Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court looks at a new and serious conflict arising out of the loss of the constitutional right to abortion.  The hearing will test whether a 38-year-old federal law can be used to block state laws that ban or strictly limit abortion – at least when a pregnant woman’s health becomes an… Read More

Anatole France, a celebrated man of letters, was a master of irony and satire.   One of his best-known lines: “In its majestic equality, the law forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”  That could be the introduction to a Supreme Court hearing on… Read More

Joseph Fischer, a political follower of Donald Trump, made two choices on January 6, 2021.  He had a constitutional right to make the first one.  The second one, however, may put him in prison.  On Tuesday, the Supreme Court takes up his case. This hearing will be historic for two reasons.  First, the Court will… Read More

Almost two years after ending a constitutional right to abortion, the Supreme Court returns to that intense controversy on Tuesday, exploring this question: will women still have full access to the most common method for safely ending a pregnancy – the “abortion pill”?   The Court will also examine the power of the courts to decide… Read More

For two centuries, America’s Native American tribes have had a legal right to rely upon the federal government for broad support, though they have often had to accept with that the insult of being thought of as savages.  The great Chief Justice John Marshall, who first gave the tribes significant legal protection in the 1820s… Read More

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