“The Supreme Court puts cruelty on its docket; In allowing the Trump Administration to continue third-country removals, the court has become complicit in its inhumanity”: Columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr has this essay online at The Boston Globe.
“254. Four Things That (Really) Bother Me About ‘D.V.D. III’; ‘Third-country removals’ raise a host of difficult procedural and substantive questions; The Supreme Court should have answered those questions *before* greenlighting deportations to torture.” Steve Vladeck has this post at his “One First” Substack site.
“Trans women tussle with Aetna over gender-affirming care at Second Circuit; A Connecticut judge ruled earlier this year Aetna’s policy of automatically denying coverage of facial feminization surgery for transgender patients was discriminatory”: Josh Russell of Courthouse News Service has this report.
You can access the audio of today’s oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at this link.
“Biased Climate Classes for Judges; A House report reveals a stealthy effort to steer judicial decisions”: The Wall Street Journal has published this editorial.
“Ninth Circuit upholds Arizona dark money transparency law; A 2-1 majority agreed with a lower court that the law requiring disclosure of large political donations does not violate free speech or associational rights, nor does it chill political speech or campaign contributions”: Joe Duhownik of Courthouse News Service has this report.
You can access today’s decision of a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at this link.
“Tens of Billions in Contested Tax Bills Hinge on Two Words; President Trump’s Covid-19 disaster-declaration phrase ‘and continuing’ is at center of IRS court fights”: Richard Rubin of The Wall Street Journal has this report.
“Justices Give US Latitude to Frame Issues in Deportation Case”: Jordan Fischer of Bloomberg Law has this report.
“AI training of copyrighted material not fair use: Third Circuit; Using someone else’s “creative spark” to start a competing business runs afoul of copyright law, the panel found.” Jackson Healy of Courthouse News Service has this report.
You can access yesterday’s decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at this link.
“Blackburn Balks at Trump Judicial Pick in Rare GOP Pushback”: Olivia Alafriz of Bloomberg Law has this report.
“Philly DA Larry Krasner said the federal judge who accused him of crimes should be removed from the case; In his most extensive comments on the saga yet, Krasner said U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond’s suggestion that he committed crimes ‘rests on nothing of substance’”: Chris Palmer of The Philadelphia Inquirer has this report.
And Riley Brennan of The Legal Intelligencer reports that “Phila. DA Accuses Fed. Judge of Bias, Seeks Recusal From Exoneration Proceedings That Resulted in Criminal Referrals; The motion describes the summer proceedings as a ‘circus’ orchestrated by the court, which they claimed served ‘as the ringmaster.’”
You can access the recusal motion at this link.
“Justice Dept. Tries to Rebuke Federal Judges for Speaking to The Times; Judge Patrick J. Schiltz had warned that the administration’s actions ‘created a grave threat to the rule of law’; The attorney general accused him of ‘obvious bias’”: Mattathias Schwartz and Devlin Barrett of The New York Times have this report.
“States That Ban Abortion Challenge Shield Laws for Providers Who Mail Pills; The lawsuit filed by Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas to the Supreme Court escalates the battle between states that outlaw abortion and those that support nationwide access by mail”: Pam Belluck and Rick Rojas of The New York Times have this report.
“Judge Questions Secrecy Around Trump Administration’s Memo on Boat Strikes; The judge also ordered the Justice Department to privately show the court the contested document, which blesses the disputed killings at sea”: Benjamin Weiser and Charlie Savage of The New York Times have this report.
You can access today’s decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York at this link.
“Alito Says Recusal in Climate Case Is ‘Prudent’ But Not Required”: Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News has this report.
“Justice Department files ethics complaint against Minnesota federal judges; DOJ alleges the district judges showed bias when they spoke to The New York Times about the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts”: Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney of Politico have this report.
“‘There’s Always A Way’: Jaime Santos; Now at Proskauer, Santos discusses her path from a trailer park to Harvard Law, arguing before SCOTUS, and building a leading appellate and ERISA litigation practice.” You can access today’s new episode of David Lat’s “Original Jurisdiction” podcast via this link.
“Guantanamo Dispatch: Military Ends USS Cole Hearing Early for Health Emergency.” Carol Rosenberg has this post at the “Just Security” blog.
“The Insurrection Act Is No Exception to the Troops-at-Polls Ban; Congress restricted military deployments to election sites, even when a broader deployment authority might otherwise apply”: Loren Voss and Natalie K. Orpett have this post at the “Lawfare” blog.
“Pa. Supreme Court agrees to address whether those serving life for felony murder can seek parole; On Tuesday, the court granted an appeal petition filed on behalf of Jerome Coffey by the Abolitionist Law Center in April”: Ian Karbal of Pennsylvania Capital-Star has this report.
You can access yesterday’s order of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania at this link.
