Supreme Court declines to hear gun-control challenges

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

• President Trump expects to end birthright citizenship with support from Supreme Court (Bart Jansen, USA Today)
• Clarence Thomas Wants Supreme Court to Decide Issue It’s Avoided for Decade (Jenna Sundel, Newsweek)
• Justice Jackson punches out her frustrations with the conservative Supreme Court in the boxing ring (Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst, AP News)
• The Supreme Court’s Green Double Standard (Nicholas Bagley, The Atlantic)
• The Most Insidious Way That the Supreme Court Has Exploited Trump’s Chaos (Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, Slate)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 5, 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 opinion(s).

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

• Move to Canada? Migrants Face ‘No Good Options’ After Supreme Court Ruling. (Sarah Mervosh and Mark Bonamo, The New York Times)
• Stakes are high for US democracy as conservative supreme court hears raft of cases (Robert Tait, The Guardian)
• Justice Thomas Nears Historic Milestone, Eyes Longest-Serving Supreme Court Record (Kellen McGovern Jones, The Dallas Express)
• Nationwide Injunctions? Only if the Supreme Court Has Spoken (Jed Rubenfeld, The Wall Street Journal)
• The Way Forward for Religious Charter Schools After St. Isidore (Nicole Stelle Garnett, National Review)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 5, 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 opinion(s).

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled to limit the scope of environmental review required under a seminal 1970s environmental protection law. The move brought a proposed 88-mile railroad line that would transport crude oil from oilfields in northern Utah to refineries on the Gulf Coast one step closer to production. Environmental groups and a neighboring Colorado county had told the justices that the federal agency that approved the project had failed to consider its broader environmental costs. 

Yesterday, May 29, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County.

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

• The Supreme Court May Not Step in and Save Trump’s Tariffs (Ankush Khardori, Politico)
• The Supreme Court Gives Permission to Build Under NEPA (The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal)
• ‘Devastating Loss for Our Wild Places’: Supreme Court Attacks Bedrock Environmental Law (Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams)
• SCOTUS effectively pardoned Trump. Now he wants to extend that same immunity to others.(Chris Hayes, MSNBC)
• Old Paths to the Supreme Court (Ed Whelan, Confirmation Tales)

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

The Supreme Court is making good progress in sorting through the current relists. This week it disposed of four. It was good news for the petitioner in Fernandez v. United States, involving the scope of a statute that gives judges discretion to reduce criminal sentences for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” The court will consider whether those “extraordinary and compelling reasons” include doubt about guilt that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The court is now holding a second relisted petition raising a similar issue, Elliott v. United States, pending disposition in Fernandez.