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

The Supreme Court on Monday added seven new cases to its merits docket for the 2024-25 term, including a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. (That case is covered in a separate story.) In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference on June 20, the court agreed to take up… Read More

While the Supreme Court grapples this term with issues ranging from presidential immunity to abortion and the power of federal administrative agencies, the justices’ docket for the 2024-25 term has so far involved mostly lower-profile issues. That changed on Monday, when the justices waded once again into the culture wars – specifically, the debate over… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday sent the case of an Arizona man convicted of drug possession back to the state courts. Jason Smith argued that when an expert witness testified for the prosecution about drug analysis performed by another forensic scientist, it violated his right under the Sixth Amendment “to be confronted with the witnesses… Read More

This post was updated on June 21 at 3:48 p.m. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that bars anyone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun. By a vote of 8-1, the court ruled that the law does not violate the Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the “right of… Read More

The court handed a win to a former-city council member in Texas on Thursday, clearing the way for her federal civil rights claim to move forward. Sylvia Gonzalez contends that her 2019 arrest on charges that she had tampered with government records came in retaliation for her criticism of the city manager in Castle Hills,… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a provision of a 2017 corporate tax reform law, known as the mandatory repatriation tax, that taxes the undistributed profits from U.S. shares of foreign corporations in which Americans own a majority. An American couple had challenged the constitutionality of the one-time tax, which was imposed on earnings after… Read More

The Supreme Court returns to the bench on Thursday to release more opinions in argued cases. With 11 days remaining in June, the justices have just over 20 decisions (depending on whether they issue one or two opinions to address some questions) remaining. Here are summaries of the as-yet-undecided cases, along with a few tea… Read More

The justices on Monday morning added four new cases to their docket for the 2024-25 term. In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week, the court agreed to tackle issues ranging from the burden of proof for an employer hoping to rely on an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule that banned bump stocks, issued by the Trump administration after a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. By a vote of 6-3, the justices rejected the federal government’s argument that rifles equipped with bump stocks are machine guns, which are generally prohibited under… Read More

This article was updated on June 13 at 2:20 p.m. The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a lawsuit seeking to roll back access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortions. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that the doctors and medical groups challenging the expansion of access to the… Read More