Showing 1–50 of 83 items published in December 2019, most recent first.
Abortion was a hot-button issue at the Supreme Court during the past decade, as it has been for almost 50 years. The right to obtain an abortion before a fetus becomes viable was first recognized in 1973 in Roe v. Wade and then curtailed in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which allowed states to regulate pre-viability abortions as long as the regulations do not pose an undue burden on abortion access.
The Supreme Court is no stranger to political debate. Outside factors, like President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal to add six justices to the bench in 1937, as well as the justices’ own actions, such as the unanimous 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, have often focused public attention on the court.
On July 9, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, then a 53-year-old appeals court judge, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Briefly: At The Hill, John Kruzel reports that “Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to prevent the Supreme Court from being seen as just another political body, but when he presides over President Trump‘s likely impeachment trial in the Senate, the partisan glare will be hard for him to avoid.” At
Today Chief Justice John Roberts issued his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary. The 2018 report had focused on the judiciary’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace, but the 2019 report was more upbeat, lauding the judiciary’s role in civic education.
There is a long history of “test cases” being brought all the way to the Supreme Court by interest groups recruiting suitable plaintiffs. Two of this decade’s major cases involving race were no exception – although the “interest group” was comprised of one person.
The LGBTQ rights movement experienced a handful of victories at the Supreme Court in the first half of the decade. A string of federal litigation culminated in the court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which found that the Constitution includes a right for same-sex couples to marry.
On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The law was almost immediately challenged in federal court, leading to three days of oral argument at the Supreme Court in March of 2012.
Over the last decade, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a pop culture icon – an unlikely attainment for a Supreme Court justice. Throughout her career, Ginsburg has made history and broken glass ceilings, from graduating first in her class at Columbia to founding the ACLU Women’s Rights Project to becoming the second woman on the Supreme Court bench.
Briefly: At Politico Magazine (via How Appealing), Jeff Greenfield writes that the late Justice John Paul Stevens’ 2014 book “Six Amendments” revealed Stevens “as a deep pessimist about what has happened to the high court as an instrument for expanding justice, a man who believed that the radical
On February 13, 2016, 79-year-old Justice Antonin Scalia died at a ranch in Marfa, Texas. That night, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who was then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both declared that the Senate should not act on any new nomination for a Supreme Court justice until after the presidential election in November 2016.
One of the first blockbuster Supreme Court decisions of the past 10 years will surely affect the election taking place at the beginning of the new decade.
Briefly: For Capitol Media Services (via Tucson.com), Howard Fischer reports that Arizona “Attorney General Mark Brnovich wants the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a new trial to a man whose says bad legal advice he got in a criminal case resulted in his deportation,” in Arizona v. Nunez-Diaz.
This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether a law enforcement officer’s membership in a joint state-federal police task force managed, in part, by a federal agency precludes the officer from acting “under color of state law” for
Briefly: At The Advocate of Baton Rouge (via How Appealing), Joe Gyan Jr, reports that in Mckesson v. Doe, “[a] civil rights group is urging the nation’s highest court to overturn a lower-court ruling that said a Black Lives Matter organizer has no First Amendment defense to a lawsuit filed by a
As the second decade of the 21st century winds down, it’s a good time to take stock of what these past 10 years have meant for the Supreme Court – and, by extension, the country. The major change at the court, of course, has been in its makeup.
The Supreme Court closed out its 2017-2018 term with high-profile rulings in the challenge to President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the United States by citizens of eight predominantly Muslim countries and the dispute over the payment of fees by public-sector employees who are represented by – but do not belong to – a union.
Briefly: For The New York Times, Adam Liptak explains that Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which asks “whether states are free to erect a wall between church and state high enough to exclude religious groups from some state benefits,” is “a proxy battle over school choice.” Bill Mears
June is traditionally the month when the public focuses on the Supreme Court. Many of the court’s most politically tinged decisions in recent years were rendered during June.
At Bloomberg, Greg Stohr reports that Chief Justice John Roberts “will now face the challenge of trying to bring … judicial independence – and a modicum of decorum – into the political maelstrom of a Senate impeachment trial.” Lawrence Hurley reports for Reuters that “it is in his day job on the
The justices are on recess until their January 10 conference.
Briefly: For The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Jess Bravin writes that “[f]or Chief Justice John Roberts, required by the Constitution to preside when the Senate tries a president, the impeachment of Donald Trump offers a chance to distinguish the judiciary from the partisanship
Any review of a calendar year at the Supreme Court necessarily includes two different terms: the term that ends in June and the new one that begins in October and will run into the following year. But a look back at 2019, in particular, reveals two very different terms.
