Justices take up camping ban case

Justices take up camping ban case

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The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether an Oregon city can enforce its ban on public camping against homeless people. The announcement came as part of a short list of orders released from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day adding five new cases to the court’s merits docket.

The court’s ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson could affect how other cities address their own epidemics of homelessness. San Francisco, which spent over $ … Read the rest

Justices take up abortion case pitting state against federal law

Justices take up abortion case pitting state against federal law

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The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon granted a request from Idaho and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to temporarily put on hold a ruling by a federal district court that would require emergency rooms in the state to provide abortions to pregnant women in an emergency. The justices agreed to weigh in on the question at the center of the dispute: whether the federal law on which the lower court relied trumps an Idaho law that criminalizes most abortions in … Read the rest

Justices take up bump stock dispute

Justices take up bump stock dispute

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Less than a week before the justices are scheduled to hear argument in a high-profile gun-rights case, the court added another dispute involving firearms to its docket for the 2023-24 term. In Garland v. Cargill, the justices will decide whether a “bump stock” – an attachment that transforms a semiautomatic rifle into a fully automatic, assault-style weapon – is a “machinegun,” which is generally prohibited under federal law. The case was one of three new cases in which … Read the rest

Section 8 vouchers take center stage in dispute between landlord and disabled tenant

Section 8 vouchers take center stage in dispute between landlord and disabled tenant

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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.

Federal law bars housing discrimination against a person with a disability. Under the Fair Housing Act, landlords and sellers must provide “reasonable accommodations” to give someone with a disability “equal opportunity” to rent or buy a home. This week, we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider, among other … Read the rest

Justices take up case on federal admiralty law, seek government’s views on two pending petitions

Justices take up case on federal admiralty law, seek government’s views on two pending petitions

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The Supreme Court on Monday morning added a maritime law case to its docket for the 2023-24 term and invited the federal government to submit briefs expressing its views in two more cases. Both announcements came on an otherwise quiet order list released from the justices’ conference on Friday, March 3.

The justices granted review in Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., a dispute that began after a yacht owned by Raiders Retreat Realty Co. … Read the rest

Court declines to take up petition seeking to overturn Insular Cases

Court declines to take up petition seeking to overturn Insular Cases

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The Supreme Court will not reconsider the Insular Cases, a widely criticized and racist group of early 20th-century decisions holding that the residents of U.S. territories do not automatically enjoy all of the rights protected by the Constitution. The announcement came on a list of orders released on Monday morning from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket for the 2022-23 term.

The request to overrule the Insular … Read the rest

Justices will take up cases on arbitration, locomotives, and Congress’ war powers 

Justices will take up cases on arbitration, locomotives, and Congress’ war powers 

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday morning granted three more cases from the justices’ private conference last week. The announcement that the justices will take on issues relating to arbitration, trains, and congressional power followed two other sets of orders from the Dec. 10 conference, but the decision to grant a second tranche of petitions from that conference followed similar moves in late 2020 and 2019, allowing the justices to add more cases to their docket for the second half … Read the rest