The Supreme Court on Thursday set the hearing date for the same-sex marriage cases for Tuesday, April 28, and announced that the audiotape recording of the session will be released by no later than 2 p.m. that day.
Mar 4 2015
New US plea for speed on immigration dispute
The Justice Department told a federal judge in Texas on Wednesday that it may go to a higher court in an effort to put its new immigration policy into effect, if the judge does not act by Monday.
Mar 4 2015
Setting the stage for private debate on health care
This post also appears on scotusblog.com One of the most important functions of oral argument in the Supreme Court is that it can strongly shape the next round: the private deliberations among the nine Justices as they start work on a decision. The much-awaited hearing Wednesday on the stiff new challenge to the Affordable Care Act… Read More
Mar 3 2015
States want immigration policy kept on hold
Twenty-six states that had persuaded a federal judge last month to delay the Obama administration’s new policy on deferring deportation of more than four million undocumented immigrants argued on Tuesday that there was no emergency, so no need to let the policy go into effect.
Mar 2 2015
Nebraska’s same-sex marriage ban falls
A senior federal trial judge in Omaha on Monday struck down Nebraska’s ban on same-sex marriage, finding that it was a form of discrimination that failed a tougher constitutional standard. District Court Judge Joseph F. Bataillon put his ruling on hold for a week, to allow the state to seek a longer postponement from the… Read More
Mar 1 2015
Now, the third leg of the health-care stool
A version of this post appears on scotusblog.com Five years ago, when Congress finished writing nearly a thousand pages that would become the new national health-care law, it was well aware that the finished product would be subject to strong challenges. The Affordable Care Act was passed in both houses with not one Republican lawmaker voting for it. … Read More
Feb 28 2015
The Confrontation Clause, once more
A version of this post appears on scotusblog.com For the past eleven years, the Supreme Court has been defining — one case at a case — how far the Sixth Amendment goes to protect a right of the accused person on trial to confront witnesses who will give evidence to support a guilty verdict. The process… Read More
Feb 28 2015
Who, exactly, is “the legislature”?
A version of this post appears on scotusblog.com From time to time, at least since 1898, the people in America’s states have decided to take government into their own hands, withdrawing it from elected politicians when the voters think they have done the job badly, or not at all. “Direct democracy” has cycles of popularity,… Read More
Feb 25 2015
Argument analysis: Plucking simplicity out of complexity
This post also appears on scotusblog.com If it is true that lawyers can make a simple proposition into something bewilderingly complex, it may also be true that judges sometimes prefer the simple, and go with that instead. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., proved the latter point in an argument on Wednesday, and the Supreme Court… Read More
Feb 25 2015
A fisherman slips through federal prosecutors’ net
This post also appears on scotusblog.com In opinions using a boatload of fishing metaphors, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a federal criminal law against destroying corporate records cannot be used against a commercial fisherman for throwing undersized fish overboard to avoid prosecution. The ruling split the Court’s nine Justices widely on the… Read More
