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

The Supreme Court released orders this morning from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices once again did not act on several high-profile petitions for review that they considered at last week’s conference, including a case involving whether the state of Washington violated a florist’s constitutional rights by requiring her to provide flowers for… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the latest chapter of the battle over the use of public funding for religious schools. Supporters of such funding argue that the government should not be allowed to discriminate against religious families and schools, while opponents warn that requiring the government to allow public funds to… Read More

Today the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The court added three new hours of argument to its calendar on Friday and were not expected to grant any new cases today, and they did not. But this morning’s order list nonetheless contained big news: The justices denied a motion to… Read More

This afternoon the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference earlier today. The justices granted six new cases – three pairs of consolidated cases – for a total of three additional hours of argument. With the announcement that they have agreed to review Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home… Read More

Two and a half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri’s policy of excluding churches from a program to provide grants to resurface playgrounds violated the Constitution. In a footnote in their opinion in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, the justices emphasized that their decision was limited to the facts before them and did “not… Read More

It has been nearly six and a half years since allies of Chris Christie, then the governor of New Jersey, created gridlock on the streets of Fort Lee by eliminating two of the three lanes on the George Washington Bridge reserved for drivers accessing the bridge from the New Jersey city. William Baroni, whom Christie… Read More

UPDATE: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has directed the challengers to file a response to the government’s application by Wednesday, January 22, at 3 p.m. This afternoon the federal government called on the Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over a new rule, known as the “public charge” rule, governing the admission of immigrants to… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued additional orders from the justices’ private conference last Friday. After granting three new petitions for review last week, the justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the fall. They called for the views of the federal government in three cases, but they did not… Read More

This afternoon the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day. The justices had considered a wide variety of hot-button issues – ranging from challenges to two states’ “faithless elector” laws to a clash between California and the federal government over enforcement of federal immigration laws and a challenge to… Read More

For residents of Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first day of school in September 2013 was a memorable one – and not in a good way. The traffic patterns on the George Washington Bridge, which crosses the Hudson River into New York at Fort Lee, had been abruptly altered, so that only one lane (instead… Read More