Birthright citizenship: hard questions – and the best answers – for Trump’s challengers
A quick look at two important weeks for criminal law at the court
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Justices debate ability of federal courts to confirm arbitration awards
Yesterday’s argument in Jules v Andre Balazs Properties showed a bench with some uncertainty about the jurisdiction of federal courts to enforce an arbitration award.
Continue ReadingImmigration law wins for Trump do not necessarily suggest a citizenship victory
Immigration Matters is a recurring series by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández that analyzes the court’s immigration docket, highlighting emerging legal questions about new policy and enforcement practices.
The Justice Department will soon be back before the Supreme Court defending President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship policy. The Trump administration has won most of the lawsuits over immigration matters that have reached the court, as well as last summer’s face-off touching on birthright citizenship. But unlike the citizenship policy’s first trip to the court, which focused on federal judges’ power to block presidential directives nationwide, Trump v. Barbara, scheduled for argument on April 1, directly addresses the legality of Trump’s executive order limiting who is treated as a U.S. citizen at birth. And the administration’s string of victories on immigration doesn’t necessarily smooth the path for success this time around because Barbara isn’t about immigration law at all, but it is about citizenship law. Historically, the court has been much less willing to let the president do what he likes when it comes to setting the terms of citizenship.
Continue ReadingSupreme Court refuses to hear case of Louisiana man sentenced to life imprisonment, “Tiger King” appeal
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to weigh in on a procedural question arising from a pregnancy discrimination case – specifically, whether a defendant can raise an affirmative defense (that is, a legal excuse or justification) later in the proceedings when it did not raise that defense in the answer to the plaintiff’s complaint.
Younge v. Fulton Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office was the lone case in which the court granted review on Monday. The announcement came on a list of orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday, March 27.
Continue ReadingBirthright citizenship: 20 questions for the solicitor general
The government’s top Supreme Court lawyer will likely face vigorous questioning from the justices on Wednesday in Trump v. Barbara, the birthright-citizenship case.
What follows are 20 sets of questions that we ourselves would love to ask Solicitor General D. John Sauer in some great moot court in the sky. (Here on planet Earth, Sauer has of course not invited us to moot him, though he did expressly respond to Akhil’s amicus brief at page 13 of his reply brief.) In a sequel column, we’ll list some of the hardest questions that might be posed to the appellate advocate on our side of the case, the ACLU’s Cecilia Wang, along with the best answers we think she can give.
Continue ReadingThe dissent that questioned certain jury trials
In Dissent is a recurring series by Anastasia Boden on Supreme Court dissents that have shaped (or reshaped) our country.
By the time George Jarkesy reached a real court, nearly a decade had passed since he had first been pulled into an administrative tribunal – and that quasi-court had already found him guilty.
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