U.S. Courts News Reporter
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The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Alabama to implement a redistricting plan that is being challenged as illegal racial gerrymandering. A lower court ruled last month that the state’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act, and it ordered the state to draw a new map. But the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision put the lower court’s ruling on hold, effectively allowing Alabama to proceed with its preferred map as it prepares for primary elections in … Read the rest
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On Wednesday afternoon, in the shadow of reports of Justice Stephen Breyer’s forthcoming retirement announcement, the Supreme Court denied an application to postpone the executions of two Oklahoma men. The brief order, with no recorded dissents, cleared the way for Oklahoma to execute one of the men, Donald Grant, at 11 a.m. EST on Thursday morning. The other, Gilbert Postelle, is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 17.
Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol has received increased scrutiny in recent years. Grant … Read the rest
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Thursday’s decision in Hemphill v. New York affirmed the requirement for cross-examination of testimonial statements offered at trial and rejected a state law exception to the rule. A jury convicted Darrell Hemphill of second-degree murder after a trial court admitted un-cross-examined testimonial statements from a third-party’s plea allocution. New York courts agreed the admission did not violate Crawford v. Washington, which interpreted the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause to require cross-examination of testimonial statements offered at trial. But in … Read the rest
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After adding five cases to its merits docket for the spring on Friday, the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning issued more orders from the justices’ private conference last week. As expected, the justices did not grant any new cases. Perhaps most notably, they once again did not act on a pair of petitions challenging the consideration of race in the undergraduate admissions process at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, nor did they act on a petition … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court on Monday morning added three new cases — involving bankruptcy law, civil procedure, and workers’ compensation — to its docket for the 2021-22 term. But the orders that the justices issued from their private conference on Jan. 7 were just as noteworthy for what they did not do: The court did not act on a pair of petitions challenging the consideration of race in the undergraduate admissions process at Harvard University and the University of North … Read the rest
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This article was updated on Dec. 23 at 9:40 p.m.
Former President Donald Trump came to the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the justices to block the release of White House records to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The committee is seeking documents that would show Trump’s communications and activities in the lead-up to the riot.
Trump argues that as a former president he has the power to keep the documents secret, … Read the rest
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As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year and the omicron variant causes a spike in cases, challenges to efforts by policymakers to respond to the pandemic continue to arrive at the Supreme Court.
On Friday night, within hours of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that reinstated the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers, several of the plaintiffs challenging the rule came to the court, asking the justices to stay the … Read the rest
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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