Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Already deeply immersed in religious controversy, the Supreme Court soon will be asked to clarify the duty of members of the military services to obey orders, even if they believe that doing so would violate their religious faith. A new case based on the rights protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA) is… Read More

UPDATED Tuesday 6:11 p.m.   The Chief Justice has called for responses to this application.  The Justice Department and civil rights groups are to file by 4 p.m. next Thursday, August 25.  North Carolina officials, arguing that the Supreme Court intended for states that were freed from federal supervision to pass new voting rules, asked… Read More

Giving no explanation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused on Monday to assemble all 28 of its active judges for a new review of the constitutionality of California’s main gun-control laws.  The high-stakes dispute is very likely to move on to the Supreme Court.

For more than five years, reality TV star Kody Brown and the four women to whom he is married, either legally or “spiritually,” have been trying to gain a constitutional right to that relationship. Their lawyer plans to move the case on to the Supreme Court this fall but, on the path to the Justices,… Read More

For the past three years, federal government officials and civil rights advocacy groups have been trying to find ways to enforce constitutional rights guaranteed to minority voters under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that all but nullified one major part of that law.  But the strongest claim… Read More

Trying energetically to avoid any punishment by a federal judge who has complained of ethical lapses by Justice Department lawyers during the big immigration case, the Obama administration on Monday reluctantly agreed that it would accept some mild forms of sanctions.

The Supreme Court turned aside on Monday a plea to require jurors to satisfy the toughest legal test before they may vote to impose the death penalty.  Without comment, the Justices denied rehearing in a Louisiana case that they had passed up last Term, thus rejecting a new attempt by lawyers to turn it into a sequel to the Justices’ important Sixth… Read More

The Obama administration’s two levels of defense of its broad new immigration policy — one, a continued attempt to put the policy into effect, the other, a move to head off a federal judge’s ethical complaints against federal lawyers in the case — are moving along even in the slow court days of summer.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the public corruption cases of the former governor of Virginia and his wife — Robert F. McDonnell and Maureen G. McDonnell — are working toward an August 29 deadline on where to go next with both prosecutions.

Analysis The newest version of a civil rights movement – claims of equality for transgender people – has been building toward the Supreme Court at a very fast pace. On Wednesday, the Justices took their first action on the issue in a significant case, and the signals were mixed.