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

Before the justices returned to the courtroom on Monday morning for the first in-person oral arguments in over a year and a half, they issued a second set of orders from their private conference last week. As expected, the justices did not add any cases to their docket for the 2021-22 term; those grants came… Read More

When the justices of the Supreme Court returned to the courtroom on Monday for the first time since March of 2020, the atmosphere was simultaneously familiar and yet very different. The justices heard oral arguments in a pair of cases that epitomize the bread and butter of the court’s docket: a long-running water-rights dispute and… Read More

The Supreme Court refused on Friday to block New York City’s requirement that all public-school employees be vaccinated for COVID-19. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles emergency appeals from the area that includes New York, turned down a request from four of the city’s public-school employees to temporarily block the enforcement of the mandate while they… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday held an investiture ceremony for Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Although Barrett was sworn in as a justice shortly after her confirmation nearly a year ago, the investiture – a brief ceremony at which the court officially receives a new justice’s commission – was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And… Read More

Three days before the justices are scheduled to return to the courtroom for the first time since March 2020, the Supreme Court announced on Friday morning that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has tested positive for COVID-19. The 56-year-old justice has no symptoms and has been fully vaccinated since January, the press release from the court’s Public… Read More

Telling the justices that the “education of thousands of children in the largest public-school system in the country” is at stake, four New York City public-school employees came to the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the justices to act quickly to put the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on hold while they litigate their challenge to… Read More

With only a few days remaining before the justices return to the courtroom for the start of the 2021-22 term, the Supreme Court on Thursday issued orders from the justices’ “long conference” on Monday, Sept. 27. The justices normally consider over a thousand cases at the long conference, which is the unofficial end to the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to block the execution of Rick Rhoades, a Texas inmate who was sentenced to death for the 1991 stabbing death of two brothers during a robbery. There were no public dissents from the court’s one-sentence order. Shortly after the justices turned down Rhoades’ appeal, he was executed by lethal… Read More

Telling the justices that “Texas is in crisis,” the abortion providers challenging Texas’ ban on nearly all abortions in the state came to the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the court to weigh in on the law’s unusual enforcement scheme without waiting for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to first issue… Read More

Three years ago, in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Supreme Court ruled that government employees who are represented by a union but do not belong to that union cannot be required to pay a fee to cover the union’s contract negotiation costs. In Baisley v. International Association of Machinists… Read More