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

It was, as attorney Clifford Sloan – who represents Texas death-row inmate Bobby James Moore – a “vitally important, life-or-death” issue: Does the scheme that Texas uses to determine whether an inmate is intellectually disabled, and therefore cannot be executed, violate the Constitution? Perhaps reflecting the significance of the case, today’s oral argument included some… Read More

In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of individuals who are intellectually disabled. The court did not, however, provide detailed guidelines on how states should determine whether someone is intellectually disabled, leaving that job to the states. Twelve years later,… Read More

Following yesterday’s dismissal of Visa v. Osborn and Visa v. Stoumbos, the Supreme Court today issued a new calendar for its December sitting, which begins on November 28. The two Visa cases, which had been consolidated for one hour of oral arguments, had been scheduled for argument on Wednesday, December 7 — the only argument… Read More

Only hours after Donald Trump was declared the winner in last night’s presidential election, it was business as usual in at least one Washington institution: the Supreme Court of the United States. With the seat left open by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia still vacant, presumably to be filled with the president-elect’s nominee, the… Read More

In 2013, the city of Miami filed what seemed to many to be an ambitious lawsuit against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. It argued that the two banks had discriminated against African-American and Latino borrowers in issuing mortgages that were particularly likely to lead to foreclosure. The foreclosures were widespread, with near-catastrophic effects on… Read More

Today the justices heard oral argument in a challenge to the government’s interpretation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, a law that (among other things) allows the duties and responsibilities of an executive branch official who requires Senate confirmation to be carried out by someone else, serving in an acting capacity. As I… Read More

One day after the Ohio Democratic Party asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a federal district court’s order that barred the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from attempting to intimidate voters in the state, the justices denied the Democrats’ request. Perhaps because the result was sufficiently clear, or perhaps because the election is… Read More

When Luis Ramon Morales-Santana was born in 1962 in the Dominican Republic, his parents were not married. Morales-Santana’s father was a U.S. citizen, but his mother was not. For Morales-Santana’s claim to U.S. citizenship, that fact matters. Under the law in effect when Morales-Santana was born, he would have been a U.S. citizen if his… Read More

With less than two days to go before the polls open, legal battles over the 2016 presidential election continued at the Supreme Court this evening. The Ohio Democratic Party asked the justices to reinstate a federal district court’s order that barred the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from attempting to intimidate voters in… Read More

Only days before the November 8 election, an emergency application involving voting procedures was filed at the court – specifically, a challenge to an Arizona law, known as H.B. 2023, that makes it a felony for anyone other than election officials, mail carriers, family members, or caregivers to collect early voting ballots. This morning the… Read More