The justices should regularly sit on the lower courts
This is the fifth piece in a series on what I believe the court can, and should, do better. Read more SCOTUS sides with Trump administration in mail-in voting dispute…
Gutting the Alien Tort Statute
The Supreme Court’s decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, decided in June, is a lethal blow to suits under the federal Alien Tort Statute. Such litigation often is…
There is no constitutional “right to privacy”
This is the second of five introductory articles on the relevance for U.S. constitutional law of the “born free and equal” clauses, which appeared in the Declaration of Independence and…
The court’s clearly established problem
If a person is convicted of a crime in state court, they can petition a federal court for relief by claiming that their conviction violates the federal constitution. However, the…
Realizing Scalia’s vision: state originalism centers as legal civics education
It is no secret that, thanks to Justice Antonin Scalia, originalism is on the rise. This is true not only on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in general,…
Six justices, five techniques: writing lessons from the 2025-26 term
I’ve spent two decades mining Supreme Court opinions for writing techniques that can inspire advocates, too. The best examples rarely feature the snarky or witty lines made for social media.…
The tenth justice’s strategy
Analysis of the Supreme Court’s decisions most often focuses on the opinions and votes of the justices. Sometimes, though, strategic decisions by lawyers about how to argue a case may…
Slaughter’s vice
As a new school year gets underway, law students might expect to soon be called upon to answer a seemingly simple question: What did the Supreme Court hold in Trump…
What the public thinks about the emergency docket
This column has generally been about what the emergency docket does: how fast the justices act, how often lower courts cite its orders, who dissents on it and in what…
Trump detention policy nears SCOTUS
As part of the Trump administration’s hardline approach to migrants, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has ramped up the number of people it detains. Soon, the Supreme Court may…