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

[NOTE: This post was updated with additional analysis at 5:02 p.m.] The Fourth Amendment protects us from (among other things) a warrantless search of a place – such as our homes – that we can reasonably expect to remain private. Today the Supreme Court ruled that a driver who has permission to use a rental car… Read More

[NOTE: This post was updated with additional analysis at 4:16 p.m.] This morning the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana inmate’s death sentence because the inmate’s lawyer – hoping to save his client’s life – had told the jury that the inmate was guilty, even though the inmate had expressly objected to that strategy. The 6-3 ruling… Read More

[NOTE: This post was updated with additional analysis at 3:18 p.m.] The 10th Amendment provides that, if the Constitution does not either give a power to the federal government or take that power away from the states, that power is reserved for the states or the people themselves. The Supreme Court has long interpreted this provision… Read More

“RBG,” the new documentary on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always engaging and beautifully put together. For viewers who already follow the Supreme Court regularly, it does not break a lot of new ground. (Beyond Ginsburg’s fondness for prunes, there was very little that I didn’t already know.) But people like… Read More

The Supreme Court announced today that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who injured her left shoulder in a fall at her home earlier this month, will undergo “reverse total shoulder replacement surgery” tomorrow morning. In a press release issued this afternoon, the court’s public information office indicated that the 63-year-old justice will curtail her activities “for the… Read More

This morning the justices of the Supreme Court issued orders from their private conference last week. They added three new cases to their docket for next fall, but once again did not act on the government’s petition to nullify a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that cleared… Read More

It has been nearly 15 months since President Donald Trump first issued an order that banned travel to the United States by nationals of seven countries, all of which have overwhelmingly Muslim populations. After lower courts blocked the government from enforcing both the original January 2017 order and a revised order that followed it in… Read More

When a case comes to the Supreme Court, the justices are usually interpreting U.S. laws – either the U.S. Constitution or a federal statute. But in today’s global economy, resolving cases brought under U.S. law in U.S. courts can also require an understanding of foreign laws. And that’s not always easy, especially when the foreign… Read More

The 2010 census brought good news for Texas. In the 10 years since the last census, it had gained nearly four million residents, which translated into four more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Those changes would require the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to draw new maps for both Congress and the statehouse, which it… Read More

Nearly seven years ago, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether corporations can be sued under the Alien Tort Statute, an 18th-century law that allows foreigners to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts for serious violations of international human-rights laws. The justices ultimately did not resolve the corporate liability question in that case, ruling instead that… Read More