The Supreme Court on Wednesday was divided over the validity of a 2018 federal regulation banning the “bump stock” rifle attachment. The Trump administration regulation barred ownership of bump stocks, which transforms a semiautomatic rifle into a weapon that can discharge at a r … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 2 months ago

The morning read for Wednesday, August 23

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read: Activist Behind Supreme Court Affirmative Action Cases Is Now Suing Law Firms (Douglas Belkin & Erin Mulvaney, The Wall S … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 8 months ago

Justices put Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan on hold

The Supreme Court on Thursday put a bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin, on hold while it reviews a challenge to the legality of the plan, which would shield the Sackler family, the owners of the drug... The post … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 8 months ago

The morning read for Tuesday, August 1

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read: The Secret History of Gun Rights: How Lawmakers Armed the N.R.A. (Mike McIntire, The New York Times) The Supreme Court... T … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 9 months ago

Florida man contests three-day rule in case of jailing over mistaken identity

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here. Over 40 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. McCollan that a man who was... The post Florida man cont … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 9 months ago

Court upholds state corporate registration law in major personal jurisdiction case

The justices narrowly rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law that allows any company doing business in the state to be sued there – even if the corporation is not headquartered in Pennsylvania and the conduct at the center of the lawsuit... The post C … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 10 months ago

Does the Americans with Disabilities Act cover gender dysphoria?

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. The Supreme Court will be considering 117 petitions and applications at this week’s conference. It will be consider … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 10 months ago

Justices rule against Andy Warhol estate in copyright dispute

Thursday’s decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith provides a major statement in the role that copyright law plays in fostering artistic creativity, as the court upheld the claim of a famed celebrity photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, that the Andy Warhol e … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 11 months ago

Leaving “rare birds” alone

The Supreme Court has held that the Ohio National Guard’s dual-status technician employees have federal labor rights. In a 7-2 decision by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court said that the Ohio Adjutant General’s Department and the Ohio National Guard act as a federal “agency” whe … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 11 months ago

Justices lean toward narrow reading of aggravated identity theft

In many ways, Monday’s oral argument in Dubin v. United States felt like a legislation class in law school, with various canons of statutory construction being bandied about. Dubin concerns the reach of the federal aggravated identity theft statute and whether a person must steal … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

In the South Carolina countryside, a dispute over “citizen suits” under the Clean Water Act

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here. The Clean Water Act allows private actors to sue someone for polluting a water system. But the... The post In t … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

The morning read for Tuesday, Feb. 14

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read: Two Decisions Down and Fifty-Eight to Go (Adam Feldman, Empirical SCOTUS) Ethics Code Wouldn’t Fix Supreme Court’s Legitima … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

The Supreme Court has not been able to determine who leaked a draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court said on Thursday. The unprecedented leak last May revealed that the court was privately poised to overturn the court’s … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

Court declines to halt execution of Texas man who said state withheld information about key witness

The justices declined to block the execution of Robert Fratta, whose lethal injection in Texas was scheduled for Tuesday evening. Fratta was sentenced to die for the 1994 murder-for-hire of his estranged wife, Farah. He was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1997. A... The … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

Court will resume opinion announcements from the bench, but won’t provide live audio

The Supreme Court will resume its pre-pandemic practice of announcing opinions from the bench, the court’s Public Information Office said on Monday afternoon. But although the justices now provide live audio of oral arguments, the opinion announcements will not be livestreamed. I … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

Court agrees to hear 9 cases including challenge to immunity under Section 230

The Supreme Court on Monday added nine new cases to its docket, including a high-profile dispute over the extent of technology companies’ immunity from lawsuits based on the content they host. The new additions to the docket came in a list of orders from last week’s “long confere … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

In a dispute over uncashed MoneyGram checks, Delaware faces the ire of 30 states

The fate of hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed money may depend on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the term “money order” in an arcane 1974 federal statute. On one side is Delaware. On the other side are 30 other states. In the middle is MoneyGram, the world’s sec … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

Supreme Court End of Term Ststs [pdf]

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@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

