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

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

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