Justice Lewis Powell died on this day in 1998. During his time on the Supreme Court, Powell was considered a moderate, leaning “to the right on some key issues and to the left on others.” CNN recently described him as one of a series of justices who occupied a “pragmatic […]

The Supreme Court’s decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, decided in June, is a lethal blow to suits under the federal Alien Tort Statute. Such litigation often is the only remedy available to victims of human rights abuses. Through Cisco, the court has effectively nullified a vital law […]

The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin implementing an executive order, signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year, that imposes restrictions on mail-in voting. The court paused an injunction by a federal judge in Boston that had barred the federal government […]

If a person is convicted of a crime in state court, they can petition a federal court for relief by claiming that their conviction violates the federal constitution. However, the federal court does not get to consider that claim afresh. Rather, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 […]

This is the second of five introductory articles on the relevance for U.S. constitutional law of the “born free and equal” clauses, which appeared in the Declaration of Independence and six out of 12 state constitutions when the federal Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. The Massachusetts Constitution of […]

As we’ve noted before, we read a lot of legal news each week while preparing this newsletter. Here’s the most memorable headline we’ve seen recently: Netflix sued by band Demon Hunter over ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ At the Court On Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order, known as […]

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon allowed construction on a new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom to continue – at least for now. Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had issued an order, slated to go into effect at the end of the day, that would have stopped above-ground work on […]

It is no secret that, thanks to Justice Antonin Scalia, originalism is on the rise. This is true not only on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in general, but among state judiciaries as well.Yet, although there is more and more scholarship on the original understanding of the federal […]

Analysis of the Supreme Court’s decisions most often focuses on the opinions and votes of the justices. Sometimes, though, strategic decisions by lawyers about how to argue a case may play a significant role in what the justices decide. When those strategic decisions are made by the solicitor general on […]

I’ve spent two decades mining Supreme Court opinions for writing techniques that can inspire advocates, too. The best examples rarely feature the snarky or witty lines made for social media. Instead, they model how to navigate the toughest problems in legal reasoning: how to make the complex come to life, […]