Author: DONALD SCARINCI

After years of legal battles, same-sex couples in California are now free to walk down the aisle, albeit on a technicality. In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the U.S. Supreme Court held that supporters of Proposition 8, the state’s voter approved ban on s...

Ten years to the day after it struck down a Texas sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court finally weighed in on the issue of same-sex marriage. In United States v. Windsor, the Court invalidated the federal Defense of Marriage Act (D...

Over forty-five years after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court has invalidated one of its key provisions. By a vote of 5-4, the Court ruled that Section 4, which establishes states and municipalities th...

While the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to release its most highly anticipated opinions, there has been no shortage of controversy. In Salinas v. Texas, the justices raised the bar for criminal suspects seeking to invoke their constitutional right to r...

While it might seem strange to discuss the patentability of DNA on a constitutional law blog, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. can be traced back to the founding fathers. While they l...

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to issue groundbreaking opinions over the next few weeks on issues from same-sex marriage to affirmative action. While casual observers will tune in to the evening news to learn about the decisions, those who are “i...

A mouth swab will soon be as common as a mug shot. In a controversial 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that taking a DNA sample during police booking for serious offenses is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s DNA ...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently confirmed that innocence matters in criminal court. While the notion may seem quite obvious, the Court has never found that a prisoner is entitled to habeas relief based on a freestanding actual-innocence claim. Rather...

The Supreme Court never seems to disappoint a reality TV show loving public when it comes to reviewing controversial issues.  The justices recently agreed to take on the role of public prayer in government during its 2014 term. The Establishment ...

President Barack Obama has received criticism in the wake of reports that the Justice Department seized phone records for telephone lines used by reporters and editors at The Associated Press. The government was trying to determine the source of leak...