Nine years after its last major ruling on the rights of detainees at the Guantanamo military prison, the Supreme Court refused on Monday to return to that abiding constitutional controversy.  Without comment, the Justices turned aside a significant challenge to the use of military commissions to try foreign nationals for crimes that could be prosecuted… Read More

Almost 17 months after the Supreme Court sent platoons of lawyers off on what turned out to be a failed mission to work out the nationwide controversy over women’s access to birth control, the newly deepened controversy returned to the federal courts on Friday. The first of a series of lawsuits landed in a federal… Read More

Fearing that an appeal to the Supreme Court could bring a nationwide ruling against gun control, officials of the local government in the nation’s capital have abandoned the defense of a strict law limiting the right to carry a concealed handgun outside the home. Their decision will thus keep out of the reach of the… Read More

The opposing sides in the historic controversy over President Trump’s limits on foreign travelers’ entry into the U.S. handed the Supreme Court on Thursday a difficult new question: will the defeats the Administration already suffered in this fight in lower courts remain, or be wiped off the books? That is a question the Justices probably… Read More

With the Supreme Court taking a new look on Tuesday at a constitutional puzzle it could not solve 13 years ago, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy gave a fairly strong hint that he may now have the answer. The puzzle has been easier to describe than to solve: when is partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional?  Or, in other… Read More

Two legal advocacy groups asked a federal judge on Friday to  allow them to begin a new challenge to President Trump’s latest attempt to restrict entry into the U.S. by foreign nationals.  The groups will seek a court order to block enforcement of the new  approach, which is scheduled to go into effect on October 18…. Read More

Very often, the Supreme Court will speak through a very simple order, without explanation.  But it frequently will be true that such an order has deeper meaning, maybe even major consequences.  That is very likely what could follow a one-sentence order issued on Wednesday in a case with an obscure title, Benisek v. Lamone. That… Read More

A deeply-divided Supreme Court on Tuesday night stepped back into the long-running legal battle over whether the Texas legislature has unconstitutionally discriminated against minority voters in drawing new congressional and state legislative election districts. In two separate orders that split the Justices 5-to-4, two rulings by a three-judge federal trial court in San Antonio were… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday evening gave the Trump Administration permission to continue – but perhaps only for the time being – to exclude some 24,000 refugees from entering the U.S.   With no indication of any dissent, the Justices granted the Administration request to put on hold a lower court ruling that would open U.S…. Read More

UPDATED  Tuesday 3:16 p.m.   The Trump legal team filed its reply brief Tuesday afternoon, renewing its plea to continue excluding the 24,000 refugees.  It argued that the Supreme Court is in the best position to interpret what its prior orders mean on that issue. This filing now sets the stage for the Justices to… Read More