Yesterday the Supreme Court added five more cases to its docket for the term, for a total of four hours of oral argument. Amy Howe covers the order list for this blog; her coverage first appeared at Howe on the Court.
This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether a motorist’s assertion of his Fourth Amendment right to refuse consent to a warrantless blood test may be used as evidence of guilt for the offense of driving under the influence, whether a
At Newsweek, Roger Parloff discusses the three cases involving President Donald Trump’s efforts to shield his financial records from subpoenas issued by a New York grand jury and three congressional committees that the court agreed last week to hear, observing that “the rulings below suggest that
Last Friday the justices added five new cases, for a total of four hours of argument, to their docket for this term. The December 13 conference was the last regularly scheduled conference for 2019, but this morning the justices added five more new cases, again for a total of four hours of argument, to their docket.
Yesterday the Supreme Court issued additional orders from last Friday’s conference, adding no new cases to its merits docket. Amy Howe covers the order list for this blog, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court.
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins to Geoffrey Stone and David Strauss in connection with their new book, “Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court” (Oxford University Press, 2020).
On Friday afternoon, the court added five cases to its merits docket, for a total of four hours of oral argument, including three cases stemming from efforts by congressional committees and a New York grand jury to subpoena President Donald Trump’s financial records from the president’s accountants and lenders.
This morning the Supreme Court issued more orders from last week’s private conference. After adding five new cases to their docket on Friday, including three cases involving disputes over access to President Donald Trump’s financial records, the justices did not grant any new cases today, nor did they seek the views of the federal government.
On Monday at 9:30 a.m., the Supreme Court released additional orders from the December 13 conference, granting no new cases. On Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., the court released more orders from the December 13 conference.
Briefly: At Reuters, Lawrence Hurley reports that the Supreme Court “could decide this week on whether to hear appeals from [President Donald] Trump in three cases he has lost in lower courts” involving his “efforts to shield his tax returns and other financial records from scrutiny.” Kristin Lam
This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether the Department of Veterans Affairs enjoys a presumption in every veterans-benefit case that its medical examiner is competent, and whether, when a jury states that it is “unable to agree” on
Oyez has posted the aligned audio and transcripts from this week’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The court heard argument this week in: Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies Maine Community Health Options v. United States Holguin-Hernandez v. United States Monasky v. Taglieri McKinney v. Arizona
This afternoon the Supreme Court announced that it would wade into the fray over access to President Donald Trump’s financial records.
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of James McKinney, who was sentenced to death for two murders in 1991. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit threw out McKinney’s death sentence four years ago, the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated it.
The Supreme Court this evening refused to block the execution of Travis Runnels, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 prison murder of Stanley Riley. Texas was scheduled to execute Runnels at 6 pm CT.
Amy Howe analyzes yesterday’s argument in Monasky v. Taglieri, which involves the application to an infant of the “habitual residence” provision of an international child-abduction convention, for this blog, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court.
Justice Byron White, who as a retired justice hired a law clerk named Neil Gorsuch, once wrote that “a prime function of this Court’s certiorari jurisdiction [is] to resolve” conflicts between the federal circuits.
Today the Supreme Court wraps up its December sitting with two oral arguments. The first is in Monasky v. Taglieri, which involves the “habitual residence” provision of an international child-abduction convention.
On Tuesday, December 10, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Rotkiske v. Klemm, a messy but ultimately small case arising from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The curious strategic choices by Rotkiske’s lawyers throughout this case all but foretold his loss before the Supreme Court.
My assessment of the argument in Peter v. NantKwest viewed the case as a likely candidate for an early decision. To be sure, this morning’s opinion wasn’t the first of the 2019 calendar, but it was a close second – coming only one day after Tuesday’s decision in Rotkiske v Klemm.
In 2015, Michelle Monasky left the domestic-violence safe house in Italy where she had been staying with her newborn daughter and traveled to her parents’ home in Ohio.
If you have become depressed about the current state of American government—the shouting, the posturing, the endless spinning—please read the oral-argument transcript in Thryv Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies LP. And for good measure, you might as well read the transcript in the immigration case
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the consolidated cases of Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr and Ovalles v. Barr. These cases focus on the meaning of a single statutory provision: 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D).
This morning brings oral argument in two cases. The first is Maine Community Health Options v. United States, which stems from the federal government’s failure to fully reimburse health insurance companies for losses created as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
John Elwood briefly reviews Monday’s relists. On Monday, the Supreme Court further thinned the ranks of pending relists, denying review in Schexnayder v. Vannoy, 18-8341, which involved hair-raising allegations that a Louisiana state court had a secret policy of denying all pro se prisoner writ applications.