As we regularly note, we read a lot of legal news as we prepare this newsletter. Here’s the most memorable headline we saw this week: No Religious Discrimination Shown in Enforcement of Septic Tank Code. And in case you missed it yesterday, we’ve launched the Interim Docket Blog, which will […]

This morning, Friday, Dec. 12, the justices are gathering for their final regularly scheduled private conference of the year to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. The petitions set to be considered – or reconsidered – address several significant topics, including the scope of Second Amendment protections, a […]

Yesterday’s argument in FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v Saba Capital Master Fund showed a bench surprisingly receptive of private parties having the ability to sue investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Although the justices have been skeptical of implied rights of action in recent decades, most of […]

A group of immigration judges on Wednesday afternoon urged the Supreme Court to leave in place a ruling by a federal appeals court that sent a dispute over a policy limiting their speaking engagements back to a federal trial court. The National Association of Immigration Judges told the justices that […]

I am pleased to introduce SCOTUSblog readers to the Interim Docket Blog, where Will Baude, Dan Epps, I, and surely others, will comment on Supreme Court interim orders and related matters. An interim order is a non-final judicial decision that determines which party’s position controls in the interim between the […]

We are excited to announce that we’ve launched an Interim Docket Blog, which will feature analysis of interim docket developments from Jack Goldsmith, William Baude, and Daniel Epps. Goldsmith is a professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He writes about executive power […]

The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with the case of an Alabama man who has been on that state’s death row for more than two decades. The question before the justices was how the lower courts should have addressed Joseph Smith’s claim that he is intellectually disabled and therefore cannot […]

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here. It’s only December, but the Supreme Court has only one more month to grant all the cases it needs to fill out the rest of this […]

A Second Opinion is a recurring series by Haley Proctor on the Second Amendment and constitutional litigation. It is widely believed that the Supreme Court adjudicates Second Amendment claims using a “history and tradition” test. The label (sometimes referred to as “text, history, and tradition”) has the potential to mislead, […]

On Dec. 10, 1778, John Jay was elected president of the Continental Congress. He later became the Supreme Court’s first chief justice. SCOTUS Quick Hits On Tuesday, the justices heard argument in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, on whether to further cut back campaign finance limitations. See […]