Lawyers for Shira Perlmutter, who served as the head of the U.S. Copyright Office until she was fired earlier this year, urged the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon to leave in place a ruling by a federal appeals court that temporarily reinstated her to her position. Brian Netter of the nonprofit Democracy Forward told the justices that, “in response to lawless executive action,” the Trump administration’s request to put that ruling on hold was seeking “extraordinary relief that would upend the status quo and defy Congress’s well-expressed intent.” 

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Wednesday, Nov. 12, in two back-to-back cases posing basic questions about the breadth of the compassionate-release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), that governs a type of sentence reduction for federal prisoners. The compassionate-release statute dates back to the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and allows a court to grant a sentence reduction when a defendant presents “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for doing so and satisfies criteria specified by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared unsympathetic to the plight of a Louisiana man who is suing prison officials who shaved his dreadlocks despite a federal appeals court ruling that established his right to keep them. After nearly two hours of oral argument, a majority of the justices seemed to agree that a federal law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not allow Damon Landor to sue the prison officials in their personal capacities for money damages.

Setting the stage for a major ruling on election law, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether federal law requires ballots to be not only cast by voters but also received by election officials by Election Day. As part of the list of orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday, the court took up Watson v. Republican National Committee, a challenge by the Republican National Committee and others to a Mississippi law (as well as similar laws in 30 other states and the District of Columbia) that allow mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they are received within five business days after Election Day.

The Supreme Court on Monday morning turned down a request from Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, to reconsider its 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices rejected Davis’ petition for review of a ruling by a federal appeals court upholding an award of $100,000 to a gay couple to whom she had refused to issue a marriage license. That petition had also asked the justices to overrule the 2015 decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, arguing that a right to same-sex marriage “had no basis in the Constitution.”