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

The Supreme Court on Tuesday debated the scope of a 27-year-old federal law that shields social-media companies from liability for content published by others. At issue in Gonzalez v. Google is whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects internet platforms when their algorithms target users and recommend someone else’s content. Google and its… Read More

In 2015, ISIS conducted a series of coordinated attacks around Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 more. Two years later, 39 people were killed in an ISIS attack on an Istanbul nightclub during the early hours of New Year’s Day. This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair… Read More

While campaigning for president in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden pledged to cancel at least $10,000 in federal student-loan debt for each borrower. More than two years later, Biden announced a debt-relief program that would forgive up to $20,000 in loans for borrowers who qualify. On Feb. 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to block the execution of Missouri inmate Leonard Taylor, who was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of his live-in girlfriend and her three children. Taylor had asked the justices to put his execution on hold and give him a new hearing where a state court could consider… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to block the execution of a Texas man who contended that jurors relied on racist stereotypes and anti-Hispanic prejudices in sentencing him to death. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices turned down a request from Wesley Ruiz, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the fatal 2007… Read More

The final argument session of the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 term will include high-profile disputes over how employers must accommodate their employees’ religious practices and how courts should decide whether threatening statements are protected by the First Amendment. The two cases, Groff v. DeJoy and Counterman v. Colorado, will headline the April argument calendar, which was… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Biden administration for its views on a pair of controversial social-media laws enacted in Texas and Florida. Passed in response to beliefs that social-media platforms were censoring their users, particularly those expressing conservative political views, both states’ laws seek to regulate the content-moderation policies of social-media companies like… Read More

Gail Curley, the Supreme Court’s marshal, said on Friday that she spoke with the justices as part of her investigation into the Dobbs leak but that the justices – unlike court employees – were not asked to swear under penalty of perjury that they were not responsible for the leak. In a brief, prepared statement… Read More

The Supreme Court has not been able to determine who leaked a draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court said on Thursday. The unprecedented leak last May revealed that the court was privately poised to overturn the court’s landmark decisions establishing a constitutional right to an abortion…. Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed ready to side with a deaf student who is seeking financial compensation from a Michigan school district that failed to provide him with a qualified sign-language interpreter. The student, Miguel Perez, alleges that the school district violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lower courts threw out his lawsuit, ruling… Read More