Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

In a risky rendezvous with history one week from today, the Supreme Court faces exceedingly hard choices: Can it – and should it – ban Donald Trump from American politics?  The Justices will explore those questions at a hearing with deep political and constitutional meaning. The Court almost certainly has the power to take Trump… Read More

The Supreme Court finishes its current round of hearings today with two cases that might simultaneously make Congress’s writing of new laws harder and make federal government agencies noticeably weaker.  If that is the outcome, it would be one of the biggest shifts in government power since the 1930s, making this one of the Court’s… Read More

Today, the Supreme Court confronts again the modern meaning of that famous declaration of liberty, England’s eight-century-old Magna Carta.  A group of 120 Texans and five companies in that state are relying on that ancient document (and one of its echoes in the U.S. Constitution) to try to force their state to pay them compensation… Read More

The Supreme Court is on a holiday today, but it returns to the bench Tuesday to examine a dispute over investors’ right to know corporate information that might influence the value of their investments. That is the issue in the Court’s first hearing of the day.  (A discussion of the second hearing will appear in… Read More

The Supreme Court’s hearing today looks at an important question in criminal law: allowing data to take the place of a human witness’s testimony on the stand.  It is a new form of an old constitutional issue. Wednesday’s hearing:  Jason Smith v. Arizona   This hearing, the only one of the day, starts at 10 a.m…. Read More

Today, the Supreme Court takes a new look at a decades-old idea: private individuals may not be forced to give up constitutional rights in order to get a government benefit.  That kind of quid-pro-quo has been outlawed since the late 1900s.  The Justices will hold a second hearing today, to examine a technical dispute about… Read More

Much of the nation may now be following the Supreme Court as it explores the historic constitutional and political consequences of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol – especially the consequences for former President Donald Trump. But there is “another” Court, so to speak – one not focused on Trump – and… Read More

The images of savage violence at the nation’s Capitol remain as vivid today, three years after that January 6.  Those were scenes of an attempt, unprecedented in American history, to prevent a new President from taking office.  Now, 2024 begins to unfold, possibly the year of reckoning, legal and political, for that assault on the… Read More

In a move without parallel in American history, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday evening to examine Donald Trump’s claim that the Constitution does not bar him from again seeking the Presidency. While the Court’s one-page order gave no reliable hint of how the case would come out in the end, two things stood out… Read More

In a ruling likely to be challenged in state courts, Maine’s secretary of state decided on Thursday that Donald Trump is constitutionally disqualified from seeking the Presidency.  This is the first decision against his candidacy by a state official in charge of elections. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, using powers given to her office by… Read More