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

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is headed by a single director, who is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve a five-year term. Once that director is in office, she can only be removed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” This morning both a California… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The court granted four petitions for review, including two consolidated cases (discussed in a separate post) involving the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. All the cases granted today are expected to be argued next fall, with a decision… Read More

Just as it did almost eight years ago, the Supreme Court will once again weigh in on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. The justices announced today that they had granted two petitions involving the ACA – one by California and a group of states, the other by Texas and a different… Read More

In 1991, James McKinney and his half-brother killed two people while robbing the victims at their homes. McKinney was sentenced to death, but in 2015 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit threw out his death sentences. In 2018, the Arizona Supreme Court resentenced McKinney, once again imposing the death penalty. Today a… Read More

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction requires that a child who is abducted from her “habitual residence” be returned to that country, so that the courts there can resolve any custody issues between the child’s parents. As a result of this “automatic return” rule, the determination of the child’s “habitual… Read More

It has been 10 years since 15-year-old Sergio Hernandez was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Jesus Mesa, while Hernandez was playing on the Mexican side of the border. The Hernandez family filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking to hold Mesa responsible for their son’s death, but today the Supreme Court,… Read More

The congressional commission that investigated the 2008 financial crisis concluded that the United States’ consumer-protection system was “too fragmented to be effective.” In response to that finding, in 2010 Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFPB – whose website describes the bureau as a “U.S. government agency… Read More

The Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in a case brought by the victims of the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Although the bombings killed over 200 people and injured more than a thousand others, today’s discussion before the eight justices – Justice Brett Kavanaugh was recused –… Read More

The Supreme Court returned from its winter recess today with just one new grant from last week’s private conference, but the newest addition to the court’s merits docket is a significant one. Next term the justices will hear oral argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a challenge by several foster parents and Catholic Social… Read More

Last month the Supreme Court granted the federal government’s request for permission to enforce a rule known as the “public charge” rule, which prohibits noncitizens from receiving a green card if the government believes that they are likely to rely on public assistance. That ruling put on hold a pair of orders by a federal… Read More