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

Chief Justice John Roberts released his year-end report on the federal judiciary tonight. In 2016, Roberts used the report to pay homage to what he regarded as the unsung hero of the federal judiciary: the federal district judge, whom he described as a “capable administrator” but also an “active and astute problem solver.” Roberts’ 2017… Read More

The Supreme Court today released the calendar for its February sitting, which starts on Tuesday, February 20 (because Monday, February 19, is a federal holiday) and ends on Wednesday, February 28. The justices will hear nine oral arguments over five days, with the highest-profile argument of the sitting coming on February 26 in Janus v…. Read More

Twelve days ago, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower-court order that would require the federal government to turn over additional documents connected to the decision to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, known as DACA – a Obama-administration program that allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to… Read More

Two months ago, a 17-year-old pregnant teenager who had been caught trying to enter the United States won an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit clearing the way for her to have an abortion. She obtained the abortion the next day, before the Trump administration could go to… Read More

Like many employees, Mark Janus was upset about deductions from his paycheck – specifically, the roughly $45 per month that goes to the local branch of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the union that represents him. But unlike most employees, Janus – a child-support specialist at the state’s Department of Healthcare… Read More

In 2015, California lawmakers enacted the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act. The law, known as the Reproductive FACT Act, responded to concerns that crisis pregnancy centers – nonprofit organizations, often affiliated with Christian groups, that are opposed to abortion – were posing as full-service reproductive health clinics and providing pregnant women with… Read More

After adding seven new cases to their merits docket on Friday, the justices issued additional orders from last week’s conference. They did not add any more new cases to their docket, but they did deny review in a high-profile case in which they had been asked to decide whether a federal civil rights law barring… Read More

Tonight a divided Supreme Court put on hold a set of lower-court orders that would require the federal government to turn over additional documents related to the Trump administration’s decision to end the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – a Obama-administration program that allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the United States… Read More

The Supreme Court issued a preliminary set of orders from its conference today, adding seven new cases to its merits docket for the term. The new cases include a high-profile Maryland gerrymandering case, a dispute over federal sentencing laws and an effort to limit successive class actions. In October, the justices heard oral argument in… Read More

[Note: This post was updated at 2:49 p.m. to provide expanded analysis of the argument.] Lines began forming outside the Supreme Court last week for one of the biggest oral arguments of the year, in the case of a Colorado man who says that requiring him to create custom cakes for same-sex weddings would violate… Read More