Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Former President Trump’s two-year courthouse battle to keep secret his financial records and his tax returns came close to ending Monday morning, in a one-sentence order issued by the Supreme Court.  There was no sign of any dissent, and there was no explanation. This does not mean that the public will be able to view… Read More

After its customary four-week, mid-winter recess, the Supreme Court re-starts its hearing schedule tomorrow, focusing on a long-running feud between Florida and George.  Only one case is set for hearing Monday.  As it has done for months, because of the pandemic, the Court will continue to hold its hearings remotely.  Again, it will broadcast the… Read More

America has lived under its Constitution for 232 years, so it is quite rare to have a constitutional event that has never happened before.  On Tuesday, America will begin witnessing two of those first-ever events, occurring simultaneously. That is the day the U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin the trial of former President Trump on… Read More

Today is a legal holiday, so the Supreme Court is not in session.  Because of that and Inauguration Day on Wednesday, the Court will hold only one day of hearings this week, on Tuesday.  The first of two cases involves government limits on ownership of radio and TV broadcast stations.  The second case would be… Read More

A part of government anti-immigrant policy that President Trump and his aides pursued throughout their four years in office reached its end on Friday in a federal courthouse in California.  The aim was to exclude up to 11 million undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2020 census.  Trump’s legal team told a federal judge… Read More

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will complete this week’s hearings with review of the legal tools that the Federal Trade Commission can use against those who use deceptive credit schemes to cheat consumers.  The hearing will be conducted remotely because of the pandemic.  The audio portion of the hearing, but not the video, is expected… Read More

In 1868, America wrote into its Constitution the Fourteenth Amendment.  It has had immense importance in giving birth to and nurturing the modern civil rights revolution.  There is a part of it that, on re-reading, seems at first to be out of date.  However, if Section 3 of the Amendment is not a dead letter… Read More

For several years, Maryland’s Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (District 8) has been pursuing the idea that Congress should have a role in putting in motion the constitutional process for dealing with a disabled or mentally unfit president.   The storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters last Wednesday may have pushed that idea closer to… Read More

Guided by a couple centuries of tradition, plus some phrases from the Constitution, an 1887 federal law, and congressional rules, but maybe delayed for hours by political mischief, America’s 46th President – Joe Biden — could finally be elected tomorrow.  Or, perhaps, that might not happen until the wee hours of Thursday. Both houses of… Read More

In a significant – even if temporary – win for President Trump in his waning days in office, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump Administration to go ahead with an attempt to exclude up to 4 or 5 million undocumented immigrants from this year’s census count.  The vote appeared to be 6-to-3. If… Read More