Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

The Constitution’s guarantee of free speech is for the people; government does not share that First Amendment right.  But government, to operate, must speak.  On Monday, the Supreme Court tries, in two hearings, to clarify the sometimes-hazy line between official speech that seeks to inform or persuade, and official compulsion or censorship of others’ speech…. Read More

The federal judge overseeing the criminal case accusing former President Donald Trump of taking and refusing to return highly sensitive classified documents is giving serious thought to ending the case altogether, she indicated on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of Fort Pierce, Fla., issued a brief order saying that two legal briefs broadly… Read More

Settling a constitutional dispute for the entire nation, and doing so in sweeping terms, a bare majority of the Supreme Court on Monday handed to Congress the sole power to control when and how a candidate for federal office may be barred from the ballot under a 156-year-old constitutional clause. It is a power that… Read More

The Supreme Court, in a surprise notice Sunday, said it will issue one or more decisions this morning.  That means there is a good chance (but not a guarantee) that it will decide the case challenging Donald Trump’s constitutional qualifications to run for the Presidency this year. The Court customarily announces in advance when it… Read More

When the Supreme Court takes up, at a hearing in late April, former President Donald Trump’s sweeping claim that he is immune to criminal charges, what will be at stake? As lawyers on all sides of this historic controversy start preparing their legal briefs, they cannot be entirely sure of the Court’s intentions in Trump v…. Read More

The Supreme Court, giving itself powerful control over the timing of federal criminal trials of former President Donald Trump, agreed on Wednesday to rule on his claim that he has total legal immunity to prosecution. The Court did put its review on a faster-than-usual schedule, but the timetable of reaching a final decision may as… Read More

Mass shootings in America, continuing now nearly every day, most often involve a gunman with a grisly intent to kill as many people as rapidly as possible.  Congress is aware of that, but it has not yet found a way around the gun control lobby’s fervent protection of rapid-firing, high-volume weaponry.  On Wednesday, though, the… Read More

In 1887, an English Catholic historian and politician – Lord Acton — was waging a futile challenge to the idea that the Pope is infallible.  He complained of the Pope’s authority in a letter to an Anglican bishop, writing: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  The Lord is best remembered for those… Read More

Sometimes, law seems to make no sense.  Why, for example, would the Supreme Court – busy these days with huge constitutional controversy — take an hour or so to listen to the legal gripe of a truck stop that sells gas and snacks beside the highway in Watford City, North Dakota (population 5,293)? The seeming… Read More

The Supreme Court now has all the legal documents it will need to act on former President Donald Trump’s claim that he is constitutionally immune to criminal prosecution, raising the question of how soon the Justices will move. Trump’s legal team, in one of the few times that they have acted to file court papers… Read More