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

Tensions over the death penalty resurfaced today at the Supreme Court. The justices declined to take up two petitions for review filed by death-row inmates in Alabama and Tennessee, in orders accompanied by opinions that were sometimes biting. The justices also took the unusual step of issuing new opinions relating to their decision in March… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for next term, nor did they act on petitions for review asking them to weigh in on an Indiana abortion law or an Oregon couple’s refusal to make a… Read More

This morning a divided Supreme Court handed a major victory to the plaintiffs in a massive antitrust lawsuit against technology giant Apple. By a vote of 5-4, the justices allowed the lawsuit, brought by a group of iPhone users who allege that Apple is violating federal laws by requiring them to buy apps exclusively from… Read More

UPDATE: On Monday, May 13, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called for responses in these applications, due Monday, May 20, at 3:00 p.m. At the end of March, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in two cases challenging federal congressional districts in North Carolina and Maryland as the product of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. A key question in… Read More

The justices issued orders today from last week’s private conference. They did not add any new cases to their merits docket for next term. The justices asked the U.S. solicitor general to weigh in on a dispute between computer technology giants Google and Oracle that one publication has called the “copyright lawsuit of the decade.”… Read More

Today the Supreme Court refused to block the execution of John William King, who was scheduled to die by lethal injection tonight for the 1998 murder of James Byrd, Jr. Byrd, who was African-American, was the victim of a gruesome crime that spurred tougher hate-crime laws. Byrd’s death drew nationwide headlines after he was chained… Read More

Under Wisconsin law, anyone who drives on the state’s roads is assumed to have consented to have his blood tested for alcohol and drugs. The state’s laws also assume that a driver who is unconscious has not withdrawn that consent. Today – in a rare afternoon session – the Supreme Court heard oral argument in… Read More

The Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in the dispute over the Trump administration’s decision to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. The federal government says that the Department of Justice wants data about citizenship to better enforce federal voting rights laws. But the challengers in the case counter that asking… Read More

[Editor’s Note: This post was updated at 11:50 a.m. to include discussion of CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co., Barton v. Barr and Putnam Investments v. Brotherston.] The Supreme Court announced today that it will weigh in next term on whether federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBT employees. After considering a trio of… Read More

In 2013, police officers found Gerald Mitchell wet, shirtless and covered in sand on a beach in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Mitchell was slurring his words, and he told police that he had parked his car nearby “because he felt he was too drunk to drive” he said he knew that if you were charged with DWI… Read More