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

U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco recently filed a bevy of briefs in response to the Supreme Court’s “invitations” to provide the justices with the federal government’s views on cases in which a petition for certiorari has been filed. If – as they overwhelmingly do – the justices follow the government’s recommendations, these petitions may not… Read More

Last week the challengers in the dispute over the decision to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census notified the Supreme Court about new evidence. The new evidence, the challengers argued, indicated that a Republican redistricting strategist played a key role in the decision, which was intended to create an advantage for whites… Read More

[Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared, with a different title, last week, but has been updated to reflect today’s denial of the government’s motion to expedite the consideration of the petition.] Late last year, the federal government asked the Supreme Court to wade into the dispute over the Trump administration’s September 2017 decision to end the program… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court added three new cases to its merits docket for next term, on issues ranging from copyright law to criminal procedure and the Employee Income Retirement Security Act. Once again, however, the justices did not act on the case of an Oregon couple who declined to make a custom wedding cake… Read More

Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to execute Christopher Price, who was on death row for the 1991 murder of minister Bill Lynn. However, the state didn’t execute Price that night: It had called off the execution a few hours earlier because the warrant for Price’s execution was set to expire…. Read More

It has been just over a month since the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a challenge to the decision by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. A federal district court in New York had blocked the government from using the question, ruling that the government’s… Read More

Late last year, the federal government asked the Supreme Court to wade into the dispute over the Trump administration’s September 2017 decision to end the program known as “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA), which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation. The government… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. After considering the case at 15 consecutive conferences, the justices finally acted on a petition by Indiana, which had asked the court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit striking down a law regulating… Read More

In the next month or so, the Supreme Court is expected to issue its decisions in a pair of cases challenging federal congressional districts in North Carolina and Maryland as the product of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. When the justices heard oral argument in the two cases in late March, a key issue was whether courts… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices added one new case to their merits docket for next term: Ritzen Group v. Jackson Masonry, a bankruptcy case. The filing of a petition for bankruptcy creates an “automatic stay” – a freeze on most efforts by creditors to… Read More