’ private conference last week. The announcement that the justices will take on issues relating to arbitration, trains, and congressional power followed two other sets of orders from the Dec. 10 conference, but the decision to grant a second tranche of petitions from… Read More

Nearly six weeks after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases challenging a Texas law that bans almost all abortions in the state, the justices on Friday limited – but did not fully eliminate – the ability of abortion providers to continue their challenge in the lower courts. The court ruled that the… Read More

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Wednesday in a challenge to a Maine program that pays tuition for some students to attend private school when their own school district does not operate a public secondary school. Two Maine couples argue that the state’s refusal to provide funds for students to attend schools that provide… Read More

This post was updated on Dec. 1 at 5:15 p.m. It has been nearly 30 years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion that the court first recognized in Roe v. Wade. Only one justice who participated in Casey is still on the court now:… Read More

After closing out 2021 with a pair of argument sessions tackling high-profile issues like abortion, gun rights, and religion, the justices will ring in 2022 with a decidedly lower-profile set of cases. In an argument calendar released on Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral arguments in eight cases over five days,… Read More

Ten years ago, in AT&T v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act requires courts to put arbitration agreements “on an equal footing with other contracts.” Concepcion involved a state law that treated arbitration clauses unfavorably. On Monday, the court agreed to hear a lawsuit from a fast-food worker who alleges that… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared divided over a Texas inmate’s plea to have his pastor touch him and pray out loud while he is being executed. The justices have wrestled with the question of spiritual advisers at executions for two and a half years, but Tuesday’s oral argument in Ramirez v. Collier was the… Read More

On Oct. 21, when Willie Smith III was executed in Alabama for the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, his pastor was at his side. Witnesses reported that the pastor, Robert Wiley, put his hand on Smith’s leg and appeared to pray with him. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a… Read More

This post was updated on Nov. 1 at 5:45 p.m. The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Monday in two challenges to S.B. 8, the Texas law that bans almost all abortions in the state. After nearly three hours of argument by four different lawyers, the justices appeared likely to allow the case brought by… Read More