This publication has been inundated with essays by academics critical of Louisiana v. Callais, but has not published a single one in defense of it. So I decided to take it on in my column. After all, I am pretty sure Justice Antonin Scalia would have approved of the decision.As y … | Continue reading
One of SCOTUSblog’s most popular features is our live blogging during major oral arguments and opinion hand down days. Throughout these live chats, our moderators (led by Amy) not only provide what’s happening at the court in real time, but we also feature plenty of comments and … | Continue reading
Plus, the Trump administration continues to rebuild its tariff regime. | Continue reading
In 2021’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court held that modern gun laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to survive a Second Amendment challenge. Under that newly announced history-and-tradition te … | Continue reading
The October 2025 Supreme Court Term was a good one for the Second Amendment. In United States v. Hemani, the court held by a 9-0 vote that it violates the Second Amendment to disarm a person solely because of occasional marijuana use. And in Wolford v. Lopez, the court refused to … | Continue reading
Plus, the justices added a case involving a seized plane and a six-pack of beer to next term’s oral argument docket. | Continue reading
The Supreme Court on Monday morning added a new case to its oral argument docket for the 2026-27 term. As part of a regularly scheduled summer order list, the justices agreed to review Jouppi v. Alaska, an Alaskan bush pilot’s challenge to the forfeiture of his $95,000 airplane – … | Continue reading
Everything’s bigger in Texas – even the number of people who brought a case that was ultimately argued before the Supreme Court during the 2025-26 term.A SCOTUSblog analysis of the 35 argued cases with a single person (who was not a government official sued in their professional … | Continue reading
Plus, Trump’s ban on transgender troops will likely return to the Supreme Court. | Continue reading
Johnny Brown, the father of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, died on Wednesday, according to an obituary published in the Miami Herald on Friday afternoon. He was 80 years old.Jackson appeared on Tuesday night in a conversation at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Alaska Public M … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court’s decision about President Donald Trump’s attempt to narrow access to birthright citizenship left no doubt that a majority of justices agree it’s illegal. But two justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, revealed that they also viewed the challenges to Trump’ … | Continue reading
Some provisions of the Constitution enjoy far more attention than others. At the Supreme Court, for example, it is a rare term that doesn’t have a case involving the First, Second, or Fourth Amendments. Yet that is not true for every clause in the Constitution. Today I’d like to … | Continue reading
Plus, catch-up on the latest SCOTUSblog events with these videos. | Continue reading
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, the court decided several important separation of powers cases. In Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, the co … | Continue reading
One of the more controversial topics concerning the Supreme Court is how attuned justices should be to public opinion. An even more fundamental question, however, is how closely public opinion matches the Supreme Court’s decisions.The Marquette Law School Poll, which I direct, co … | Continue reading
Plus, a look at the Trump administration’s new petition for review on Temporary Protected Status. | Continue reading
In a filing submitted on July 9 and docketed on Monday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to order the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to reconsider its ruling in a challenge to the decision by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end … | Continue reading
June brought two Second Amendment decisions. In United States v. Hemani, the court unanimously sustained Ali Hemani’s challenge to his indictment under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), for possessing firearms while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance. And in Wolford v. Lopez, … | Continue reading
Approximately two weeks after the final opinion of the 57 argued cases decided by the Supreme Court in the October 2025-26 Term was filed, this column presents an overview of the “pure” criminal law decisions the court issued. By my characterization, there were 16 (or 17) “pure” … | Continue reading
Plus, what Justices Kagan and Barrett told Congress about the court’s security concerns. | Continue reading
In the first appearances by members of the Supreme Court before Congress in seven years, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified on Tuesday in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although the focus of the justices’ testimony was the court’s budget, whic … | Continue reading
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett deserve high praise for the pivotal role they played at the end of the just-concluded term in two key cases.One is Trump v. Barbara, the monumental decision confirming that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment … | Continue reading
At the end of a recent talk on the Supreme Court’s latest term I was asked what surprised me most about the term. I was not surprised by the results in the most high-profile cases of the term, such as tariffs, presidential removal power, birthright citizenship, and restrictions o … | Continue reading
