Independent News and Analysis on the U.S. Supreme Court
Updated on Aug. 14 at 2:01 p.m. The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow construction of the new White House ballroom to continue while a challenge to the project continues in the lower courts. The request came one week after a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling by a federal district court that temporarily blocked construction,…
This coming term, in Wassily v. Blanche , the Supreme Court will decide whether asylum beneficiaries are barred from obtaining lawful permanent residency if their asylum status has been terminated. Wassily is of considerable significance. While the termination of asylum status once was relatively uncommon, recent policy changes by the Trump administration have exposed far more immigrants to the…
On Oct. 13, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Beaird v. United States , a case brought by a Texas man challenging an increase to his sentence for having a gun after a prior felony conviction. Like most federal criminal cases at the Supreme Court, lawyers for both Beaird and the federal government will appear before the justices. But because the federal government has urged the court to throw…
Plus, a top Democrat is calling for Supreme Court reform.
Every fall, with each new class of 1Ls, we legal writing teachers undertake a strange job. We spend an entire year trying to get students to not write like lawyers, a notoriously dreadful category of writers. In pursuit of that goal, we often target the bad qualities like jargon, legalese, word-wasting phrases, and other legal idiosyncrasies. But I think we’d get better results if we started with…
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff. This term, in Chatrie v. United States , the Supreme Court recognized one’s digital location as firmly protected by the Constitution from police searches without a warrant. Beyond its particular context , Chatrie also opens the door to a…
Plus, are Republicans falling out of love with the Supreme Court?
The Trump administration on Wednesday reiterated its request for the Supreme Court to move quickly to block a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts that prohibits the government from implementing part of an executive order on mail-in voting in 23 states and the District of Columbia for the November elections. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that “it is critical that the…
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff. A healthy federal government depends on an ongoing conversation between the branches. But that is not currently happening. When Congress disagrees with the Supreme Court’s statutory interpretations, it tends to offer vitriol instead of a…
Public opinion polls fielded and released this summer showed a by-now-familiar partisan gap in views on the Supreme Court. Republicans are not only more likely than Democrats to approve of the way the court handles its job (74% vs. 22%, according to a Marquette Law School Poll ); they’re also less likely than Democrats to say the court has too much power or that it has given the president too much…
Plus, the court has scheduled seven cases for the November argument session.
Just five days after President Donald Trump signed a new executive order that seeks to narrow the availability of birthright citizenship – the current guarantee of automatic citizenship to almost all babies born in the United States – lawyers for the plaintiffs who successfully challenged Trump’s earlier order restricting birthright citizenship returned to federal court in New Hampshire. In a…
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in November in disputes over (among other issues) a Catholic preschool’s challenge to its exclusion from a Colorado preschool program and an inmate’s ability to sue a federal prison official for violating his constitutional rights. The calendar for the justices’ November argument session, released on Tuesday morning, indicates that the justices will hear…
This is the third piece in a series on what I believe the court can, and should, do better. *** Over the years, the Supreme Court found its home in several places, following Congress from New York to Philadelphia, then to the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., before finally settling at One First Street N.E. There was a brief exception. The justices temporarily sat at the U.S. Court of Appeals…
Few were surprised by the court’s ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. upholding a West Virginia law prohibiting transgender girls and women from participating in sports corresponding to their gender identity. How the court justified its ruling, however, has troubling implications. The court analyzed the West Virginia law under equal protection as sex discrimination, not as gender identity…
Plus, what happened to Homer Plessy after Plessy v. Ferguson?
This article was adapted from an essay that first appeared in the essay collection America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance (MIT Press, 2026). *** Indian nations occupy two distinct places in American history and law. American Indians are mentioned only once in the Declaration of Independence . They are in a phrase complaining about King George III’s alliances with Indian nations to…
“6 Angry Men” doesn’t have the same ring as the name of the famous film – but is 12 constitutionally required? Or is it merely a convention that some states choose to follow in the spirit of English common law? When the Supreme Court returns this fall, it will confront that question in Kian v. Florida , a case asking whether Florida may convict a person of a serious crime with a jury of only six.…
Plus, the battle over the White House ballroom is likely headed to the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has renewed his effort to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. The Supreme Court on June 29 temporarily thwarted Trump’s initial effort to remove Cook, emphasizing the need for the Federal Reserve to remain free of political influence. In a letter dated Aug. 5 , White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino notified Cook that Trump was…
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order seeking to narrow the availability of birthright citizenship, the current guarantee of citizenship to almost everyone born in the United States. The order, which bears the title “ Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship ,” came just a little over a month after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier order…
Welcome to SCOTUSblog’s recurring series in which we interview experts on different supreme courts around the world and how they compare with our own. Today’s column focuses on the Supreme Court of Japan. To help me comprehend this apparent bastion of conservatism, I corresponded with Professor David S. Law . When was the Supreme Court of Japan established? The SCJ (“Nihon no saikosai”) was…
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff. In late June, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg described in a Substack post how he had endured every parent’s nightmare. Following a knock at the door of his home in Michigan, he encountered a police officer with an investigator from…
Plus, the next great First Amendment battleground is on the back of your car.
Anyone watching the Supreme Court this past term may have remarked on the frequency with which the justices talk about fossilized tree resin. Consider: The court in Trump v. Cook : “We see no reason, however, why our central bank ought to be ‘trapped in amber’ any more than any other aspect of our constitutional scheme.” The court in Watson v. Republican National Committee : “Statutes do not…