The Supreme Court is the United States’ most powerful court of law. The Court’s rulings routinely shape the course of American public policy. It ended its last term with the conservative justices bending the law sharply rightward in a series of momentous decisions on abortion, gun rights, environmental regulations and religious rights that will reverberate [...]
During the last week of June 2022, the Court issued landmark decisions overturning abortion rights (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization) and expanding gun rights (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen), demonstrating a shift of power to the Court’s new 6-3 conservative supermajority. Legal commentators have long speculated that the Justices prefer [...]
What is the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary. It was established by the Constitution of the United States, which was adopted in 1787. The Constitution grants the Supreme Court the power to hear appeals from lower federal courts and state courts, as well [...]
The Supreme Court adopted a variety of rule changes this week, effective January 1, 2023. The new rules will shift the way filers prepare their briefs, from the use of “passim” in a table of authorities to the preparation of merits stage joint appendices. Perhaps the largest change, however, relates to the elimination of the consent requirement [...]
After President Biden announced $10,000 to $20,000 in broad student debt relief for federal borrowers this summer, an array of conservative lawsuits was filed seeking to block, then reverse, the policy. Six Republican-led states argued last week that the U.S. Supreme Court should at least keep President Biden’s student debt forgiveness policy on hold while [...]
A November 19th New York Times report alleges that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito purposefully leaked a 2014 draft decision weeks before the Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a landmark ruling on contraceptive rights and religious liberty. This comes just months after another draft opinion was leaked in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, [...]
Newly confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued her first Supreme Court opinion this week, a brief dissent in support of an Ohio death row inmate. In a two-page order, she disagreed with the full Court’s decision not to take up an appeal brought by Davel Chinn, who shot and killed a man during an attempted [...]
The Supreme Court is set to revise a number of rules early next term which relate to the filing of briefs, motions, applications, and documents under seal. A number of the changes will simply conform to long-standing practice, while others will change the way Cockle Legal Briefs prepares filings. The most relevant proposals, which have [...]
The Supreme Court’s case distribution schedule identifies the dates on which petitions for writs of certiorari, along with corresponding briefs in opposition, amicus briefs and reply briefs, will be distributed (sent upstairs to chambers) to the justices. It also identifies the dates on which those petitions are scheduled to be considered (reviewed) by the justices [...]
July 21, 2021 In a sign that the staff at One First Street are returning to normal business, the Supreme Court on July 19, 2021 rescinded two procedural orders that relaxed certain filing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. For petitions seeking Supreme Court review, the extended 150-day filing deadline returns to 90 days (the norm [...]