Watch on YouTubeZachary Shemtob: [00:00:00] So first of all, thank you so much to Amy. I’m really excited to have this conversation. There’s so much to talk about. Unfortunately, we have limited time, so I’m [going to] try and make it as substantive as possible – not that this is … | Continue reading
Justices Kagan and Barrett will discuss the court’s budget request before House and Senate subcommittees. | Continue reading
As we saw this term, by late May the Supreme Court begins releasing the bulk of its merits decisions, and with it a familiar guessing game starts among court watchers. If Justice Elena Kagan has not yet written from the December sitting (that is, the cases argued that month), or … | Continue reading
This month the World Cup final will be played at MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and Jets. Nobody finds it odd that soccer’s biggest match will be staged in a stadium built for football. That’s remarkable, because 44 years ago America’s first major soccer league stoo … | Continue reading
Plus, a closer look at summer order lists. | Continue reading
In previous articles, I explored two of the biggest unanswered questions in the Second Amendment space: Who are “the people,” and what constitutes “Arms”? Both of these questions seemingly emerge from the text of the amendment itself, which states that “[a] well regulated Militia … | Continue reading
Peter S. Canellos is a prize-winning journalist and the author of Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement, which Publishers Weekly called “a razor-sharp” dissection of one of the most controversial justices on the Supreme Court, whose … | Continue reading
One might argue that Supreme Court justices are more visible today than ever before. Six have published books and Brett Kavanaugh is apparently working on one to become the seventh. Several have recently given television interviews, others have not shied from making public statem … | Continue reading
Plus, what Cecillia Wang said about arguing the birthright citizenship case during SCOTUSblog’s term-in-review event. | Continue reading
Cecillia Wang, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called her April 1 argument in Trump v. Barbara, the challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end the guarantee of U.S. citizenship to virtually everyone born in this country … | Continue reading
Over the past year, I have written about the emergency docket, and each time the analysis has centered on substantive applications over such issues as whether agency heads can be fired or whether election maps stand. But don’t forget there are two other categories of emergency ap … | Continue reading
We often describe the court through a familiar shorthand: three Republican-appointed conservatives (Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) at the far right of the court; three Democratic-appointed liberals (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Bro … | Continue reading
Plus, a brief overview of our term-in-review event. | Continue reading
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 a previous piece for SCOTUSblog, I suggested a somewhat unconventional way to gauge which are the most important Supreme … | Continue reading
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.Every day, Americans are witnessing the most significant expansion of presidential power in modern times. Just as important … | Continue reading
Plus, Trump has asked the court to reconsider his appeal of a $5 million jury award. | Continue reading
Last week, the Supreme Court finished handing down its opinions in argued cases this term. In light of its decisions on birthright citizenship and the administrative state, one decision, from the prior week, may be somewhat easy to overlook. But I think this ruling is of great im … | Continue reading
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson may be starting a statutory-interpretation revolution.Jackson’s third full term was a doozy of separate opinions. Notably, a series of those opinions were written specifically to protest the majority’s refusal to consult legislative history in statut … | Continue reading
Plus, will the justices have a quiet summer? | Continue reading
Many commentators have complained that Chief Justice John Roberts has shown himself not to be a true institutionalist but rather a conservative ideologue. Hillary Clinton recently provided an example, suggesting that the chief justice had never been an institutionalist at all. Th … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Texas to continue to enforce, at least for now, a law that requires app stores to verify its buyers’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors to download apps and to purchase paid content within those apps. In a pair of brief, unsigned order … | Continue reading
One year ago, the Supreme Court had just wrapped up the 2024-25 term with a series of high-profile rulings, including decisions limiting the availability of universal injunctions and upholding a state ban on certain medical treatments for transgender minors. It was time for the s … | Continue reading
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.Speaking at a Federalist Society event the day the Supreme Court wrapped up its latest term, attorney Kannon Shanmugam desc … | Continue reading
Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.About a year ago the Trump administration appeared to have defied legal restraints on the presidency to the point of a “con … | Continue reading
The court just wrapped up a momentous term. Next term may also be consequential. | Continue reading