ABA Journal

Supreme Court Report

195 ABA Journal Supreme Court Report articles.

Rare but not unprecedented Supreme Court leak considered ‘staggering’

The leak of a draft majority opinion in a pending case is “staggering,” says law professor Jonathan Peters. “It’s the most significant leak in the Supreme Court’s history, not only because of the draft’s release but also because of the current political moment (charged as it is) and the personal and social consequences of the decision itself.”

Supreme Court considers whether high school football coach has right to pray on the field

The case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District arrives at a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservatives who have shown special solicitude to religious liberty claims in recent years.

SCOTUS will consider war powers in case of ailing veteran claiming employment discrimination

Le Roy Torres’ U.S. Supreme Court case began, in a sense, thousands of miles away from his home in Corpus Christi, Texas, on a military base in Iraq during the heart of the U.S.-Iraq war.

Breyer’s befuddling hypotheticals reverberate through the halls of SCOTUS

Justice Stephen G. Breyer is retiring at the end of the Supreme Court term, but his fans are taking heart that there are still three months of oral argument left for the justice to come up with his distinctive and sometimes outlandish hypotheticals.

Supreme Court will consider Christian group’s request to temporarily fly flag at Boston City Hall

The case of Shurtleff v. City of Boston, to be argued on Jan. 18, has become a bit of a big thing. It’s the latest test of religious expression to be heard by a U.S. Supreme Court that has been increasingly deferential in recent years to legal claims by religious conservatives.

Roberts’ reference to memos of Blackmun on Roe v. Wade raises questions about SCOTUS justices’ private papers

The collected papers of late U.S. Supreme Court justices are typically of interest primarily to judicial biographers, legal researchers and a few journalists. On Dec. 1, during oral arguments in one of the most consequential cases of the term, a new aficionado of the genre revealed himself: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

SCOTUS considers whether public tuition program for private schools can exclude religious ones

The U.S. Supreme Court’s latest case about the Constitution’s religion clauses hails from Maine, where the state has paid tuition to send some students to private schools for more than a century but for the last 40 years has limited the choices to “nonsectarian” schools.

Supreme Court revisits Second Amendment with challenge to New York concealed-gun restrictions

When two residents of upstate New York sought unrestricted licenses to carry concealed weapons for self-defense outside the home, officials denied their applications under the state’s demanding standard for such permits. Those relatively routine administrative actions have teed up the most important Second Amendment case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in more than a decade.

The Supreme Court is in the building—contentious rulings behind, more major cases ahead

U.S. Supreme Court justices are hanging up their phones after a year and a half of teleconference arguments because of the pandemic and returning to the bench for the new term that begins Monday.

When the Supreme Court cites your amicus brief

When the U.S. Supreme Court releases a decision, the parties and their lawyers scan the opinions to determine whether they won or lost. Meanwhile, those who filed amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs in the case also want to know the outcome. But first, they are eager to find the answer to a different question: Did one of the justices cite my brief?

Will the Supreme Court reconsider a landmark defamation case?

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch both called New York Times v. Sullivan into question in dissents from a cert denial earlier this month.

Supreme Court takes a byte out of computer crime law

A U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down earlier this month has flown a bit below radar compared with the term’s bigger cases, but it is one that might be of interest to anyone who has ever bent the truth on a dating website or on social media, shopped or checked sports scores on a work computer, or happens to be a fan of the 1983 movie WarGames.

SCOTUS abortion case complicates Breyer retirement speculation

Speculation about whether U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer might retire at the end of this term had been running rampant among legal observers this spring when the court itself threw in a wrinkle.

SCOTUS case on disclosure of nonprofit donor names raises First Amendment questions

To some observers, the case may affect campaign-disclosure laws and the court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which authorized unlimited independent political expenditures by corporations (including nonprofit ones) and unions.

As madness moves through March, SCOTUS considers NCAA case over athlete compensation

Just days before the March Madness tournament crowns a champion, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a high-stakes battle between the National Collegiate Athletic Association and a legal class of student-athletes from the top revenue-producing sports of football and men’s and women’s basketball.

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