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

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether prosecutors in a drug-trafficking case can call a government witness to provide expert testimony to rebut the defendant’s assertion that she did not know that she was carrying drugs, a so-called “blind mule.” The announcement came on a list of orders released from the justices’ private… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning declined to put a Louisiana trial seeking compensation for the “existential threat” posed by coastal land loss on hold while the defendants in the case, a group of oil companies, seek review of a state court decision rejecting their request to transfer the case. The oil companies had argued… Read More

The Supreme Court appeared ready to uphold a federal law that bars anyone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun. During just over 90 minutes of oral argument on Tuesday, a majority of the justices seemed wary of the consequences of allowing a ruling by a federal appeals court that struck down… Read More

A Texas man’s challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law that bars anyone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun will come before the justices in oral argument on Tuesday. A federal appeals court in Louisiana agreed with Texan Zackey Rahimi, that the law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), violates the Second… Read More

Less than a week before the justices are scheduled to hear argument in a high-profile gun-rights case, the court added another dispute involving firearms to its docket for the 2023-24 term. In Garland v. Cargill, the justices will decide whether a “bump stock” – an attachment that transforms a semiautomatic rifle into a fully automatic,… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struggled to define precisely when public officials who block their critics on their personal social-media accounts are acting on behalf of the government and therefore can be held liable for violating the First Amendment. As Justice Neil Gorsuch put it, the justices had a “profusion of possible tests” before them,… Read More

On Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases involving liability for public officials who block critics on their personal social-media accounts. The two cases, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed, are the first in a series of disputes this term arising out of the relationship between government and… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday morning issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the 2023-24 term, and they did not act on several of the high-profile petitions for review that they considered on Friday. The justices denied review in one… Read More

With just over a year to go until the 2024 presidential elections, the shadow of former President Donald Trump – who is once again the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination – hovers over three of the seven cases in the court’s November argument session, which begins on Oct. 30. Trump once asked the justices… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to block a ruling by a federal appeals court that would allow a Native American tribe in Florida to take online sports bets. In a brief unsigned order, the justices turned down a request by two casinos located in Florida to put a decision by the U.S. Court of… Read More