Category: Current

The U.S. Supreme Court recently returned to the bench for its February sitting. The justices heard oral arguments in three cases. The issues before the Court involved Native American law and immigration. Below is a brief summary of the cases befo...

In Merrill v. Milligan, 595 U. S. ____ (2022), a divided U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to implement a congressional redistricting map that includes only one district with a majority of Black voters. While a lower court agreed with challengers t...

In Hughes v. Northwestern University, 595 U.S. ____ (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held that determining whether plan participants state plausible claims against plan fiduciaries for violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERI...

In Babcock v. Kijakazi, 595 U.S. ____ (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held that civil-service pension payments based on employment as a dual-status military technician are not payments based on “service as a member of a uniformed service” under ...

In Hemphill v. New York, 595 U. S. ____ (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the trial court’s admission—over a criminal defendant’s objection—of the plea allocution transcript of an unavailable witness violated his Sixth Amendment right...

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions in two closely-watched cases involving vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden Administration. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health...

The Supreme Court’s January sitting started off with the late addition of two cases challenging vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden Administration. The first, Biden v. Missouri, involves a federal rule requiring all health care workers at facili...

In Trump v. Thompson, 595 U. S. ____ (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s request to block the release of records relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, while the Court considers Trump's petition for review. Justice Clare...

When the justices return to the bench in January, they are slated to hear a closely-watched First Amendment case involving religious freedom. The case, Shurtleff v. Boston, MA, involves whether the City of Boston violated the Constitution when it re...

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson that abortion providers may bring a pre-enforcement challenge in federal court as one means to test whether Texas’ s strict abortion law violates the U.S. Constitution, albeit only a...