Justice James Wilson died on this day in 1798. This summer, Jesse Wegman published a biography of Wilson, highlighting, among other things, his time in debtors’ prison. At the Court Last Friday, the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to pause a lower-court ruling that would halt construction of a […]

President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on his defamation case against cable news giant CNN. In a filing submitted on Aug. 14 but docketed on Thursday, Trump told the justices that “CNN falsely and maliciously portrayed” him “as a knowing liar who fabricated objections to […]

As a new school year gets underway, law students might expect to soon be called upon to answer a seemingly simple question: What did the Supreme Court hold in Trump v. Slaughter? A student who has dutifully done the reading might respond by quoting the chief justice’s majority opinion, which […]

As we draw closer to the “long conference” on Sept. 28, our petitions page is filling up with notable petitions for review that are scheduled to be discussed. As Amy reported last year, over the past decade, the justices have granted between five and 15 petitions from this conference. At […]

This column has generally been about what the emergency docket does: how fast the justices act, how often lower courts cite its orders, who dissents on it and in what form, and where denied litigants go when they refile. This month covers something different. Scholars have measured the docket’s growth. […]

A group of Florida Republicans has appealed a ruling by a federal court in that state throwing out a lawsuit seeking to require the U.S. Census Bureau to revise its data for the 2020 census. Arguing that the statistical methods the Census Bureau used in the 2020 census led to […]

On Aug. 12, an unusual emergency docket application captured court watchers’ attention. It centered on a dog named Bruce who was scheduled to die. Bruce, a 3-year-old Great Pyrenees/German Shepherd mix who weighed about 120 pounds, was involved in four violent incidents over the past two years, according to Ventura […]

As part of the Trump administration’s hardline approach to migrants, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has ramped up the number of people it detains. Soon, the Supreme Court may decide whether one of the administration’s preferred tactics is legal. In separate cases, the Department of Justice and attorneys for […]

Forty-five years ago, President Ronald Reagan formally nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint a woman. In a February closer look, we covered women on the Supreme Court shortlist in the years before O’Connor’s nomination. At the Court On Friday, the Trump administration […]

Lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon to leave in place a ruling by a federal court in Washington, D.C., that would temporarily block construction of a new White House ballroom. Gregory Craig, who served as the White House counsel during the […]