Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has had a steady diet of immigration cases in recent years, with Padilla v. Kentucky (2010) and Arizona v. United States being the most well known of modern vintage.  

In my last column (Part One of this series), I began to lay out what I think might (and should) happen if the U.S.

No one knows for sure what the Supreme Court is going to do with Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case (argued late last month) in which two same-sex couples sued in federal court to invalidate California’s Proposition 8, a voter-adopted state constitutional ban on gay marriage.

During oral argument last week in Shelby County v. Holder, the constitutional challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice Roberts asked, “[I]s it the government’s submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?” Solicitor General Verrilli responded, “It is not, and I do not know the answer to that . . . .”

The Supreme Court this week handed down its first (but almost certainly not its last) 5-4 ruling of the Term.  The case, Clapper v.

Tomorrow, the Court will hear argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, which raises the question of the continuing validity of the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

In Padilla v.

In about six weeks, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in two potentially blockbuster same-sex marriage cases. In one case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, the plaintiffs challenge California’s voter-adopted ban on same-sex marriage (Proposition 8), and in the other, United States v.

One of the most closely watched cases—if not the most closely watched case—on this year’s Supreme Court docket is the challenge to the University of Texas’ race-based affirmative action program, Fisher v. University of Texas.  In Fisher, the Court will decide whether the Constitution leaves any room for public universities to use the race of individual student applicants in the admissions process.

After a two-day delay because of the devastating storm Sandy, yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in Chaidez v. United States, which raises the issue of the retroactive application of Padilla v. Kentucky (2010).