With time running out on President Obama’s nomination of Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland to be a Supreme Court Justice, a federal trial judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday threw out a New Mexico lawyer’s lawsuit seeking to force a vote in the Senate. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, in a five-page opinion, did not rule… Read More

The Supreme Court’s expressed hope that lawyers on both sides of the controversy over the birth-control mandate in the new federal health care law would come to an agreement is no nearer realization after six months. The two sides are facing a series of deadlines to file new reports in eight separate federal appeals courts… Read More

With conservative advocacy groups pressing the new Donald Trump administration to reverse national policy that up to now has strongly favored transgender rights, this newest campaign for legal equality may have to shift its focus – to the states but with some continued emphasis on court cases, especially in the lower federal courts. The Supreme… Read More

Lawyers for the federal government and for the 26 states that challenged the Obama administration’s sweeping change of immigration policy are due to meet this week to see if they can agree on how that controversy is to unfold from here on. The further review of the policy in the federal courts, however, may be… Read More

On the day after America voted, one thing is all but certain about the Supreme Court, and a second thing is highly probable. What is close to a certainty is that President Obama’s nominee to the existing vacancy on the ourt, Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland, will not become a Justice. What is probable is… Read More

If lenders of home mortgages discriminate against minority borrowers, and that sets off a chain that ultimately ends in racially segregated residential neighborhoods, who along that chain gets to sue for damages? And, in particular, if cities at the end of that chain can show they were harmed, can they sue and, if so, how… Read More

On the eve of the presidential election, the Supreme Court refused a Democratic party plea to intervene to protect Ohio voters from intimidation or harassment by followers of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The state Democrats had asked the Justices to put back into effect a Cleveland federal judge’s order explicitly barring Trump “poll watchers”… Read More

The high-stakes presidential contest for votes in the key battleground state of Ohio reached the Supreme Court late Sunday night, with the state Democratic party seeking a ruling to put back into effect a Cleveland judge’s order banning voter intimidation or harassment of voters.   The judge’s order, issued Friday, was blocked earlier Sunday by the U.S. Court… Read More

Acting quickly to rule before election day, a federal trial judge in New Jersey rejected — for the time being at least — a broad claim by the Democratic National Committee that the Republican National Committee has teamed up with the Donald Trump presidential campaign to intimidate voters.  The GOP thus was spared from being held… Read More

With no noted dissents, the Supreme Court on Saturday morning acted to put back into effect an Arizona law passed earlier this year that makes it a crime, with a potentially heavy fine, for anyone to pick up and deliver another voter’s ballot to a polling place.  The law, applying to mail-in ballots that are popular among… Read More