Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

America’s latest civil rights movement – seeking legal protection for transgender people – suffered a historic and sweeping defeat in the Supreme Court Wednesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of individuals newly exposed to discrimination.  The six-Justice majority allowed such individuals only the most minimal legal means to fight for rights. Transgender people, the Court declared… Read More

Maryland’s ban of the gun most often used in mass shootings across the nation withstood a new constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court on Monday.  However, there may be another test when the Justices meet in their next term. The legislature in Annapolis outlawed any form of “assault weapon” or semi-automatic rifle, such as the… Read More

A special federal court on Wednesday blocked the Trump Administration from enforcing any of the sweeping, globe-wide tariffs that the President imposed on imported goods – price controls that have upset the entire U.S. economy and sent U.S. and foreign financial markets into wild up-and-down swings. Because President Trump has such a strong personal devotion… Read More

The Supreme Court, continuing to broadly expand the constitutional power of President Trump and future Presidents, on Thursday night temporarily upheld unchecked White House authority to fire members of federal government agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life. The two-page order, approved by a 6-to-3 vote, means that for the first time in 90… Read More

A first-in-the-nation move to set up a religious school as a public school paid for with taxpayer funds failed in the Supreme Court Thursday on a 4-to-4 vote.  The tie resulted from Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s personal but unexplained choice to take no part in the case. The case grew out of a bold attempt… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon continued to spell out new legal protection for potentially thousands of migrants against being swiftly deported by the Trump Administration with no legal safeguards.  It did so without waiting for lower courts to decide those rights first. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court ruled that some 176 Venezuelans that… Read More

The Supreme Court may opt to take action quickly, after exploring the constitutional right of citizenship at birth at a historic hearing Thursday.  The Justices were keenly interested and seemed eager to act swiftly during a public session lasting more than twice as long as scheduled. Although various ideas and approaches were floated by the… Read More

When a baby is born, anywhere in the United States, the nation almost always gains a new citizen.  That status makes a child a permanent member of American society.  Tomorrow morning, that guarantee under the U.S. Constitution will be at the center of a special hearing at the Supreme Court. Normally, by this time in… Read More

In a historic first, a federal judge on Thursday barred President Trump and his Administration from using an 18th Century law to deport a group of Venezuelan men now being held in a government detention center in a small town in Texas. The 36-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr.., of Brownsville, Texas,… Read More

Behind the scenes at the Supreme Court, the Justices and their law clerks are pondering how to deal with the constitutional controversy over the citizenship of children born in the U.S. to foreign parents – a historic dispute that is now set for a special hearing three weeks from now. At the center of that… Read More