NOTE TO READERS:  The following is an update on a post published earlier Friday. —————- The Ninth Circuit Court refused on Friday to put the constitutional test over Arizona’s authority to control illegal aliens living within its borders on the especially fast schedule that the state had asked, adopting instead a plan that follows its ...

In the first indication that the Supreme Court will not allow federal judges to interfere with government controls on who leaves or stays at Guantanamo Bay, the Court Friday evening cleared the way for the transfer of an Algerian detainee to his home country over his protest.  The action divided the Court 5-3; the dissenters noted that the case ...

UPDATE 5:05 p.m. Read the rest here: A tip to appellate lawyers (UPDATED)

Analysis With no dissent, the Supreme Court on Tuesday removed one potential immunity shield for foreign officials when sued in U.S. courts over claims that they carried out or allowed human rights abuses to occur in other countries.  A 1976 law that gives foreign governments’ immunity to many lawsuits in American courts, the Court declared, ...

Analysis More than four decades after the Supreme Court ordered police to warn suspects about their rights before questioning them, the actual day-to-day practice has not turned out to be a simple ritual under clear ground rules.  Encounters in interrogation rooms still and often are a test of wills, with detectives trying to get answers ...

The Supreme Court expects to issue final decisions on the merits in pending cases next Monday, shortly after 10 a.m., the Court announced Thursday following the Justices’ private Conference.  As of now, only one decision day is likely next week.  Orders on new cases will be released in advance of the opinions’ release.  The next ...

The D.C. Circuit Court, in an apparently unanimous en banc order, put into effect Monday its March decision in a major new campaign finance case, quickening the pace of the case and putting new pressure on the government to decide on its next legal step — perhaps, a Supreme Court appeal.  The order implementing the ...

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide — as it had once before, without a result — an employer’s legal duty under the so-called “cat’s paw theory,” as applied to the law of the workplace.  The Court had agreed to rule on that issue three years ago, but that case was dismissed by the ...

Beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern, we will again provide “live” coverage of the Court’s release of one or more opinions. In the “LiveBlog” below, we will relay all developments as quickly as possible from our reporter at the Court, Lyle Denniston Read more here: LiveBlog: Opinions | 3.31.10

A federal judge in Washington, applying the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision creating a constitutional right to have a gun, ruled on Friday that three new gun control restrictions in the Nation’s capital city survive a Second Amendment challenge.  In the ruling by U.S. Read the rest here: New D.C. gun laws upheld