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

The Supreme Court will issue decisions on Thursday, June 22, and Friday, June 23. With the release of five opinions last week, the justices now have 18 cases left to decide, on topics ranging from the consideration of race in college admissions to LGBTQ rights and election law. Here is a full list, along with… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether Congress waived the United States’ sovereign immunity from lawsuits for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz was the lone grant of review on a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference last week…. Read More

The 7-2 decision in Haaland v. Brackeen, rejecting a challenge to the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, was one of three opinions released on Thursday. The justices also released a unanimous opinion in Smith v. United States, on the proper remedy when an appeals court determines that a criminal trial was held in… Read More

In a major ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 federal law that seeks to keep Native American children with Native American families. By a vote of 7-2, the court ruled that Congress had the power to enact the law, and it… Read More

With the announcement of their decision in Allen v. Milligan last week, the justices have finally released all of the opinions from the court’s October argument session. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in Allen, bringing his total number of opinions for the term so far to three and (at least for now)… Read More

This post was updated on June 8 at 4:44 p.m. By a vote of 5-4 on Thursday, the justices issued a major voting rights decision, ruling that Alabama’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act. But even more significantly, the court declined an invitation to adopt an interpretation of the act that would… Read More

It has been just over two months since ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had not included over two decades’ worth of frequent luxury travel hosted by Harlan Crow, a Dallas billionaire, on the annual financial disclosures that the Supreme Court justices file each year. But court watchers interested in Thomas’ disclosures for 2022 will… Read More

It has been more seven years since Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, claimed in a presidential debate that then-candidate Donald Trump had “small hands.” On Monday the justices agreed to weigh in on a trademark dispute that arises indirectly from that comment – specifically, from Steve Elster’s efforts to register the phrase “Trump… Read More

The Supreme Court is scheduled to release more opinions in argued cases on Thursday, June 8, at 10 a.m. With (presumably) less than a month remaining before the justices’ traditional summer recess, the court still has 27 cases to decide — including high-profile cases involving the use of race in college admissions, voting rights, election… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday released three more opinions, leaving the justices with 27 decisions to finish before they can begin their summer recess in late June or early July. Thursday’s opinions did not, however, shed much additional light on who might be writing which opinions yet. Going into Thursday morning, there was only one… Read More