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

The Supreme Court issued orders this morning from the justices’ conference last week, which was once again held with the justices – all of whom, according to the court’s Public Information Office, are healthy – participating by phone. The justices did not add any new cases to their docket for next term, nor did they… Read More

One day after Wisconsin Republicans asked the Supreme Court to block a lower-court ruling that extended the deadline for voters to submit absentee ballots in the state’s primary election, Wisconsin Democrats urged the justices to stay out of the dispute and allow that ruling to stay in place for now. Blocking the district court’s order,… Read More

In an emergency filing arising from the COVID-19 crisis, the Republican National Committee and Wisconsin Republicans tonight asked the Supreme Court to block a lower-court order that extended the deadline for Wisconsin voters to submit absentee ballots in the state’s upcoming primary election until April 13 – six days after the election, which is scheduled… Read More

Five days after President Donald Trump announced that federal guidance on social distancing would remain in effect until April 30, the Supreme Court announced that its April argument session, which had been scheduled to begin on April 20 and run through April 29, would be postponed. Today’s notice followed the justices’ decision, announced on March… Read More

On an average argument day at the Supreme Court, there are 439 seats in the courtroom. Of those 439, only 50 – that is, just over 11 percent – are specifically set aside for members of the general public. The other 389 are divided among several different groups. The “public line” The line to obtain… Read More

They are the legal version of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket: the cards (in colors that change from day to day) distributed in front of the Supreme Court that give the people holding them access to one of the seats set aside for the public at that morning’s oral arguments. With only 50 seats guaranteed for… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court continued its virtual operations, releasing orders from the justices’ private conference last week. Following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for COVID-19, and in a departure from tradition, only Chief Justice John Roberts was in the justices’ conference room again last week, with the rest of the justices… Read More

Last Friday, the justices had their regularly scheduled private conference. According to the court’s Public Information Office, the meeting was a departure from their normal format: Following Center for Disease Control guidelines to combat the spread of the coronavirus, only Chief Justice John Roberts was actually in the justices’ conference room, with the rest of… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued its opinion in an important race-discrimination case. The justices unanimously ruled that a lawsuit brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, a part of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits racial discrimination in contracts, requires the plaintiff to show “but for” causation – that is, that the defendant would have… Read More

Until 1979, every jurisdiction in the United States allowed mentally ill defendants to assert what was traditionally regarded as an insanity defense – that is, to argue that because they did not understand that their actions were wrong, they cannot be held criminally responsible for those actions. Since then, five states, including Kansas, have abolished… Read More