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The Supreme Court's solid conservative majority could soon choose to take up its first major Second Amendment case in nearly a decade, positioning the court to override state laws established to limit the availability and accessibility of some firearms and when they can be carried in public.

It's been over a decade since 2008's landmark 5-4 ruling in District of Columbia v Heller that held the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms at home for self-defense. Except for a follow-up decision two years later, the court has not weighed in significantly again.

"The Court's composition has changed considerably since Heller,

Since 2016, women have been allowed to serve in every role in the military, including ground combat. Unlike men, though, they are not required to register with the Selective Service System, the government agency that maintains a database of Americans who would be eligible for the draft were it reinstated.

But the requirement that only men must register for the draft remains. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear a challenge to the requirement

“It imposes selective burdens on men, reinforces the notion that women are not full and equal citizens, and perpetuates stereotypes about men’s and women’s capabilities,” lawyers with the A.C.L.U. wrote in a petition on behalf of two men who were required to register and the National Coalition for Men.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday night cleared the way for the execution of Lisa Montgomery, the first woman to be executed by the federal government in 68 years.

In a series of brief, unsigned orders, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put Montgomery’s execution on hold, and it denied two other last-minute requests in which Montgomery argued she was entitled to a postponement. In two of the orders, the court’s three liberal justices indicated that they dissented and would not have allowed the execution to proceed.

Montgomery, who was sentenced in Missouri, argued that the Department of Justice failed to comply with a Missouri requirement that prisoners be given at least 90 days’ notice before an execution.

The Supreme Court will hear a major NRA-backed gun rights case on whether New Yorkers can carry concealed handguns while in public.

could result in the most consequential ruling related to the Second Amendment in over a decade.

People carrying handguns in public must demonstrate "proper cause" in order to have a license, such as hunting or store protection.However, those types of licenses only allow gun owners to use their firearm for that specific purpose.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who once went a decade without asking a question from the Supreme Court bench, is about to complete a term in which he was an active participant in every single argument.

Justice Thomas, who joined the court in 1991, goes second, right after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., asking probing questions in his distinctive baritone.

“He can be one of the most loquacious people you’ve ever met,” she said. “He is extremely chatty.”

The justices struggled to decide whether a 1976 law that bars most suits against other nations allows Jewish victims to sue over the theft of their property.

The Supreme Court, wary in the past of cases concerning conduct by and against foreigners that took place abroad, heard arguments on Monday over whether American courts have a role in deciding whether Hungary and Germany must pay for property said to have been stolen from Jews before and during World War II.

The Trump administration took issue with the rulings, filing briefs and presenting arguments supporting efforts to limit review in American courts.

In the Pennsylvania case, the court refused a plea from Republicans in the state that it decide before Election Day whether election officials can continue receiving absentee ballots for three days after Nov. 3.

In the North Carolina case, the court let stand lower court rulings that allowed the state’s board of elections to extend the deadline to nine days after Election Day, up from the three days called for by the state legislature.

“It would be highly desirable to issue a ruling on the constitutionality of the State Supreme Court’s decision before the election,” he wrote. “That question has national importance, and there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the federal Constitution.”

In the Pennsylvania case, the court refused a plea from Republicans in the state that it decide before Election Day whether election officials can continue receiving absentee ballots for three days after Nov. 3.

In the North Carolina case, the court let stand lower court rulings that allowed the state’s board of elections to extend the deadline to nine days after Election Day, up from the three days called for by the state legislature.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court on Tuesday,

Here’s how grim the future of voting rights looks for both large-D Democrats and small-d democrats: the pivotal vote on the Supreme Court — the justice who is likely to decide all closely divided voting rights disputes in the near future — is Brett Kavanaugh.

credibly accused of attempting to sexually assault Christine Blasey Ford when they were in high school, denied the allegation then lashed out at Democrats who believed it disqualified him from serving on the nation’s highest court.

has staked out a position on voting rights that is less extreme than the views of many of his colleagues.

Alfred Bourgeois became the 10th person to be put to death by the federal government this year, after the Supreme Court on Friday evening denied his application for a delay of the execution. Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor indicated that they would have granted the application.

Federal law and Supreme Court precedent ban the execution of someone who is mentally disabled. Through his counsel, Bourgeois told the justices that he met the current psychological standards for intellectual disability, which became the required legal standard after he was sentenced

Bourgeois was convicted in 2004 of murdering his two-year old daughter while making a delivery to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas. Evidence at trial showed that he had beaten his daughter for a month before her death.

The justices on Thursday night denied two last-minute appeals by Corey Johnson, who sought to postpone his execution so that he could recover from COVID-19, which he contracted in prison after spending most of his life on death row. Johnson also argued that he was ineligible for the death penalty on the basis of intellectual disability and that he should have been allowed to seek a sentencing reduction under a 2018 prison-reform law.

