Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Lawyers for the federal government and for the 26 states that challenged the Obama administration’s sweeping change of immigration policy are due to meet this week to see if they can agree on how that controversy is to unfold from here on. The further review of the policy in the federal courts, however, may be… Read More

On the day after America voted, one thing is all but certain about the Supreme Court, and a second thing is highly probable. What is close to a certainty is that President Obama’s nominee to the existing vacancy on the ourt, Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland, will not become a Justice. What is probable is… Read More

If lenders of home mortgages discriminate against minority borrowers, and that sets off a chain that ultimately ends in racially segregated residential neighborhoods, who along that chain gets to sue for damages? And, in particular, if cities at the end of that chain can show they were harmed, can they sue and, if so, how… Read More

On the eve of the presidential election, the Supreme Court refused a Democratic party plea to intervene to protect Ohio voters from intimidation or harassment by followers of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The state Democrats had asked the Justices to put back into effect a Cleveland federal judge’s order explicitly barring Trump “poll watchers”… Read More

The high-stakes presidential contest for votes in the key battleground state of Ohio reached the Supreme Court late Sunday night, with the state Democratic party seeking a ruling to put back into effect a Cleveland judge’s order banning voter intimidation or harassment of voters.   The judge’s order, issued Friday, was blocked earlier Sunday by the U.S. Court… Read More

Acting quickly to rule before election day, a federal trial judge in New Jersey rejected — for the time being at least — a broad claim by the Democratic National Committee that the Republican National Committee has teamed up with the Donald Trump presidential campaign to intimidate voters.  The GOP thus was spared from being held… Read More

With no noted dissents, the Supreme Court on Saturday morning acted to put back into effect an Arizona law passed earlier this year that makes it a crime, with a potentially heavy fine, for anyone to pick up and deliver another voter’s ballot to a polling place.  The law, applying to mail-in ballots that are popular among… Read More

Amid the ongoing talk about how the Supreme Court is faring with one vacancy, there might be a new wave of congeniality among the eight Justices, perhaps aimed at getting some things done that otherwise would not.  For the second time in recent weeks, a Justice cast a vote that otherwise might not have been… Read More

Sometimes, it takes the Supreme Court a little while to get to the heart of a case being argued before it, but it does catch on more quickly if there are really talented lawyers taking turns at the lectern. That happened on Wednesday when the Court was led by three skilled advocates toward a firmer… Read More

The U.S. Senate and two of its key Republican leaders, relying on an array of constitutional claims, has told a federal judge that the courts must stay out of the political feud over the current vacancy on the Supreme Court.  In a brief filed Monday in a federal District Court in Washington, D.C., the legislative body… Read More