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

The justices met today for their private conference – their first with the Supreme Court’s newest member, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. They announced only one new grant from that conference this afternoon, in a relatively low-profile but potentially significant case. In Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, the justices agreed to review a ruling by the… Read More

Tennessee had planned to execute Edmund Zagorski, who is on death row for the 1984 murders of John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter, tonight. The Supreme Court would have allowed the execution to go forward, but the state’s governor gave Zagorski a brief reprieve to provide the state with enough time to prepare the electric… Read More

Tonight Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg granted the federal government’s request to put off the depositions of two high-level Trump administration officials, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and John Gore, the acting head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Gore’s deposition had been scheduled for tomorrow morning, and Ross’ for Thursday, in a challenge… Read More

Today the Supreme Court released the oral argument calendar for its December sitting, which begins on Monday, November 26. The December sitting contains some of the highest-profile cases granted (at least so far) for this term, including Apple v. Pepper, in which the justices will consider whether customers who purchased iPhone apps from Apple’s App… Read More

The Supreme Court today declined to intervene in a challenge to a North Dakota law that requires voters to present identification that includes a current residential street address. Lawyers say that the ruling will prevent thousands of Native American voters (and tens of thousands of North Dakota residents who are not Native Americans) from casting… Read More

There was intense interest in today’s oral arguments, scheduled for 10 a.m., because newly confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh would take the bench for the first time. But before that, the justices issued orders from last week’s private conference. They did not add any new cases to their docket, and they did not act at all… Read More

In my latest podcast, I run down the Supreme-Court-related news of the week, including the first oral argument of the term in a death penalty case, the justices’ latest orders and the process leading to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.

[UPDATE: The Supreme Court announced that Kavanaugh will be sworn in today by Chief Justice John Roberts and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom Kavanaugh clerked. The ceremony will take place at the court and will allow Kavanaugh to “begin to participate in the work of the Court immediately,” a press release stated. A formal… Read More

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy moved toward the final vote today, after a divided Senate voted in favor of cloture – a technical term for a procedure that limits debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination by creating a 30-hour window within which the Senate… Read More

[UPDATE on Friday, October 5: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg turned down the government’s request this afternoon, but she left open the possibility that the government could return to the Supreme Court before the depositions, which are currently scheduled for October 10 and 11, go forward. Ginsburg indicated that the application to block the depositions was… Read More