Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

The North Carolina Republicans’ 10 to 3 dominance of the state’s delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives appears likely to continue with the existing election districts unchanged for the November 6 election.   In a brief order Tuesday, a federal three-judge trial court that had ruled those districts unconstitutional — as a partisan gerrymander —… Read More

Finding that Texas and other states waited too long to challenge a program to spare hundreds of thousands of young, undocumented immigrants from deportation, a Texas federal judge on Friday added a new layer of judicial protection for the policy that has been in effect for more than six years but has been under challenge… Read More

Efforts by the Democratic Party to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November election appear to have been set back on Friday by new developments in a high-profile partisan gerrymandering case in North Carolina.  The chances diminished that new district election maps, very likely to favor Democratic candidates, would be put… Read More

With no noted dissent, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down — for now — the Trump Administration’s request to delay or block a group of teenagers’ sweeping lawsuit that seeks to force the federal government to protect the climate they will live in as they grow up.  At the same time, however, the Court… Read More

Tuesday, by his choice, is the last day of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s 30-year career on the Supreme Court.  If retirement means having time to relish the successes of a working life, Kennedy will have much to remember. The Justice leaves the bench after years of holding the single most influential vote, at least when… Read More

Just days before retiring, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is facing a question that has been quite familiar in his 30-year career on the Supreme Court: is it time to recognize a new and fundamental constitutional right?  That is the ultimate issue as he ponders an Oregon case that is all about America’s environmental future. The… Read More

If Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh takes a seat on the Supreme Court sometime in coming months, with Senate approval accomplished, the challenge of casting a solid fifth conservative vote will be tested across a wide array of deeply divisive questions – ranging from abortion to gay rights to healthcare to immigration to President Trump’s personal… Read More

A federal judge in Texas has given the Trump Administration a chance to apply its victory last week in the Supreme Court against foreigners’ entry into the U.S. as a new reason to end the DACA program. DACA stands for Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals. The Administration has been trying since last September to abolish… Read More

Ending an era, and almost certainly guaranteeing strong conservative control of the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, 81, retired on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the tribunal had finished a momentous term.  His retirement takes effect at the end of the month, giving President Truman and the Republican-controlled Senate more than enough time to find… Read More

The political and human rights controversy over the Trump Administration policy of family separation as a form of immigration control is also now moving into a quieter venue – into court, as a constitutional fight.  Two new lawsuits have just been filed, seeking court orders to promptly reunite thousands of children with their parents. The… Read More