A Second Opinion is a recurring series by Haley Proctor on the Second Amendment and constitutional litigation.

As has been observed by Rory Little at SCOTUSblog, the party presentation principle is on the rise at the Supreme Court. The principle stands for the simple idea that the parties control their case – what claims they bring, what defenses they raise, what arguments they make, what evidence they present – and that these choices potentially limit how courts may decide the case. The party presentation principle presents a puzzle for courts in cases that involve matters of broader public interest, like gun rights. In this month’s column, I will introduce the principle and then explore its implications for Second Amendment litigation and beyond.

As the Trump administration’s immigration policies continue to dominate headlines, and as legal battles over deportation procedures and the protected status of certain immigrant groups draw closer to the Supreme Court, the justices already are wrestling with four immigration-related questions, including, most notably, whether President Donald Trump has the authority to make the grant of automatic citizenship to children contingent on their parents’ immigration status.

The Supreme Court will close out its 2025-26 term with oral arguments in cases involving immigration law, the Fourth Amendment, generic drug labels, and the availability of claims alleging that a private company aided and abetted torture and serious violations of international human rights laws. The justices on Wednesday morning released the calendar for their April argument session, which is the final regularly scheduled argument session of the term. They will hear eight arguments over six days, beginning on April 20 and ending on April 29.

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives.

The Supreme Court’s recent rulings allowing Texas and California to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering of congressional districts show the urgent need for reconsideration of Rucho v. Common Cause, where the justices held that federal courts cannot hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering. After the court in December upheld the Texas legislature’s gerrymandering, intended to benefit Republicans, it did the “right” thing on Feb. 4 in dismissing the challenge to California’s gerrymandering which was to benefit Democrats. But by allowing unchecked partisan gerrymandering, the court is encouraging ever more extreme efforts and undermining democracy.

Empirical SCOTUS is a recurring series by Adam Feldman that looks at Supreme Court data, primarily in the form of opinions and oral arguments, to provide insights into the justices’ decision making and what we can expect from the court in the future.

It’s no secret that all three of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees – consisting of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – are judicial conservatives. This does not mean, of course, that all three vote for a conservative outcome in each case before them. Indeed, for much of the last decade, certain Supreme Court commentary has revolved around which of these conservative justices has been most likely to side with the court’s liberal bloc (consisting of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and formerly Justice Stephen Breyer) in a given case. Each term seems to produce a new candidate, often prompted by a single, high-profile decision that defies ideological expectations.