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

To get the Supreme Court to review your case on the merits, you need the votes of at least four justices. But if you are asking them to temporarily block a lower court ruling against you, you need five votes. In death penalty cases in particular, this can get tricky: there may be four votes… Read More

It sounds like a scene from “The Wire,” but with palm trees and swimming pools: Gangs run prostitution rings and criminals hide dead bodies in vacant houses. The illegal activities spill over into the rest of the neighborhood, leading to an overall increase in violent crime and stretching police officers and firefighters thin. Property values… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court heard only one oral argument, in Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne International. At issue in the case is whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was right to apply what it described as an “exceptionally low” bar to determine whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction over a lawsuit… Read More

Next Tuesday, voters will decide whether to send Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to the White House. On the day before Election Day, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument regarding a federal law that dates back to the Bill Clinton administration, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. The FVRA was enacted in the… Read More

The most famous goldendoodle in America was outside the Supreme Court today, accompanied by some of his service dog friends. A Michigan school district’s refusal to allow Wonder, a trained service dog, to go to school with E.F., a student who was born with cerebral palsy and whose mobility is impaired, was the catalyst for… Read More

After granting review in five new cases last Friday, the Supreme Court issued additional orders from its October 28 conference this morning. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the term. The justices returned the cases of several Arizona inmates to the state courts, instructing those courts to take… Read More

And by “started,” I mean as recently as last term, when it was February before the justices heard oral arguments from a female attorney who was not a lawyer for either the federal government or a state government. As I reported last month, the October Term 2016 got off to a much better start, with… Read More

The Supreme Court added five new cases to its docket this afternoon. Among the new grants was Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., the case of a transgender student who identifies as a boy and wants to be allowed to use the boys’ bathroom at his Virginia high school. The announcement that the justices would… Read More

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a federal law enacted in 1976, foreign countries normally cannot be sued in U.S. courts unless one of only a few specific exceptions applies. One of those exceptions, known as the “expropriation” exception, applies to situations in which a foreign government has nationalized privately owned property. It allows lawsuits… Read More

In the court of public opinion, Stacy and Brent Fry have probably already won. Who would deny their adorable daughter, who was born with cerebral palsy, the opportunity to bring her equally winsome service dog to school with her, to help her with everything from opening and closing the doors to using the bathroom independently?… Read More