Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

The Supreme Court, significantly widening its planned review of abortion rights, agreed on Friday to rule on new appeals by the Biden Administration and by Texas abortion clinics and doctors, raising challenges to a new Texas law that has halted most abortions in the state. At the same time, however, the Court – for a… Read More

The Biden Administration, accusing the state of Texas of nullifying Supreme Court rulings with its new abortion ban, asked the Court on Monday to act promptly to strike down that law. Urging the Court not to wait until lower courts finish reviewing the law, the new filing made two requests: Put the Texas law, which… Read More

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court considers whether to reinstate the death penalty for the Massachusetts man who, at age 19, joined with his older brother in the mass casualty bombing at the Boston Marathon race eight years ago.  That is the first hearing of two tomorrow.  The second, described briefly below, involves a complex dispute… Read More

After a day off Monday for Columbus Day, the Supreme Court returns to the bench Tuesday with the first hearing focusing on abortion rights in Kentucky – the first of what are likely to be several cases this term on that abiding and now intensifying controversy.  The second hearing Tuesday will be on the right… Read More

The ongoing controversy over the use of torture against terrorist captives, to get them to talk, and the secrecy that prevents full disclosure of that history reaches the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It arises in a test case over when a victim of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program at so-called “black sites” overseas… Read More

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will spend the morning trying to sort out two constitutional puzzles about criminal trials and the rights of the accused.  The first case arises in the embattled zone between state and federal courts, focusing on when a federal court can overturn a guilty verdict in a state court trial.  The… Read More

The Supreme Court begins a new term tomorrow, the first Monday in October, and the opening hearing might sound something like the constitutional debates, circa 1787. The first case poses a question that is as old as the Constitution itself, and it’s a question that the founders specifically created the Supreme Court to answer. The… Read More

History will be made next Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court. For the first time, America will be able to tune in to listen to the Court’s hearings “live” – just as they happen, directly from the courtroom, and with the Justices asking questions in a rapid-fire, unstructured way. However, it will be audio only;… Read More

It is becoming increasingly clear that, inside the Supreme Court, some of the Justices are growing worried about the institution’s public reputation. But what may be most worrisome to them is how that might translate into structural change, imposed on the Court from the outside. In recent days, three of the Court’s nine Justices have… Read More

Acting just before midnight last night, a deeply divided Supreme Court allowed Texas to continue enforcing the nation’s strictest ban on abortions – even as the majority insisted that it was not upholding the ban’s constitutionality. The majority said it had doubts that the Court had the power at this stage to stop the law,… Read More