Category Archives: US Supreme Court

Amy Coney Barrett says supreme court rulings are ‘not opinion polls’

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Justice believes court should not ‘impose’ own values as it weighs request to overturn same-sex marriage decision

US supreme court rulings are “not just an opinion poll” of its nine judges’ beliefs, conservative Amy Coney Barrett says, as she and her colleagues weigh a request to overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“The court should not be imposing its own values on the American people,” Barrett remarked in a preview of an interview airing on the latest episode of CBS News Sunday Morning. “That’s for the democratic process.”

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Amy Coney Barrett says supreme court rulings are ‘not opinion polls’

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Justice believes court should not ‘impose’ own values as it weighs request to overturn same-sex marriage decision

US supreme court rulings are “not just an opinion poll” of its nine judges’ beliefs, conservative Amy Coney Barrett says, as she and her colleagues weigh a request to overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“The court should not be imposing its own values on the American people,” Barrett remarked in a preview of an interview airing on the latest episode of CBS News Sunday Morning. “That’s for the democratic process.”

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Trump asks US supreme court to overturn trade tariffs ruling

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Move follows federal appeals court decision that sweeping ‘liberation day’ levies on imports had overstepped presidential powers

Donald Trump has asked the US supreme court to overturn a lower court decision that most of his sweeping trade tariffs were illegal.

The US president filed a petition late on Wednesday to ask for a review of last week’s federal appeals court ruling in Washington DC, which centred on his “liberation day” border taxes introduced on 2 April, which imposed levies of between 10% and 50% on most US imports, sending shock waves through global trade and markets.

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US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings

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Justices lift lower court order that froze ‘reductions in force’ federal layoffs while litigation in case proceeded

The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.

Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.

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US supreme court rules in favor of age checks for pornography websites to keep children away

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Court’s conservative justices said Texas law requiring online age verification didn’t violate free expression. PornHub had gone dark in Texas in protest of the law

The US supreme court ruled that a Texas law requiring that pornography websites verify the ages of their visitors was constitutional on Friday, the latest development in a global debate over how to prevent minors from accessing adult material online.

“HB 1181 simply requires adults to verify their age before they can access speech that is obscene to children,” Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s 6-3 majority opinion. “The statute advances the state’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content. And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data.” Elena Kagan dissented alongside the court’s two other liberal justices.

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Supreme court paves way for South Carolina and other states to defund Planned Parenthood

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Decision could embolden red states in US to block clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid funds

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. “Payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life,” McMaster said at the time, even though the reimbursements could not be used for abortions. Abortions are also now banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy.

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US supreme court clears way for Trump to deport migrants to countries not their own

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Justices lift judicial order, handing victory to US president in his aggressive pursuit of mass deportations

The US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan.

In a brief, unsigned order, the court’s conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US.

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US supreme court rules Doge can access social security data during legal challenge

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Key player in Trump’s drive to slash federal workforce keeps access to sensitive records including family court and mental health records

The US supreme court on Friday allowed members of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to access the sensitive records kept by the Social Security Administration while legal challenges play out.

The conservative-majority court, in an unsigned order with the three liberal justices dissenting, sided with the Trump administration in the appeal involving Doge, the team spearheaded by the billionaire Elon Musk.

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Supreme court strikes down Mexico’s lawsuit against US gunmakers

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Lawsuit alleged that Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms aided the illegal trafficking of firearms to drug cartels

The US supreme court on Thursday spared two American gun companies from a lawsuit by Mexico’s government accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence on the south side of the US-Mexico border.

The justices, in a unanimous ruling, overturned a lower court’s decision that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed against the firearms maker Smith & Wesson and distributor Interstate Arms. The lower court had found that Mexico plausibly alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales, harming its government.

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Supreme court allows White House to revoke temporary protected status of many migrants

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Ruling reverses hold on Trump administration’s ending humanitarian parole of Venezuelan migrants and others

The US supreme court on Friday announced it would allow the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president’s drive to step up deportations.

The court put on hold Boston-based US district judge Indira Talwani’s order halting the administration’s move to end the immigration humanitarian “parole” protections granted to 532,000 people by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal from the country, while the detailed case plays out in lower courts.

