Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

UPDATE: Judge Robart responded quickly to the state’s plea, ordering the Trump Administration to file its views by Tuesday afternoon.  He said he had not decided whether to hold a hearing, but none would be held in any event before Wednesday. ————– The state of Washington, already successful in blocking President Trump’s immigration limits, imposed… Read More

The federal judge in Seattle who last month blocked enforcement nationwide of President Trump’s first order to limit immigration from Mideast nations refused on Friday — at least for now — to decide whether to block the revised version of those restrictions. In a three-page order that contained implied criticism of lawyers on both sides… Read More

A sweeping challenge by two refugee rights groups to President Trump’s orders limiting immigration of people from Mideast nations suddenly accelerated in a federal court in Maryland on Friday afternoon. With a hearing now set for next Wednesday morning in Greenbelt, MD, the case of International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump emerged as one of… Read More

With the Trump Administration arguing in court that it should be allowed to start enforcing its new immigrations restrictions seven days from now, the effort by objecting states to block the presidential action quickened on Thursday. The states of Washington and Minnesota, joined by new allies – New York State and Oregon, asked a federal… Read More

Lawyers for a 17-year-old high school senior at the center of a high-profile case on the legal rights of transgender students asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to move quickly to hold a new  hearing and reach a new decision in his case.   They sought a ruling before he graduates from school on… Read More

Arguing that President Trump’s new effort to curb immigration of people from Mideast nations is actually a continued attempt to ban Muslims based on their religion, the state of Hawaii has opened a new round of court challenges to the federal government’s power to restrict travel as a way to head off what it considers… Read More

Lawyers for the state of Hawaii appear likely to be the first to pursue a court challenge to President Trump’s new order limiting immigration from six Mideast nations.  That challenge is due to be filed in Honolulu on Wednesday.   Similar lawsuits are expected to be filed elsewhere. Under a schedule that Trump Administration lawyers… Read More

For well over two centuries in American and English law, once a jury in a criminal case reached its verdict, it could not be questioned about its deliberations.  The Supreme Court partly relaxed that quite rigid ruled on Monday, declaring that the Constitution requires a system in which jurors can be asked about claims that… Read More

Putting off for at least a year any final ruling on the rights of transgender students under federal civil rights law, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to make a new review of a high-profile Virginia case, including an analysis of the change in policy by the Trump Admnistration. For the… Read More

On a day when the Virginia teenager pleading in the Supreme Court for rights as a transgender student attracted a wide array of support from religious, civil rights and other organizations, it became clear that the Justices will have to sort through a series of new timing issues potentially affecting the case. The first question… Read More