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

Simon Tam describes himself as an “Asian-American musician, lecturer, and political activist.” In 2006, he formed a rock band that he named The Slants, to bring attention to discrimination against Asian-Americans. Tam contends that, by using the name The Slants, he was “following in the long tradition of reappropriation, in which members of minority groups… Read More

Lawrence Shaw does not dispute that he stole over $300,000 from Stanley Hsu, a U.S. citizen living in Taiwan, by using Hsu’s personal information to move money out of Hsu’s Bank of America account into an account at another bank, from which Shaw then withdrew the money. But what he did not do, Shaw argued… Read More

The Supreme Court issued additional orders from last week’s conference this morning. Last week, the justices added one new case from that conference to their merits docket for the term: Honeycutt v. United States, in which they will consider whether a co-conspirator can be held independently liable for forfeiture of the proceeds of a drug… Read More

This afternoon the justices issued orders from today’s private conference, adding one new case to their merits docket for the term. They agreed to review the case of Terry Honeycutt, who worked as a salaried employee at a hardware store owned by his brother, Tony. The two brothers were charged with federal drug crimes for… Read More

There was high drama at the Supreme Court last night, in the case of an Alabama death-row inmate who sought a last-minute stay of his execution, which was originally scheduled for 6 p.m. CST yesterday. Although the court would twice put a temporary hold on the executions, his flurry of filings was ultimately to no… Read More

Today the Supreme Court announced a new briefing schedule for Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., the case of a transgender student who identifies as a boy and wants to be able to use the boys’ bathroom at his Virginia high school. The revised schedule extends the time for each side to file its main… Read More

Bassam Salman, a Chicago grocery wholesaler, received stock tips from a friend, who had in turn received inside information from Salman’s brother-in-law, an investment banker at Citigroup. Salman made hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tips, but he was also charged with insider trading and sentenced to three years in prison. Today the Supreme… Read More

When the justices return to the bench in January, they will face a nearly full argument calendar: nine arguments over five days of oral arguments. (No arguments are scheduled on the tenth day in the sitting, January 16, because it is a federal holiday.) The January calendar, which was released yesterday, includes several high-profile cases,… Read More

“It is a very tough matter,” observed Justice Stephen Breyer, summarizing the questions with which the justices were grappling today. Federal law permits (and sometimes requires) states to consider race when drawing district lines, to create legislative districts in which a majority of voters are members of a minority group, but at the same time… Read More

In overviews of the Supreme Court’s current term, the conventional wisdom is that the court is mostly shying away from controversial cases and topics, as it waits to learn when it will have a ninth justice and who that justice will be. There are currently no cases on the docket involving, for example, abortion, affirmative… Read More