Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will finish its current round of hearings with a provocative case on the rights of public school students, and a second case involving a rare examination of the meaning of the Constitution’s Eleventh Amendment. This dispatch will deal with the school case; another dispatch will appear early Wednesday on the… Read More

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s hearings-by-telephone will be on two cases that appear to be narrow as well as technical in scope. Rather than spend considerable effort on explaining them, this essay will use them as a basis for exploring the Court’s case-selection process – that is, what makes a case qualify for the rarity… Read More

Continuing its remote, hearings-by-telephone, the Supreme Court on Monday will be focusing on the privacy of people who support advocacy groups, and, separately, on who must pay to clean up toxic waste dumps. The audio portions (but not the video) of the hearings will be broadcast on cspan.org/supremecourt First case, starting at 10 a.m.: Americans… Read More

“But is it fair?” Part 1 Today’s hearings in the Supreme Court bring back the memory of Chief Justice Earl Warren. As lawyers before him moved along, confident in the refined legal points they were making, Warren from time to time would interrupt and ask, with emphasis: “But is it fair?” That perhaps was not… Read More

Tomorrow, as it does frequently, the Supreme Court turns again to questions about enforcing America’s gun laws.  In back-to-back hearings, the Justices will seek to define how federal courts are to handle appeals by an individual who has been convicted of having a gun illegally. How such appeals turn out, of course, can affect future… Read More

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court begins a two-week series of hearings, again doing so remotely and by telephone for reasons of health safety.  The audio portion of all of the hearings will be broadcast on c-span.org/supreme court   There will be no video broadcasts.  Except for a single case to be heard in May, these will be… Read More

In a move of potentially profound historic importance, President Biden on Friday set up a 36-member commission to study the U.S. Supreme Court’s past and its potential future.  The key function assigned to the new body will be to discuss the pros and cons of changes now being discussed in public and academic debate –… Read More

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court finishes its current set of hearings with a close look at how the law governs college sports – specifically, whether it is illegal to deny compensation of almost any kind to student athletes. The Court has combined two appeals for one hour of hearing; the Chief Justice has the authority… Read More

It is a basic assumption of the posts on this site that any case before the Supreme Court can be made interesting, in some way, to non-lawyer readers. Sometimes, if the core issue is highly technical, it is harder to find that way. That’s the premise of this report on the cases being heard by… Read More

Among the circle of people outside the Supreme Court but closest to it – the lawyers who practice there and the professors who study it – there is much talk and a lot of criticism these days of the problem of what they call the “shadow docket.”  That is the Court’s choice, increasing in frequency… Read More