Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Moving briskly to re-open the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, a federal trial judge in Washington took steps on Saturday to move the case forward after a months-long delay. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ordered federal prosecutors and Trump’s defense lawyers to meet… Read More

Lawyers for Donald Trump, seeking even broader legal immunity than the Supreme Court has given, made a new maneuver this week to end the case that had resulted in his conviction of 34 crimes in New York state court. In a new brief made public Thursday, the former President’s legal team argued that his immunity… Read More

UPDATE: For those wishing to listen to or read President Franklin Roosevelt’s “fireside chat”on Court-packing, here is a link to the audio and the transcript, courtesy of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-9-1937-fireside-chat-9-court-packing Facing long odds against the idea, President Biden and Vice President Harris on Monday began an effort to restrict… Read More

None of Donald Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts need to be erased because of the new doctrine of presidential immunity, a team of prosecutors in New York argued in a new state court filing that has both legal and political significance.  This is the first effort in a lower court to test the effect of the… Read More

A Florida federal judge, giving Donald Trump a huge legal victory that might only be temporary, on Monday dismissed all 40 criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago case involving the former President’s handling of secret government documents. That is expected to set up a swift appeal to higher courts by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, whose appointment… Read More

Trying to expand even wider the Supreme Court’s new ruling creating broad legal immunity for Presidents who break the law, Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked a state judge in New York to overturn his 34 guilty verdicts and to forbid any new trial. That is the only case so far to result in convictions of… Read More

The potential unraveling of all of the criminal cases against Donald Trump continued on Saturday, even before the Supreme Court puts into effect its decision this week granting broad legal immunity to the former President. A federal judge in Florida, who has for months moved very slowly in handling the criminal case charging Trump with… Read More

In the epic constitutional drama pitting the Supreme Court and Donald Trump on the national stage, there were two missing factors and their absence strongly influenced the outcome. First was the Court’s insensitivity to the corrosive cynicism that produced this historic drama in the first place. Second was the Court’s refusal to acknowledge the complete… Read More

A state judge in New York City, in the first lower-court reaction to the Supreme Court’s new ruling on presidential legal immunity, decided on Tuesday to delay imposing a sentence on ex-President Donald Trump for his conviction in May on 34 state charges., In a two-page order, Judge Juan M. Merchan also agreed to rule,… Read More

Elevating the American Presidency to almost kingly rank and power, a bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that ex-President Donald Trump has nearly unchallengeable immunity to criminal prosecution for any action he took that can be defined as official. For any act that qualifies as official, the majority ruled, his legal immunity will be “absolute,”… Read More