Author: DONALD SCARINCI

In Pavan v Smith, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an Arkansas State Supreme Court decision that prevented same-sex married couples from having both spouses’ names listed on their children’s birth certificates. The Court’s...

In Murr v Wisconsin, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling that two contiguous lots should be considered one parcel for the purposes of the government taking a case. In so ruling, the Court establi...

Thomas Porteous, Jr., a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was the last federal judge to be impeached. He was convicted by the U.S. Senate and removed from office on December 8, 2010, on charges of accepting bribe...

The U.S. Supreme Court will allow part of President Donald Trump’s travel ban to proceed. In Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the Court held that individuals from affected countries who have “a credible c...

In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Carol S. Comer, Director, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the State of Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause ...

Now that it’s back at full strength, the Supreme Court is no longer shying away from the blockbusters. The justices recently agreed to consider Gill v. Whitford, which involves partisan gerrymandering.   The term “gerrymander” dates ...

In Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing social media runs afoul of the First Amendment. The Court’s decision, which hig...

After being convicted for lying to investigators about allegations of sexual abuse, Judge Samuel B Kent was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. Judge Kent, however, was never convicted by the U.S. Senate because he resigned from office...

In Matal v Tam (formerly Lee v. Tam), 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on registering disparaging trademarks. According to the unanimous Court, the Lanham Act provision prohibiting the registration of di...

In Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a citizenship rule favoring unwed mothers over unwed fathers violated the U.S. Constitution. Not surprisingly, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a long-time champion ...