Supreme Court curtails EPA’s authority to fight climate change

This article was updated on June 30 at 2:48 p.m. The Supreme Court on Thursday truncated the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. The ruling may hamper President Joe Biden’s plan to fight climate change and could limit the authority of federal age … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

This article was updated on June 24 at 3:11 p.m. The Supreme Court on Friday eliminated the constitutional right to obtain an abortion, casting aside 49 years of precedent that began with Roe v. Wade. The decision by Justice Samuel Alito will set off a seismic shift in reproducti … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York handgun-licensing law that required New Yorkers who want to carry a handgun in public to show a special need to defend themselves. The 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, is the court's first significant decision on … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

SCOTUS again rejects extension of Bivens suits against federal officials

Continuing an unbroken decades-long run, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to extend the right to sue federal officers for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court held that a Washington state innkeeper does not ha … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 1 year ago

This article is part of a symposium on the court's decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. David H. Gans is the director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights & Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center. The Roberts court continues to issue ruling … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 2 years ago

Justices narrow federal computer-fraud statute

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the government’s broad interpretation of a federal law that makes it a crime to “exceed authorized access” on a computer. By a vote of 6-3 with an ideologically scrambled line-up, the court overturned the conviction of a Georgia police offic … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 2 years ago

Supreme Court sides with Facebook in narrowing the federal robocall ban

On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with Facebook in a lawsuit over unsolicited text messages the social-media giant sent to a cellphone number in the company's database. In an opinion authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Facebook v. Duguid, the court adopted a nar … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Tribal police drag messy Indian sovereignty cases back to the court

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in United States v. Cooley. At issue is whether the court should exclude evidence that a tribal police officer collected while detaining and searching a non-Indian driver stopped alongside a federal highway that runs through t … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Jurisdictional win for Germany in lawsuit seeking to recover art taken by Nazis

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of Germany in a lawsuit brought by the heirs of several Jewish art dealers who are seeking compensation for what they describe as the forced sale of medieval Christian relics under the Nazi regime. In Federal Republic of Germany v. Ph … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Case preview: Justices to consider breadth of federal computer fraud statute

Van Buren v. United States gives the Supreme Court its first chance ever to interpret the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal statute that imposes civil and criminal liability for unauthorized access of computers. The case, which will be argued on Monday, presents a central q … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Supreme Court grants administration’s request to discontinue census count

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to immediately stop counting people for the 2020 census rather than continue counting through the end of the month as a lower court had ordered. The administration said last week in an emergency request to the justices … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Justices to weigh in on landmark copyright battle between Google and Oracle

The justices will close their first week back on the bench by finally hearing argument in Google v Oracle. The case has been pending at the Supreme Court for almost two years; it originally was set for oral argument in March but was rescheduled to this fall when the coronavirus p … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

The Intent vs. the Text of a Law

Jonathan R. Siegel is Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. The late Justice Antonin Scalia left his mark on the law in many ways, but perhaps his greatest legacy is that he changed the way we think about statutes. Before Scalia’s tenure on the Supreme Cour … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

How the justices spent their speaking time during the May arguments

Editor’s note: This is the third post in a series analyzing the Supreme Court’s telephonic oral arguments with live audio instituted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supreme Court heard some of the most important cases of the term in a month when there almost were no arguments a … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 3 years ago

Google LLC vs. Oracle America Inc

The Supreme Court of the United States blog | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 4 years ago

Supreme Court to take up LGBT rights in the workplace

[Editor’s Note: This post was updated at 11:50 a.m. to include discussion of CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co., Barton v. Barr and Putnam Investments v. Brotherston.] The Supreme Court announced today that it will weigh in next term on whether federal employment … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 5 years ago

Justices uphold arbitration exemption for transportation workers

Arbitration month at the Supreme Court continued this morning with the unanimous decision in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira – following by a single week the unanimous decision in Henry Schein v. Archer & White Sales. New Prime, though, is anything but business as usual: Justice Neil … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 5 years ago

Divided court denies review in “net neutrality” cases

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday. The justices did not add any new cases to their docket for the term – they did that on Friday afternoon – nor did they call for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in any cases. But … | Continue reading


@scotusblog.com | 5 years ago