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FBI to reinvestigate 2023 White House cocaine find and leak of supreme court Dobbs draft

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Agency also announced new inquiry into pipe bombs found outside Democratic and Republican offices in 2021

The FBI will launch new investigations into the 2023 discovery of a bag of cocaine at the White House during Joe Biden’s term, as well as into pipe bombs discovered at Democratic and Republican party headquarters before the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump, and the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion before the historic overturning of national abortion rights with the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.

Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on any progress in looking into the old cases. The incidents have been popular talking points on America’s political right wing and among conspiracy theorists.

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Supreme court blocks Trump bid to resume deportations under 1798 law

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Administration’s appeal to quickly deport Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act rejected with two dissenting

The supreme court has rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove a temporary block on deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law.

Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

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Trump officials ask supreme court to help strip legal status from Venezuelans

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Justice department calls on court to hold judge’s order against ending temporary protected status for 300,000

The Trump administration asked the US supreme court on Thursday to intervene and assist in its attempt to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants in the US, a move that would clear the way for their deportation.

The justice department asked the supreme court justices to put on hold a federal judge’s order from March that halted the decision of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to terminate the temporary legal status that previously was granted to some Venezuelans.

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Trump officials contacted El Salvador president about Kilmar Ábrego García, sources say

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Administration in touch with Nayib Bukele over detention of wrongly deported man, according to two people

The Trump administration has been in touch directly with the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele in recent days about the detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The nature of the discussion and its purpose was not clear because multiple Trump officials have said the administration was not interested in his coming back to the US despite the US supreme court ordering it to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s release.

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US supreme court seems open to religious public charter schools

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Oklahoma case is part of a broader push to erode separation of church and state, and a test of role of religion in schools

The US supreme court’s conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country’s first public religious charter school as they weighed a case Wednesday that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.

The Oklahoma state charter school board approved the application for St Isidore, a Catholic virtual charter school. The ACLU and other groups filed suit, as did Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond. The state supreme court sided with Drummond, ruling that the US and Oklahoma constitutions “prohibit the state from using public money for the establishment of a religious institution”.

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Supreme court orders US to help return man wrongly deported to El Salvador

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Justices uphold judge’s order and say Trump officials must ‘facilitate’ return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to United States

The US supreme court upheld on Thursday a judge’s order requiring Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis last week issued an order that the administration “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.

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White House asks supreme court to allow deportations under wartime law

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Appeals court had upheld block on flights using Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members

The Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to intervene to allow the government to continue to deport immigrants using the obscure Alien Enemies Act.

The request came one day after a federal appeals court upheld a Washington DC federal judge’s temporary block on immigrant expulsions via a wartime act that allows the administration to bypass normal due process, for example by allowing people a court hearing before shipping them out of the US.

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‘She is evil’: Amy Coney Barrett under attack by right wing after USAid ruling

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Supreme court justice who frequently votes alongside conservative colleagues branded ‘DEI judge’

Amy Coney Barrett, the Donald Trump-appointed conservative supreme court justice, has been branded a “DEI judge” by furious rightwing figures, after she voted to reject Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2bn in foreign aid.

Coney Barrett, part of the court’s rightwing majority, split with her fellow conservative justices this week. She and John Roberts, the chief justice, voted to leave in place a ruling from a US district judge that ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid for foreign aid work that had already been performed, and that had been approved by Congress.

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Trump administration gives schools deadline to cut DEI or lose federal funds

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Education department gives ultimatum to stop using ‘racial preferences’ as factors in admissions or risk losing money

The Trump administration is giving the US’s schools and universities two weeks to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money, raising the stakes in the president’s fight against “wokeness”.

In a memo on Friday, the education department gave an ultimatum to stop using “racial preferences” as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other areas. Schools are being given 14 days to end any practice that treats students or workers differently because of their race.

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Trump administration files first supreme court appeal over firing of government watchdog

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Attempt to remove head of the office of special counsel is key test of executive branch’s battle with US judiciary to reshape federal government

Donald Trump’s administration has asked the supreme court to approve the firing of the head of a federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers in the first appeal of Trump’s new term and a key test of his battle with the judicial branch.

Hampton Dellinger, the head of the office of the special counsel (OSC), is among the fired government watchdogs who have sued the Trump administration, arguing that their dismissals were illegal and that they should be reinstated.

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