In June, the Supreme Court agreed to review a ruling by a three-judge federal district court striking down the redistricting plan that Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature adopted after the 2010 census. Today the state of Texas asked the Supreme Court to step into another redistricting dispute, this time a long-running battle over that state’s congressional redistricting… Read More

The Supreme Court is currently in its summer recess, and the justices are not scheduled to meet to review new cases until September 25, when their “long conference” – at which they will consider the approximately 2,000 petitions that have accumulated since the end of June – will take place. But in a relatively unusual… Read More

On 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 was… Read More

In just a little over a month, the justices will meet to consider the many petitions for review that have accumulated since the Supreme Court’s summer recess began at the end of June. This post is the first in a series that will take a closer look at some of the petitions that have been… Read More

Most Americans are familiar with some parts of the Bill of Rights, such as the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to bear arms. Other provisions, however, are less well known – for example, the 10th Amendment, which provides that the “powers not delegated to the United… Read More

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has suggested that it might be the most important case of the upcoming term. On October 3, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gill v. Whitford, a challenge to the redistricting plan passed by Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2011. A federal court struck down the plan last year, concluding… Read More

In 1976, in United States v. Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that the bank records of a man accused of running an illegal whiskey-distilling operation were not obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, even though law-enforcement officials did not have a warrant, because the bank records contained “only information voluntarily conveyed to the banks… Read More

Over  a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor  that was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court last night declined to block the executions of three Ohio men. One of the inmates, Ronald Phillips, is scheduled to be put to death today for the 1993 rape and murder of his girlfriend’s daughter. Phillips and… Read More

Founded in Jerusalem nearly a century ago, Jordan’s Arab Bank now has over 600 branches on five continents. The bank describes itself as “an active and leading partner in the socio-economic development” of the Middle East – a description borne out by its work with the U.S. Agency for International Development, Oxfam, Save the Children… Read More

In December 2015, the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump issued a statement calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on.” Trump’s statement continued: “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses,… Read More