The two appeals were the subject of a flurry of last-minute litigation, in multiple federal courts, that reached the justices minutes before Johnson’s originally scheduled execution time of 6 p.m. on Thursday. In two unsigned orders issued around 10 p.m. (available here and here), the court denied both appeals.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicated that they would have put the execution on hold based on Johnson’s COVID diagnosis. Sotomayor and Kagan separately indicated that they also would have granted a stay based on Johnson’s other legal arguments.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that judges need not determine that juvenile offenders are beyond hope of rehabilitation before sentencing them to die in prison. The decision, concerning a teenager who killed his grandfather, appeared to signal the end of a trend that had limited the availability of severe punishments for youths who commit crimes before they turn 18.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling, said it was enough that the sentencing judge exercised discretion rather than automatically imposing a sentence of life without parole.

“In a case involving an individual who was under 18 when he or she committed a homicide,” he wrote, “a state’s discretionary sentencing system is both constitutionally necessary and constitutionally sufficient.”

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a federal law that requires only men to register for the military draft.

As is the court’s custom, it gave no reasons for turning down the case. But three justices issued a statement saying that Congress should be allowed more time to consider what they acknowledged was a significant legal issue.

“But at least for now, the court’s longstanding deference to Congress on matters of national defense and military affairs cautions against granting review while Congress actively weighs the issue.”

Rather, I mean to open the door to a deeper inquiry: Now that the Trump presidency has disintegrated into mayhem and madness, how are the conservative members of the Supreme Court processing these past four years?

Of course, the administration didn’t win every Supreme Court battle it chose to fight. Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts and his liberal colleagues, who numbered four before the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September, President Trump was unable to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and he didn’t get away with stripping the “Dreamers” of their protection against deportation.

The answer matters because after next week, it will be the Biden administration seeking the court’s attention. Will the justices be more skeptical, less deferential, more or less willing to depart from normal procedures when the president comes knocking on the door?

Ted Cruz, try to pull yet another fast one on the American people as he fought — not long before the certification process was disrupted by a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol and forcing their way into the Senate chamber — to challenge the election results.

Mr. Cruz cited the aftermath of the 1876 presidential election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden. It was contentious and involved actual disputes about voter fraud and electoral mayhem, and a committee was formed to sort it out.

Mr. Cruz has been able to use his pseudo-intellectualism and his Ivy League pedigree as a cudgel. He may be a snake, his supporters (might) admit, but he could go toe to toe with liberal elites because he, too, went to Princeton (cum laude), went to Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Mr. Cruz was not some seditionist in a MAGA hat (or a Viking costume); he styled himself as a deep thinker who could get the better of lefties from those pointy headed schools. He could straddle both worlds — ivory towers and Tea Party confabs — and exploit both to his advantage.

she asked questions in turn in a set of cases that presented difficult procedural questions but no headlines.

Barrett could well be forgiven for bowing out of the court's work last week, with six days to prep before her Monday debut.

Barrett's choice to forgo participating last week meant she did not vote in two significant cases decided by the court in opinions released Monday.

he Supreme Court refused on Monday to revive a trial court ruling that would have extended Wisconsin’s deadline for receiving absentee ballots to six days after the election.

The vote was 5 to 3, with the court’s more conservative justices in the majority. As is typical, the court’s brief, unsigned order gave no reasons.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin immediately announced a voter education project to alert voters that absentee ballots have to be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3. “We’re dialing up a huge voter education campaign,” Ben Wikler, the state party chairman, said on Twitter. The U.S. Postal Service has recommended that voters mail their ballots by Oct. 27 to ensure that they are counted.

The justices did the right thing by declining to hear the case brought by red states to overturn the election results. But let’s see what happens down the road.

t’s as if someone filed a case asking the court to exercise its original jurisdiction and declare the moon to be made of green cheese. We would hardly pat the justices on the back for tossing out such a case. More likely, we would shrug and say, “There goes another nut case.”

The justices, I added, would never permit themselves to be drawn into such a sorry charade.

The justices, who will hear arguments on Monday in two cases challenging the state’s near-total ban, required the parties to file their briefs with extraordinary speed.

The court will hear arguments on Monday in two different challenges, one brought by abortion providers in the state and the other by the Justice Department. The court’s scheduling order required the two sides to file their opening briefs simultaneously, with responses due on Friday.

Both challengers said the law, which bars most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, is at odds with Roe v. Wade, which prohibits states from banning abortions before fetal viability, or around 23 weeks. They added that the law, known as Senate Bill 8, was cynically drafted to avoid review by federal courts.

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to do what the justices declined to do last month when asked by a group of Texas abortion providers: block the enforcement of a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on abortions performed after the sixth week of pregnancy.

making “abortion effectively unavailable” after six weeks, “Texas has, in short, successfully nullified” the Supreme Court’s “decisions within its borders.”

Rather than handle the request on the so-called shadow docket, Fletcher also suggested in his filing that the justices could treat the request as a petition for review, schedule full briefing and oral argument, and resolve the merits of the case without waiting for the litigation to conclude in the lower courts.