Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Almost a year out of office but still trying to push the outer limits of the Constitution, former President Donald Trump is back at the Supreme Court for another try. This time, he is attempting to claim a part of a presidential prerogative that President Joe Biden now holds. It is a “privilege” that goes… Read More

Acting speedily, Texas state officials asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to hand over to the Texas Supreme Court a new plea to stop clinics from challenging that state’s strict new abortion ban (so-called “SB8”). The officials acted without waiting for that case to formally return from the Supreme Court to the U.S. Court… Read More

Four days after the Supreme Court left abortion clinics and doctors in Texas with only a narrow way to challenge that state’s restrictive abortion ban in the federal courts, four state officials have made plans to try to block that path. In a filing made public Tuesday by the Supreme Court, the officials whose duties… Read More

Leaving unsettled a pregnant woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed Texas to continue for now to enforce the strictest ban in the nation but cleared the way for a variety of new court challenges to it. While the Justices split in at least a half-dozen different ways, the overall… Read More

A Texas state judge, relying mainly on state law, on Wednesday struck down the never-before-attempted method that Texas chose for enforcing an abortion law that is the strictest in the nation – a law that is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.  A ruling by the Justices in Washington could come at any… Read More

The Supreme Court this morning returns to the long-running controversy over the power of federal courts to act as a check on how state courts handle criminal trials, and Congress’s power to limit that checking function.  This will be the final hearing of the current sitting, and thus the last of 2021. (The opening hearing… Read More

This week’s Supreme Court hearings finish with two cases on Wednesday, including one of the most controversial of the current term. That is a case about parents who want to send their children to religious schools, with their tuition paid by state government – a classic case testing the constitutional “wall” between church and state…. Read More

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a single case; a second case had been scheduled, but it has been settled and removed from the docket.  The hearing tomorrow will explore when a threat of possible crime can be prosecuted. The “live” audio (no video) of the hearing can be found at Quick Links on… Read More

This week, the Supreme Court will once again confront controversy, probably not as highly visible as last week’s abortion rights hearing. This new controversy, though, is on the right of religious people to have access to government benefits, part of a long-running dispute under the First Amendment’s religious freedom clauses. However, that won’t be before… Read More

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., appears to be leaning – if today’s Supreme Court hearing on abortion rights provides a reliable hint – toward fashioning a ruling that does not take away totally a woman’s constitutional right to end her pregnancy but leaves it much narrowed. The key to such a decision would be… Read More