All posts tagged "Supreme Court"

Two of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees are headed in very different directions, and one legal analyst can't stop watching.

Legal AF host Michael Popok said in a Wednesday episode of the "Unprecedented" podcast with constitutional scholar Lisa Graves that Justice Neil Gorsuch has moved sharply to the right while Justice Amy Coney Barrett is shaping up as the court's new center as the 2026-2027 term opens.

Popok said he once held out hope for Gorsuch, but that has evaporated....

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has confirmed he's weighing retirement, opening the door to a possible exit after next year's term that would hand President Trump a fourth opportunity to reshape the bench.

In excerpts from a CBS News interview set to air Monday, the 76-year-old justice said he considered stepping down this year and plans to revisit the decision again in 2027, Politico flagged on Friday.

"It's something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term," Alito said. "But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place."...

President Donald Trump's legal setbacks are stacking up faster than a friendly Supreme Court can undo them, according to former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance.

Vance, who served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, walked through a string of courtroom developments in four cities in a Thursday post on her Substack, Civil Discourse. Each one, she argued, went badly for the Trump administration.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman threw out the indictment against Davey Hearn, the Olympian the Trump administration blamed for damage to the Reflecting Pool. Edelman dismissed the case with prejudice, which bars prosecutors from refiling it. His order noted the government had already concluded no crime occurred....

President Donald Trump's grievance against the Supreme Court has turned "almost obsessive," and being checked by his own appointees "drives him crazy," a historian said.

Stephen Wermiel, a Supreme Court historian and law professor at American University, gave the assessment in an interview with Politico published on Thursday, days before the justices open their new term on Monday.

"The fact that some of the people checking his power are people that he appointed drives him crazy because he thinks that by appointing them, they owe him loyalty and allegiance," Wermiel said....

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is demanding answers after Justice Samuel Alito abruptly stepped aside from a blockbuster Supreme Court climate case.

The Journal's editorial board addressed the recusal in an opinion piece on Tuesday. It warned that Alito's absence from Suncor Energy v. Boulder County opens the door to a 4-4 deadlock when the justices hear arguments Monday.

"That's regrettable," the board wrote....

Critics accused the Supreme Court of "rubber stamping death sentences" after it let President Donald Trump resume sending immigrants to countries that are not their own.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in favor of what are called third-country deportations, which critics worry will force immigrants to dangerous countries accused of human rights abuses. The unsigned emergency order allows the Trump administration to restart the rapid removal of immigrants to countries other than their own while the court prepares to hear arguments on the policy in December.

The three liberal justices said they would have denied the government's request. A federal court had blocked the removals unless migrants were given a chance to contest them, including by raising fears that they would be persecuted or tortured abroad....