How Appealing



Thursday, April 30, 2026

“Jeffrey Epstein’s Possible Suicide Note Hidden From Public View; An inmate said he discovered the note after Mr. Epstein was found injured in his jail cell, weeks before his death; It’s now locked in a courthouse”: Benjamin Weiser, Steve Eder, and Jan Ransom of The New York Times have this report.

Posted at 8:46 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Comey indictment could be upended by this 2015 Supreme Court precedent; The high court a decade ago explicitly overturned the legal standard that prosecutors are now citing to charge Comey with threatening President Trump”: Perry Stein of The Washington Post has this news analysis.

Posted at 8:44 PM by Howard Bashman



“Judge Asks Justice Department: Will You Oppose Trump? A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to explain whether it intends to contest President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. over the disclosure of his tax returns.” Andrew Duehren of The New York Times has this news analysis.

Posted at 8:42 PM by Howard Bashman



“Second Circuit debates NYC self-defense law in case of 2022 fatal stabbing by bodega clerk; Jose Alba, a bodega employee who fatally stabbed a customer in the neck in 2022, is looking to revive claims of malicious prosecution and false arrest”: Erik Uebelacker of Courthouse News Service has this report.

Posted at 8:34 PM by Howard Bashman



“Comey Indictment Shows Justice Dept. Got the Message From Bondi’s Firing; In naming only an interim successor as acting attorney general, President Trump has established even greater incentives to execute his most extreme demands, current and former officials say”: Glenn Thrush of The New York Times has this news analysis.

Posted at 8:27 PM by Howard Bashman



“Inside the courtroom for the Voting Rights Act’s final bow; Before the Supreme Court began broadcasting live audio from inside the courtroom, Justices Alito and Kagan gave dueling views over the intersection of race and politics in a representative democracy”: Kelsey Reichmann of Courthouse News Service has this report.

Posted at 8:14 PM by Howard Bashman



“Trump Judicial Pick ABA Rated Unqualified Advances in Senate”: Olivia Alafriz of Bloomberg Law has this report.

And Benjamin S. Weiss of Courthouse News Service reports that “Top Democrat decries ‘slow-mo self-destruction’ of Senate Judiciary Committee; In an extraordinary statement, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse slammed his colleagues on the Senate’s powerful judicial affairs panel for handing their authority over nominees to the executive branch.”

Posted at 5:23 PM by Howard Bashman



“Supreme Court Sides With Anti-Abortion Clinic in Fight Over Donor Records; A crisis pregnancy group had asked the justices to allow it to sue in federal court over a demand for donor information by New Jersey officials”: Abbie VanSickle of The New York Times has this report.

Posted at 5:08 PM by Howard Bashman



“What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project? The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch.” Eric Columbus and Molly Roberts have this post at the “Lawfare” blog.

Posted at 3:16 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Supreme Court Did Not Want to Talk About Trump’s Long History of Gutter Racism; The president has never been shy about why he wants to deport Haitian people; The justices are pretending to have never heard any of it”: Madiba K. Dennie has this essay online at Balls and Strikes.

Posted at 1:30 PM by Howard Bashman



“Supreme Court’s decision against Voting Rights Act will be devastating”: Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky has this essay online at The Los Angeles Times.

And online at MS Now, law professor Richard L. Hasen has an essay titled “The Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling creates a dangerous choice for Democrats; Democrats could spread out minority voters who are reliable supporters to help capture more seats; But doing so would reduce minority representation in the House.”

Posted at 1:26 PM by Howard Bashman



“In Narrowing Voting Rights Act, Conservative Justices See Progress on Racism; The majority said the law was a victim of its own success and no longer needed; Dissenters responded that Congress should make the call”: Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this news analysis.

Posted at 1:16 PM by Howard Bashman



“Adam Liptak on the ‘Shadow Docket,’ a Changing Supreme Court, and How It’s Covered; The longtime ‘New York Times’ correspondent and inaugural journalist-in-residence at the Constitutional Law Institute examines rapid-fire decisions, real-time reporting, and the tension between transparency and confidentiality”: Mark A. Cohen of the University of Chicago Law School has this report.

Posted at 1:15 PM by Howard Bashman



“Chief Justice Roberts Played the Long Game on Voting Rights; Since his early days as a lawyer and in his first years on the bench, the chief justice has worked to limit the force of the Voting Rights Act”: Adam Liptak has this new installment of his “The Docket” newsletter online at The New York Times.

Posted at 1:12 PM by Howard Bashman



“Bonus 223: ‘They Are Who We Thought They Were’; Wednesday’s Callais ruling has understandably prompted renewed calls for Court reform; It also provides a stark reminder of why the most popular reform proposals *aren’t* how we should fix the Court.” Steve Vladeck has this post at his “One First” Substack site.

Posted at 8:36 AM by Howard Bashman



“Voters Can Be Disenfranchised Now; Just say it’s because they’re Democrats”: Adam Serwer has this essay online at The Atlantic.

Posted at 8:32 AM by Howard Bashman



“Sonia Sotomayor’s False Testimony About Firefighters Case; Ricci v. DeStefano, Part 4”: Ed Whelan has this post at his “Confirmation Tales” Substack site.

Posted at 8:30 AM by Howard Bashman



Wednesday, April 29, 2026

“Supreme Court Grapples With Trump’s Plan to Revoke Deportation Protections; The case deals with Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians but could have implications for more than a million from troubled nations”: Ann E. Marimow of The New York Times has this report.

Julian Mark and Maria Sacchetti of The Washington Post report that “Supreme Court wrestles with Trump effort to end temporary protections for migrants; The conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the administration’s contention that it can cancel humanitarian protections for Haitian and Syrian nationals.”

And Lydia Wheeler and James Romoser of The Wall Street Journal report that “Supreme Court Appears Divided on Allowing Trump to End Protections for Some Migrants; Several conservatives suggested courts have little power to review decisions about Temporary Protected Status program, but one appeared undecided.”

Posted at 8:53 PM by Howard Bashman



“No en banc in Trump appeals of E. Jean Carroll verdict, $83 million judgment; The federal appeals court affirmed in a split decision Donald Trump’s liability for the $83 million civil judgment awarded to columnist E. Jean Carroll who says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s”: Josh Russell of Courthouse News Service has this report.

You can access today’s order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denying rehearing en banc, and the opinions concurring therein and dissenting therefrom, at this link.

Posted at 8:44 PM by Howard Bashman



“A Victory for Voting Rights at the Supreme Court; The Justices vote 6-3 to restrict the misuse of race to gerrymander Congressional districts”: This editorial will appear in Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Also in Thursday’s edition of that newspaper, Edward Blum will have an op-ed titled “The High Court Strikes a Blow Against Racial Gerrymandering; The Constitution ‘almost never permits a State to discriminate on the basis of race,’ the justices hold.”

Posted at 8:32 PM by Howard Bashman



“How a Supreme Court Fight Over Fish Oil Could Raise Your Prescription Drug Costs; The justices are set to hear Hikma v. Amarin, a battle over drug patents that could raise costs for patients and change the way generic companies do business”: Leslie Walker of Tradeoffs recently had this report.

Posted at 4:33 PM by Howard Bashman



“All Six Conservative Justices Attended Trump’s State Dinner; Their appearance seemed at odds with the chief justice’s oft-stated message that the court he leads avoids even the appearance of political splits”: Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this report.

Posted at 4:30 PM by Howard Bashman