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

This morning the justices upheld the convictions of seven men who had been convicted of the brutal beating, sodomy, and murder of Catherine Fuller, a District of Columbia mother of six, in 1984. Writing for the court in Turner v. United States, Justice Stephen Breyer concluded that even if the prosecutors had given the defense… Read More

In 2000, Divna Maslenjak and her family came to the United States as refugees from the former Yugoslavia, fleeing the civil war in that country. Maslenjak became a U.S. citizen in 2007, but several years later she was stripped of her citizenship and deported – as was her husband – because immigration officials discovered that… Read More

This morning the Trump administration responded to yesterday’s brief by the state of Hawaii, which urged the justices to stay out of the dispute over the March 6 executive order, often known as the “travel ban,” which put a hold on visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. Although Hawaii argued yesterday that a June… Read More

Calling the March 6 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which put a temporary hold on visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries, “grossly unlawful,” the state of Hawaii today urged the Supreme Court to sit out the litigation over the legality of the order, popularly known as the “travel ban.” Instead, the state… Read More

During the almost 16 years since the September 11 attacks, litigation challenging the treatment of Middle Eastern men who were in the United States illegally at the time of the attacks and were detained for immigration violations has continued to wind its way through the courts. Several of those detainees, who are the plaintiffs in… Read More

When an inmate being held in a state prison believes that his conviction or sentence violated the U.S. Constitution, he can go to federal court to seek relief – a process known as “habeas corpus.” But once he is in federal court, it is not enough for the inmate to show simply that the state… Read More

In 2002, Lester Packingham became a convicted sex offender at the age of 21, after he pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child – having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Packingham got into hot water with the law again in 2010, when he posted on Facebook to thank God for having a traffic… Read More

The Supreme Court will once again wade into the world of partisan gerrymandering – that is, the practice of purposely drawing district lines to favor one party and put another at a disadvantage. The justices announced today that they will review Wisconsin’s appeal of the decision by a three-judge district court striking down, as the… Read More

It is rare for the Office of the Solicitor General to change its position in a case before the Supreme Court after a change in administrations, even when the party in control of the White House changes. But that is exactly what happened last week, when the Trump administration weighed in on an important arbitration… Read More

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall was at the Supreme Court yesterday for the formal investiture of Justice Neil Gorsuch, but that was only part of Wall’s busy day. Shortly after the investiture ceremony, the Trump administration filed the next installment in the series of briefs supporting its request to allow President Donald Trump’s March 6… Read More