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OPINION ANALYSIS

Split Supreme Court blocks first religious charter school in Oklahoma

By Amy Howe on May 22 at 12:02 p.m.

An equally divided court on Thursday left in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that blocked a Catholic charter school from becoming the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school. The court ruled 4-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused from the case, which leaves the lower court’s decision in place. The ruling on Thursday applies in Oklahoma and does not resolve the question of whether religious charter schools are constitutional nationwide.

Statue outside the Supreme Court

The court heard Okla. Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond in April. (MattCC716 via Flickr)

OPINION ANALYSIS

Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm

By Amy Howe on May 22 at 2:05 pm

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Philadelphia man and his painting business, which were convicted of fraud for using a pass-through company to satisfy a diversity provision of their federal contract. The court ruled that a defendant can be convicted of federal fraud even if they did not seek to cause financial harm to the other party. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the law simply requires someone to “devise” or “intend to devise” a scheme to fraudulently “obtain money or property.”

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Trump asks high court to pause another suit against DOGE

By Amy Howe on May 21 at 12:07 pm

The solicitor general came to the court on Wednesday morning urging the justices to temporarily pause a federal judge’s order that would require the Department of Government Efficiency to provide information in a lawsuit about whether DOGE is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. This is the second time this month that the administration has asked the justices to intervene in a lawsuit against DOGE on their emergency docket.

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Supreme Court requires clerk to count votes by lawmaker censured for social media post about transgender athlete

By Amy Howe on May 20 at 4:52 pm

On Tuesday afternoon the Supreme Court required the Maine House of Representatives’ clerk to count votes by a lawmaker who was censured for a social media post regarding transgender athletes. The brief unsigned order granting the representative’s request would have been denied by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, the latter who wrote a dissent opposing the court’s ruling.

Advocates in Conversation

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San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu discusses City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, in which the court is considering whether the Environmental Protection Agency violates the Clean Water Act when it imposes generic prohibitions in a permit for a city’s water discharges, without specifying explicit standards for discharges.   
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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, May 22

By Zachary Shemtob on May 22, 2025

We’re expecting one or more opinions from the court at 10 a.m. EDT. Join us for the live blog, beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read:

WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Wednesday, May 21

By Zachary Shemtob on May 21, 2025

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read:

Coming up: Tomorrow the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:30 a.m. EDT that day for the opinions.

SCOTUS NEWS

Justices appoint lawyer to argue restitution case in the fall

By Amy Howe on May 20, 2025

A former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh was tapped on Thursday to defend a lower court ruling before the Supreme Court this fall in a Georgia man’s challenge to the federal government’s efforts to collect restitution from him. 

The Supreme Court appointed John Bash, a former assistant to the U.S. solicitor general who has argued 10 cases in the court to argue Ellingburg v. United States as a “friend of the court” in support of the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit — which ruled for the government — because the federal government has opted not to defend that court’s reasoning. 

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IN MEMORIAM

The quiet radicalism of Justice Souter

By Charles Barzun on May 20, 2025

This article is part of a series on the legacy and jurisprudence of the late Justice David Souter. 

Charles Barzun is a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, Jurisprudence, and Torts. He is currently working on a book on the American common law tradition. 

I met Justice Souter only once, in the summer of 2019. He agreed to meet with me to discuss the ideas in a law review article I had written about his judicial philosophy. When I arrived to meet him for lunch at a restaurant in Concord, N.H., he was already there, waiting for me. It turned out we were the restaurant’s only customers that afternoon. Our conversation lasted about two and a half hours, touching on everything from Souter’s time as a New Hampshire trial judge to the philosophy of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

The morning read for Tuesday, May 20

By Zachary Shemtob on May 20, 2025

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read:

Coming up: On Thursday, May 22, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:30 a.m. EDT that day for the opinions.