Legal News
Reports on lawmaking, constitutional issues, and court cases. The Daily Signal combines news reporting with conservative commentary and legal analysis.
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opinion
How Reagan Chose O’Connor for Supreme Court
The following is an excerpt from presidential historian Craig Shirley's forthcoming book "The Search for Reagan: The Appealing Intellectual Conservatism of Ronald Reagan," to be published in February. It recounts the thinking that went into President Reagan's 1981 selection of Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. O'Connor, who… -
news
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on Supreme Court, Dies at 93
Sandra Day O’Connor, who served over 24 years on the Supreme Court as its first female justice, died Friday morning in Phoenix. She was 93. O’Connor, who retired from the high court in 2006, died of “complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness,” the Supreme Court announced. “A daughter of the American… -
opinion
Is Right to Jury Trial Itself on Trial in Hedge Fund Manager’s Case Before Supreme Court?
Will ill-advised precedent or fundamental constitutional principles prevail when the right to a jury trial is at stake? After two hours of oral argument Wednesday morning in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, that was the important issue confronting the Supreme Court. That, and whether the modern desire to empower the administrative state overcomes yet another… -
opinion
Cowardice Fuels Violent Mobs: How ‘Social Justice’ Brings Anti-Jewish Pogroms to New York City
A mob of pro-Palestine students at a Queens high school who screamed for retribution against a Jewish teacher with the gall to attend a pro-Israel rally is another warning siren that America is devolving quickly into chaos reminiscent of the French Revolution. The response so far to this disturbing incident from New York City Mayor… -
news
Why Supreme Court May Knock Out Ruling on Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court likely will reject an appeals court’s decision to eliminate private lawsuits intended to enforce part of the Voting Rights Act, legal experts on both sides say. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday in a case out of Arkansas that only the Justice Department—not individuals or private groups—may sue to… -
opinion
2 Judicial Strikes Against Efforts to Keep Trump Off Ballot
Two state courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Claims, have thrown out the attempts by anti-democratic groups to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, at least with respect to the presidential primary election. The attempt to take away the ability of voters to make their… -
news
Supreme Court Puts Its Name on Ethics Code It’s Used All Along
Today, the Left is complaining about the very judicial independence that was among the reasons that America declared independence from England. Most Supreme Court justices today take the Constitution as it is, refusing to make one up to promote certain political interests. The Left responds by smearing those justices as “unethical” and trying to intimidate… -
news
Supreme Court Releases Code of Conduct
The U.S. Supreme Court released its own "Code of Conduct" on Monday evening to "set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court." The Code of Conduct comes after intense pressure from liberal activist groups for the justices to implement an… -
opinion
Will Merrick Garland’s Justice Department Adequately Protect Jews?
Kristen Clarke, who leads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, is responsible for prosecuting hate crimes and making sure that school officials don’t discriminate because of ethnicity or religion. This means that Clarke is the official in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department responsible for policing antisemitic hate crimes and antisemitic discrimination on… -
opinion
Time for Scrutiny of DEI Policies of Administrative Office of US Courts, Judicial Conference
Federal courts have their own administrative state, and that’s a problem. Like many of its executive branch counterparts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts came into existence during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal push to establish supposedly expert administrators. Established in 1939 after FDR’s failed court-packing plan, the “AO” (as it has come to… -
opinion
Justices Again Show Undue Deference to Feds, but Take Case That Could Undo That
In the spirit of football season, let’s imagine a short-yardage run play. The running back barrels into a mass of bodies, and the ball disappears from sight. After the officials excavate the ball, they must determine whether the runner has made the line to gain. Now, imagine that in every such ambiguous situation, the referees… -
opinion
Will Supreme Court Take Down ‘Biden’s Vast Censorship Enterprise’?
A hugely important case about government censorship of Americans’ speech online is going to the Supreme Court. “We look forward to dismantling Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise at the nation’s highest court,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Missouri and Louisiana, along with a handful of individuals, are plaintiffs in the case, which revolves around… -
opinion
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to NYC’s 50-Year Assault on Private Property
For more than 50 years, New York City’s so-called rent stabilization law has been squatting on the books and causing trouble. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law despite property owners’ strong arguments that the mandate constituted both a per se physical taking and regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment…. -
opinion
Justice Thomas and the Uneven Scales of Scrutiny
There is no worse example of a biased, tendentious mainstream media with ulterior motives than the castigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during the past half year. The latest example stems from flyspecking Thomas’ amended financial disclosure reports, repeating what has never been disputed and attempting to cast a dark shadow on otherwise innocent,… -
opinion
Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signals on Constitutionality of CFPB Funding in Oral Arguments
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services, argued Tuesday before the Supreme Court, is nominally an industry challenge to the bureau’s payday-lending rule. But the challengers’ effort to invalidate that rule has called into doubt the constitutionality of the bureau’s independent funding scheme. Thus, the issues the court must decide are: (1) whether the… -
news
Justice Thomas to Hear NY Gun Rights Lawsuit
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will consider a lawsuit by Second Amendment groups challenging New York’s strict concealed-carry firearm laws. Thomas has scheduled a conference with the full court on Oct. 6 to weigh a challenge to a provision of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act on background checks for ammunition purchases, which went into… -
news
House Democratic Leader Targets Supreme Court Justices: ‘Right-Wing Extremists’
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Supreme Court justices on Tuesday of being “right-wing extremists.” “It appears there is no bottom to the unethical conduct of the right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court,” said the New York Democrat, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal. It’s not… -
opinion
5 Cases to Watch in Supreme Court’s 2023-24 Term
School isn’t the only thing back in session this fall. The Supreme Court will resume hearing cases when its new term begins Oct. 2. So, what’s on the docket? If you’d like an in-depth analysis of the cases the high court will hear this term, watch The Heritage Foundation’s annual Supreme Court Preview on Wednesday… -
opinion
How 3 Supreme Court Cases Could Impact Administrative State
With the Supreme Court‘s 2023-2024 term just three weeks away, there are three cases before the nation’s highest court that two legal fellows write “could shake up the administrative state.” The three cases are Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo; Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy; and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association… -
news
Emails: Two Weeks After Attempted Kavanaugh Assassination, USMS ‘Unaware’ of ‘Specific, Targeted Threat’ to Justices Before Overturn of Roe
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: An internal email from the U.S. Marshals Service to staff members states that the agency was unaware of any "specific, targeted threat to a USMS-protected facility or person" one day before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Marshals Service email does not mention Nicholas Roske's alleged assassination attempt…