[This post was updated at 12:45 p.m. to include more thorough discussions of Byrd v. United States, McCoy v. Louisiana, Rosales-Mireles v. United States, Hall v. Hall and the trio of cases consolidated under Dalmazzi v. United States.] This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from its September 25 conference, adding 11 new cases (for… Read More
Court releases October hearing list
Just a few days before taking the bench to hear the first oral arguments of the October Term 2017, the Supreme Court today released the hearing list for the October sitting. Monday’s removal of the challenges to President Donald Trump’s March 6 executive order freezing travel to the United States by nationals of six Muslim-majority… Read More
Argument preview: Parties, probable cause and the Fourth Amendment
When District of Columbia police officers Andre Parker and Anthony Campanale responded to reports of unauthorized goings-on at a supposedly vacant home nearly a decade ago, they probably didn’t expect the evening’s events to lead to all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that’s exactly what happened in District of Columbia v. Wesby,… Read More
Justices take travel ban cases off October argument calendar
Today the Supreme Court announced that it had removed the challenges to President Donald Trump’s March 6 executive order, sometimes known as the “travel ban,” from its argument calendar for October. In a one-paragraph order issued this afternoon, the justices also directed the parties to file briefs by October 5 addressing whether the challenges are… Read More
Argument preview: Reconciling class waivers and the National Labor Relations Act (UPDATED)
(This post was updated at 3:13 p.m. to account for the court’s September 25 order granting motions for divided argument by the U.S. solicitor general and the National Labor Relations Board.) When the justices return to the bench on Monday, October 2, they will hear arguments in a trio of consolidated cases – Epic Systems… Read More
Trump issues new order on travel
Solicitor General Noel Francisco today notified the Supreme Court that President Donald Trump has issued a new proclamation restricting travel to the United States by citizens from eight countries. The proclamation came on the same day that part of Trump’s March 6 executive order (often known as the “travel ban”) expired, which would have allowed… Read More
Planned Parenthood asks justices to step into abortion dispute
Arguing that two Missouri abortion requirements are “virtually identical” to the Texas regulations that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016, Planned Parenthood asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a lower court’s order blocking the state from enforcing the requirements. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstadt in 2016, Planned Parenthood… Read More
Looking ahead to the September 25 conference — Part 4
On Monday, September 25, the justices will meet for their first conference after their summer recess, which is also known as the “long” conference. At that conference, they will consider more petitions than they do at any time of the year (usually somewhere around 2,000) but will grant relatively few – last year, the number… Read More
Francisco confirmed as solicitor general
By a vote of 50-47 that broke down almost completely on party lines, the Senate today confirmed Noel Francisco to serve as the solicitor general, the government’s top lawyer in the Supreme Court. Francisco’s confirmation comes less than two weeks before the court’s new term is scheduled to start, with a number of important cases… Read More
Challengers ask Supreme Court to speed up Texas redistricting cases
Early this week, the Supreme Court – over the dissent of the court’s four more liberal justices – granted Texas’ request to put on hold two lower-court orders that had invalidated two of the state’s federal congressional districts and the state’s maps for the lower house of the Texas legislature. The two courts’ orders had… Read More