Covering the Supreme Court and the Judiciary in (mostly) Plain English

In 2012, the Obama administration established a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented young adults who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation. Applicants who meet a variety of criteria – for example, who have graduated from high school or served in the… Read More

On Monday, October 7, the first Monday in October, the justices of the Supreme Court will return to the bench for the first oral arguments of the new term. The next day, the court will tackle a trio of cases that could prove to be some of the biggest of the term. At issue is… Read More

Three days after finishing radiation treatment for pancreatic cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke in Buffalo, NY, yesterday. The 86-year-old justice received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York, becoming the first Supreme Court justice to do so. The university reported that the justice also participated in a question-and-answer session with the… Read More

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 announced today that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently finished radiation therapy to treat a tumor on her pancreas. It was the second time that the 86-year-old Ginsburg, who had surgery to remove cancerous growths from her lung in December, has been treated for cancer in less than nine months. In a statement… Read More

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