Update: In other coverage, Jillian Kramer of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “Pa. Supreme Court to decide whether ban on mandatory life terms for second-degree murder is retroactive; The case of Jerome Coffey, a Philadelphia man convicted of a 1992 murder and sentenced to life in prison, could decide whether more than a thousand other people get a chance at new sentences.”
“This Case Has Flown Under the Radar. It Won’t Stay There.” Linda Greenhouse has this guest essay online at The New York Times.
“Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Brings U.S. Supreme Court Perspective to UDC Law”: Rachel Perrone of UDC News has this report.
“Exorcising Justice Alito’s Voter Fraud Boogeyman”: Richard L. Hasen has this post at the Democracy Project of NYU Law.
“Only Trump Gets to Criticize the Supreme Court: ‘These are not the people I interviewed to serve.’” Adam Serwer has this essay online at The Atlantic.
“DOJ Accuses Minnesota Judges of Misconduct for Media Remarks”: Suzanne Monyak of Bloomberg Law has this report.
You can access the judicial misconduct complaint at this link.
“UVA Law Alumni Break Clerkships Record; UVA Holds No. 5 Ranking in Supreme Court Clerkships”: Mike Fox of the University of Virginia School of Law has this report.
“U.S. Supreme Court Begins Term With Historically Low Ratings; 34% approve of the court’s job performance; 46% trust the judicial branch of federal government”: Jeffrey M. Jones of Gallup has this report.
“Miles Davis tattoo calls Ninth Circuit’s infringement test into question; The Ninth Circuit uses two tests to determine copyright infringement tests, one of which relies on the subjective ‘total concept of feel’ between two works”: Edvard Pettersson of Courthouse News Service has this report.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has posted the video of today’s en banc oral argument on YouTube.
“Washington defends religious hiring law before full Ninth Circuit; It’s not the first time the Ninth Circuit has taken on the Union Gospel Mission of Yakima’s claims that a state antidiscrimination law prevented it from hiring only those who believed in its mission”: Monique Merrill of Courthouse News Service has this report.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has posted the video of today’s en banc oral argument on YouTube.
“Clarence Thomas, Stalwart for the Constitution; Ted Cruz’s new biography looks back admiringly at the justice’s first 35 years on the Supreme Court”: Columnist Jason L. Riley will have this op-ed in Wednesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.
“11th Circuit says Alabama can’t keep child sex offender from living with son; Bruce Henry, convicted in 2013 of possessing child sexual abuse material, has been barred from living with his son since the boy’s birth in 2021”: Gabriel Tynes of Courthouse News Service has this report.
You can access today’s decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit at this link.
“Supreme Court Allows Rapid Third-Country Deportations, for Now; The court also announced it would hear arguments in December on the legality of the Trump administration policy to swiftly deport immigrants to countries not their own”: Abbie VanSickle of The New York Times has this report.
Julian Mark and Justin Jouvenal of The Washington Post report that “Supreme Court allows ‘third country’ deportations to resume for now; The high court will later hear arguments and make a final ruling on the Trump administration’s controversial policy of sending migrants to countries where they are not citizens.”
Josh Gerstein of Politico reports that “Supreme Court lets Trump resume third-country deportations; But the justices will hear oral arguments in December on the legality of the policy.”
And Kelsey Reichmann of Courthouse News Service reports that “Supreme Court yields to Trump, giving feds free rein on third-country deportations; Immigrant advocates say the Trump administration’s third-country deportation policy left their clients to face prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings, sexual assault and even disappearance.”
You can access today’s order of the U.S. Supreme Court at this link.
“Justice Alito’s Climate Case Recusal; The Court hasn’t said why, but Suncor v. Boulder County now could split 4-4”: This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.
“Trump Loses Bid to Pause Judge’s Sanctions in IRS Case Fight”: Zoe Tillman of Bloomberg News has this report.
You can access today’s order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit at this link.
“Appeals court seems likely to let Boasberg’s contempt probe continue; The appeals court seemed to favor giving U.S. District Judge James Boasberg more leeway to continue probing whether officials flouted his orders when they deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador”: Josh Gerstein of Politico has this report.
Jan Wolfe of Reuters reports that “US appeals court mulls contempt probe over Trump deportation flights.”
Derek Hawkins of The Washington Sun reports that “Some Judges Sound Open to Restarting Contempt Probe in El Salvador Deportation Case; An appeals court heard oral arguments Tuesday over Judge James Boasberg’s review of whether Trump administration officials defied his court order.”
And Ryan Knappenberger of Courthouse News Service reports that “Full DC Circuit grills DOJ in bid to block contempt probe over El Salvador deportations; A federal judge’s finding that there was probable cause the Trump administration willfully ignored court orders and could face criminal contempt proceedings has been on hold since April 2025.”
You can access the audio of today’s en banc oral argument of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit at this link.
“Suncor v. Boulder: Why the Constitution and the Clean Air Act Leave Deception-Based Climate Claims Standing.” Michael Burger has this post at the “Just Security” blog.