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

In some ways, next week’s consolidated oral argument in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania will be like 2016 all over again. In the middle of a presidential election season, the justices will once again weigh in on the battle over the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, which… Read More

On March 4, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in June Medical Services v. Russo, a challenge to a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have the right to admit patients at nearby hospitals. That morning, the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Bridget Mary McCormack, took to Twitter to playfully… Read More

Yesterday the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in a challenge to New York City’s ban on the transport of licensed handguns outside the city. Because the city had repealed the ban last summer, a majority on the court agreed with the city that the challengers’ original claims are moot – that is, no longer… Read More

In 2003, Congress passed the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act, which has provided billions of dollars to fund efforts to combat HIV/AIDS overseas. Among other things, the law contains a requirement that organizations receiving funds to fight HIV/AIDS “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” Seven years ago, the… Read More

UPDATE: Justice Samuel Alito has called for a response to the businesses’ request for a stay of the governor’s shutdown order. It is due on Monday, May 4, at noon ET. Yet another pandemic-related emergency filing reached the Supreme Court tonight. A group of Pennsylvania businesses led by the Friends of Danny DeVito, a committee… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not act on two cases that have been repeatedly relisted in recent weeks, a death-penalty case from Texas and the federal government’s challenge to one of California’s “sanctuary state” laws, which prohibit state and local law-enforcement officials from… Read More

Today the Supreme Court ruled that health-insurance companies that lost money offering policies on the “health benefit exchanges” established by the Affordable Care Act are entitled to compensation for their losses. The decision was a major victory for the four insurers, which argued that they are owed hundreds of millions of dollars, and a defeat… Read More

The Supreme Court sent a major Second Amendment case back to the lower courts today, ruling that the challenge to a New York City restriction on the transport of guns is “moot” – that is, no longer a live controversy – because the city changed the rule last year. But some of the court’s more… Read More

Earlier this year, a divided Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to enforce the “public charge” rule, which governs the admission of immigrants into the United States, while the government appeals orders by district courts in New York and Illinois that blocked it from doing so. Tonight the justices turned down pleas… Read More

For many people, the Appalachian Trail, a 2,180-mile public footpath through the Appalachian Mountains, is a valued resource for exercise and recreation. But at the Supreme Court last February, it was serious business – so much so that Maury Johnson, Katherine Wilkin and many others spent a cold night on the sidewalk, waiting in line… Read More