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

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ December 6 conference. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the term. The justices declined to take up the case of Louie Schexnayder, a Louisiana inmate who was sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of Eugene… Read More

It has been nearly 30 years since James McKinney and his half-brother killed two people while robbing the victims at their homes. A judge in Arizona sentenced McKinney to death, but in 2015 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit threw out McKinney’s death sentence. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument… Read More

Tonight the Supreme Court turned down a request from the federal government to allow the executions of four federal inmates to go forward. The first execution, of inmate Daniel Lee, had originally been scheduled for next Monday morning, but the government urged the justices to allow the executions to proceed, even if it would mean… Read More

UPDATED: Shortly after 6 p.m., Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put the 2nd Circuit’s ruling on hold until next Friday, December 13, at 5 p.m. Ginsburg’s order gives the justices time to rule on Trump’s request for a longer stay of the lower court’s decision while he files a petition for review. Ginsburg ordered the House… Read More

This afternoon the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day. The justices added just one new case to their merits docket for the term: Carney v. Adams, a challenge to the constitutionality of a Delaware law that limits the number of judges affiliated with a particular political party to… Read More

Under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a child who is wrongfully removed from her country of “habitual residence” must be returned to that country. By requiring the child’s return, so that the courts in the country of “habitual residence” can make any decisions about custody, the convention aims to… Read More

Late last month the Supreme Court agreed to put on hold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld a subpoena for President Donald Trump’s financial records. The justices ordered lawyers for Trump to file a petition for review of the D.C. Circuit’s decision by noon today…. Read More

In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit heard oral argument in a challenge to the validity of the Affordable Care Act. Although there is no way to know when that court will issue its opinion, the loser is expected to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, in what could be… Read More

For decades, the Anaconda Smelter refined copper ore in southwestern Montana. The smelter provided copper for use in phone wires and power lines, but it was also a major polluter, spewing tons of arsenic and lead into the surrounding area. Atlantic Richfield Co., which owned the smelter when it shut down in 1980, has spent… Read More

It has been less than two weeks since a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued an order blocking the executions of four federal inmates. This evening the federal government asked the Supreme Court to lift the lower court’s order and allow the executions – the first of which is scheduled for next week – to… Read More