The Court has been relatively quiet since our last missive—we’re still waiting for the first signed opinion of the term—but we suspect your minds have been focused on other branches of government over the last few weeks anyway. But, while much of the country has been looking the other way, The Eight have taken some steps to fill in OT16’s docket.
The most high-profile cert
Read More Order List: November 21, 2016
Fresh from a three-day weekend, the Court made short work yesterday of its first decision of the term, a per curiam summary reversal in Bosse v. Oklahoma (15-9173). Though the case touched upon an interesting and potentially controversial question—whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits victims’ family members from weighing in on the appropriate sentence during the penalty phase of a capital case—it actually turned on
Read More Bosse v. Oklahoma (15-9173) and Order List
It’s (still) the first Monday in October, which means the Supreme Court (and the Update) are back in action. Actually, The Eight dug in a bit last week, issuing cert grants from their September 26th “long conference.” We’ll have more in a minute on the eight new cases the Court set for argument this term. But first, let’s talk about the orders coming out
This time last year, as we summarized Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), King v. Burwell (2015), among other decisions, all the talk was about the Supreme Court’s “left turn.” But some observers predicted that OT15 could be the term that “the Empire Strikes Back,” with conservative victories on public-sector unions, affirmative action, and possibly even abortion. That rightward correction never materialized. As
Read More Order List 7/5/16We’re back with our penultimate Update of OT15, covering one of the biggest decisions (and certainly the longest) of the term, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (15-274). Hellerstedt, the first significant abortion case to reach the Court in nearly a decade, posed a test to the enduring vitality of the “undue burden” standard first announced in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Under Casey
Read More Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (15-274)
Though most of the attention coming out of the final decision day of OT15 has focused on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (15-274), where a 5-3 majority held that a Texas law regulating abortion providers imposed an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose, the Court also announced two important criminal-law decisions, touching on the federal government’s ability to regulate guns and graft.
Read More McDonnell v. United States (15-474) and Voisine v. United States (14-10154