Haitian nationals ask for DIG in TPS Case

On Tuesday, Haitian citizens the court to dismiss without deciding a dispute over the Trump administration’s effort to end their participation in the Temporary Protected Status program. For more on the filing, see the On Site section below.

The court has indicated that it will next release opinions tomorrow at 10 a.m. EDT. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30.

After any opinion announcements tomorrow, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected on Monday, June 22, at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Daniel Grand, a Jewish man who lives in Ohio, “is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revive his lawsuit” against city officials in University Heights, who interfered with his plan to host a prayer group in his home in January 2021. “After a neighbor learned of the planned gathering and complained to city officials, Grand received a cease-and-desist letter, and then-Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan told him he would need a special-use permit to comply with local zoning rules governing religious assemblies,” according to Fox News. In his lawsuit, “Grand argues the city discriminated against him based on religion, saying officials would not have objected to a secular social gathering at his home. … However, a federal district court and a subsequent appeals court dismissed key portions of the case as unripe, ruling that he had not completed the city’s permitting process or obtained a final zoning decision before suing.” In his petition for review, Grand asked the Supreme Court “to clarify whether local governments can issue credible threats that chill religious exercise, force homeowners to a public land-use approval process for private prayer and avoid judicial review by later changing their positions.”

New research highlights declining public trust “in the U.S. judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court,” and points to a unique solution: jury service. The researchers determined that “people who have served as jurors within the past five years viewed state courts as more legitimate, reported higher overall trust in courts and rated judges more positively on traits such as trustworthiness, fairness and competence,” according to Courthouse News Service. However, the study also noted that fewer Americans have a chance to serve on a jury today than they did in the past “amid a sharp drop in jury trials.” “With jury opportunities dwindling, the study authors call for expanded, lifelong civic learning about the courts and government.”

A new study shows that “[j]udicial clerkship ‘stacking’ – where law graduates complete two, three, or even four coveted clerkships with sitting judges before entering the legal workforce – is increasingly shrinking the pool of clerkships available to others,” according to Reuters. “The federal judicial clerkship has evolved from a brief detour into a mini career,” the study’s three authors explained. Their new report built on earlier research showing that “while some Supreme Court clerks in the 1980s were hired right out of law school, today’s high court clerks on average arrive with more than two prior clerkships.”

In a column for The New Republic, Matt Ford celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to take up Kian v. Florida, a case on the constitutionality of six-person juries. Ford contended that such juries are a remnant of the Jim Crow-era, when some southern states sought to “eliminate Black civic and political participation.” “The stage is now set for the Supreme Court to further strengthen one of the great bulwarks of American liberty—in the few states, at least, that have gotten away with diminishing it for so long,” Ford wrote.

In an analysis for Vox, Ian Millhiser reflected on the significance of two recent Supreme Court decisions in favor of men on death row. Last week, in Lovelace v. Lee, the court declined to stay or vacate a lower court ruling barring Alabama from executing Jeffery Lee with nitrogen gas. And last month, “the justices decided not to decide Hamm v. Smith,” “thus leaving in place a lower court ruling saving a man from execution” because he was determined to be intellectually disabled. Millhiser concluded that it is “too soon to tell” whether the court is growing less supportive of the death penalty, but contended that “Lovelace should give death row inmates, their loved ones, and capital defense lawyers some hope that, even if they cannot save these inmates’ lives, they may be able to make their executions less brutal.”