Everything published in July 2016, most recent first.
Commentary relating to the nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia comes from Matthew Yglesias at Vox, who suggests that the “most immediate question Democrats will face if they win the White House and Senate will be what to do about” Garland’s
Three days after attorneys for a seventeen-year-old transgender student urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the student’s dispute with a Virginia school board, the school board today filed its reply.
Briefly: For Forbes, George Leef discusses last month’s denial of review in Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman, in which owners of a Washington pharmacy challenged a state rule requiring pharmacies to sell certain abortifacient drugs.
Briefly: Writing for this blog, Amy Howe covered yesterday’s filing by attorneys for a transgender student, who urged the Court not to block lower-court rulings that would allow the student, who identifies as a boy, to use the boys’ restroom at a Virginia high school while a dispute over the school board’s bathroom policy is litigated on the merits.
The petitions of the day are: Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton 16-74 Issue: Whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974’s church plan exemption applies so long as a pension plan is maintained by an otherwise qualifying church-affiliated organization, or whether the exemption applies only if, in addition, a church initially established the plan.
In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports on the Court’s disclosure of “after-the-fact changes to its decisions”; Kent Scheidegger discusses Liptak’s story and the Court’s publication practices more generally at Crime and Consequences.
A Virginia school board has “utterly failed” to show that it will suffer lasting harm if “G.G.,” a seventeen-year-old transgender student, is allowed to use the boys’ restroom until the Supreme Court can rule on the school board’s request to review the dispute on the merits, attorneys for the student told the Court in a filing today.
At his eponymous blog, Lyle Denniston reports that last week the Obama administration “launched a nationwide plea for advice — technical, practical, legal and even religious — on ways to settle the bitter controversy over the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate,” and he suggests that these
On Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down a key provision of Texas’s voter ID law and sent the case back to the lower court, reducing the likelihood that the dispute will come to the U.S. Supreme Court soon. Coverage comes from Lyle Denniston at his eponymous blog.
Shortly after Edward Sanford was confirmed as the Court’s seventy-second Justice in 1923, an Illinois newspaper observed that liberals were “quite as much pleased over” Sanford’s appointment as they were “distressed over that of Pierce Butler,” who had taken a seat on the Court less than a month
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its ruling in the challenge to Texas’s stringent voter ID law. A divided en banc court struck down one key provision of the law and sent the case back to the lower court, decreasing the chances that the dispute will come immediately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yesterday marked 125 days since the nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland, the president’s nominee to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
A challenge to a Texas voter identification law that some have described as the strictest in the nation now seems less likely to be headed immediately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yesterday the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to rehear the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy, which would allow some undocumented immigrants to apply to remain in the country and work here legally.
Coverage relating to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s remarks about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and her later comments indicating that her remarks were “ill-advised,” comes from NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who interviewed Ginsburg; commentary comes from Kenneth Jost, who at Jost on
Twenty-five days ago, the eight Justices of the Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order which indicated that they were deadlocked four to four on the validity of the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy, which would allow undocumented immigrants who are the parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply to remain in the country without fear of deportation and work here legally.
The petitions of the day are: Turner v. United States 15-1503 Issue: (1) Whether, under Brady v. Maryland, courts may consider information that arises after trial in determining the materiality of suppressed evidence; and (2) whether, in a case where no physical evidence inculpated petitioners, the
Yesterday Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a statement, through the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office, in which she indicated that her remarks criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump were “ill-advised.” I covered the statement for this blog, with other coverage coming
The petitions of the day are: Lynch v. Lopez-Islava 15-1496 Issue: Whether 18 U.S.C. 16(b), as incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act’s provisions governing an alien’s removal from the United States, is unconstitutionally vague.
UPDATED: On Thursday, July 14, Chief Justice John Roberts requested a response from attorneys for G.G. to the school board’s stay application. The response is due by 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, July 27.
Yesterday a Virginia school board asked the Supreme Court to put on hold a lower-court ruling requiring it to allow a transgender student who identifies as a boy to use the boys’ restroom.
In a series of recent interviews with the Associated Press, The New York Times, and CNN, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had harsh words for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – calling him a “faker” and suggesting that she didn’t “even want to contemplate” the impact that a Trump presidency would have on the Supreme Court and the country.
Yesterday the Supreme Court released the calendar for its October 2016 sitting. The calendar is noteworthy in two respects. First, the Justices will hear oral arguments on only three of the six weekdays of the sitting, because a federal holiday – Columbus Day (October 10) – and two Jewish high holidays — Rosh Hashanah (October 3) and Yom Kippur (October 12) – fall during the sitting.
Coverage relating to recent remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump comes from Nick Gass, who reports for Politico that Trump himself responded to Ginsburg, while Michael Shear and Maggie Haberman do the same for The New York Times; and from
Coverage of recent remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in interviews with the Associated Press and The New York Times – in which, among other things, Ginsburg discussed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – comes from Aaron Blake at The Washington Post (who has another story with
Because June has traditionally been a busy opinion-writing month for the Supreme Court, the Justices’ schedule of events was relatively light in comparison to previous months.
Coverage of the Court is dominated by remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in interviews with the Associated Press and The New York Times. Among other things, Ginsburg discussed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the vacancy on the Court, and Justice Antonin Scalia.
At the Brennan Center, Andrew Cohen looks at the just-ended Term and argues that what it “really represents, apart from the sum of its decisions and orders, is a hinge in the Court’s history.” At Empirical SCOTUS, Adam Feldman continues his review of the Term, this time focusing on how law firms fared at the Court.
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins on the occasion of the publication of The Burger Court & the Rise of the Judicial Right (Simon & Schuster, 2016, pp. 450), by Michael J. Graetz and Linda A. Greenhouse.
Irv Gornstein, the executive director of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute, will join the Office of the Solicitor General, where he will serve as Counselor to the Solicitor General. Acting Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn announced the news in a press release yesterday.
Coverage and commentary related to last week’s decision striking down two provisions in a Texas law regulating abortion comes from Oyez, which adds analysis of the decision to its Body Politic site.
For the past three years, Ian Gershengorn has been in the Office of the Solicitor General working as Don Verrilli’s principal deputy. Now, he is leading the office himself. Gershengorn took over as Acting Solicitor General on June 25.
In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reviews Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissents this Term, describing them as “a remarkable body of work from an increasingly skeptical student of the criminal justice system.” At Reason, Damon Root contends that Sotomayor “is fast becoming the Supreme Court’s biggest
Coverage and commentary related to the end of the Court’s Term, and looking back at the Term as a whole, abound.
Maeva Marcus has taken over as the new general editor of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Library of Congress and the Permanent Committee of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise recently announced.
The Court is now in its summer recess. Its next Conference is scheduled for Monday, September 26.
The petitions of the day are: [PAGE]15-1391[/PAGE] [PAGE]15-1455[/PAGE] [PAGE]15-1482[/PAGE]
In a podcast for the Constitution Center, Carrie Severino and Michael Dorf try to “make sense of an unpredictable year” at the Court, while Sullivan & Cromwell looks back at the business cases at the Court.