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

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon granted a request from Idaho and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to temporarily put on hold a ruling by a federal district court that would require emergency rooms in the state to provide abortions to pregnant women in an emergency. The justices agreed to weigh in on the question at… Read More

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to review a ruling by a Colorado court that barred former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s Republican primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. In a brief, unsigned order issued on Friday afternoon, the justices granted a… Read More

A pair of challenges to controversial social media laws in Texas and Florida and a dispute over whether to freeze the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to reduce ozone levels across the United States headline the Supreme Court’s February 2024 argument calendar, which was released on Friday morning. The justices will hear 10 hours of oral… Read More

When George Sheetz applied in 2016 to build a single-family home on property that he owned, the California county where he lived required him to pay a “traffic impact mitigation” fee, totaling more than $23,000, before it would issue the permit. The county issued the fee to cover costs that the new construction was likely… Read More

In a filing on Wednesday former President Donald Trump told the justices that the “Colorado Supreme Court has no authority to deny” him a place on the state’s ballot in the 2024 presidential election. Trump asked the justices to overturn a ruling by the state supreme court that would leave him off Colorado’s primary ballot… Read More

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. government created a “No Fly List” – a list of people whom the government believes pose enough of a risk to national security that they should not be allowed to board a commercial flight through U.S. airspace. On Jan. 8, in FBI v. Fikre,… Read More

The Biden administration came to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking the justices to block an order by a federal appeals court that generally bars federal Border Patrol agents from cutting or moving razor wire installed by Texas along a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border. Representing the federal government, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told… Read More

In his annual report, Chief Justice John Roberts on Sunday addressed the future of artificial intelligence in the judiciary. Roberts predicted that “human judges will be around for a while,” but he also suggested that “judicial work—particularly at the trial level—will be significantly affected by AI,” and he assured members of the public that committees… Read More

Lawyers for Colorado’s Republican Party came to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to overturn a ruling by that state’s highest court that would leave former President Donald Trump off Colorado’s primary ballot in 2024 because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Lawyer Jay Sekulow told… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith to decide, without waiting for a federal appeals court to weigh in, whether former President Donald Trump can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Smith had asked the justices to act quickly… Read More