September 25, 2007
Supreme Court to Consider Lethal Injections, Voter IDs
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and whether voter identification laws unfairly deter the poor and minorities from voting.

July 31, 2007
Chief Justice Released from Hospital After Seizure
Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure Monday during his vacation in Maine.

June 29, 2007
Legal Analysts See Shift to Right in Key Court Rulings
A series of key decisions late in the most recent Supreme Court term narrowly decided key free speech and school desegregation cases along a 5-4 vote. The bare majorities in these contentious cases have raised questions over whether the high court's two newest members have shift the politics of the court in a more conservative direction. Two constitutional experts assess the state of the court.

June 25, 2007
Court Rules on Three Free-Speech Cases
The justices ruled 5-4 Monday on three cases that dealt with the issue of free speech: it said campaign ads should be allowed to air in the final two months before an election, a school can censor student banners if they promote drug usage, and that taxpayers do not have legal standing to challenge President Bush's faith-based programs that help religious charities. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the three rulings.

June 25, 2007
Experts Analyze Supreme Court Free Speech Rulings
The Supreme Court ruled to loosen restrictions on campaign ads and tighten limits on student speech Monday. Two law professors, Walter Dellinger and Richard Garnett, weigh in on what the rulings mean for the nation, and what they indicate about the justices' take on First Amendment rights.

May 29, 2007
Justices Limit Time Employees Can Sue over Pay Disparity
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling Tuesday limited workers' ability to sue employers for pay discrimination that results from decisions made years earlier. The case involved how to apply a 180-day deadline for pay decisions made under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the ruling's significance.

May 23, 2007
Book Chronicles Career of Justice Clarence Thomas
Authors Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher discuss their book, "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas," which explores the justice's trials and career.

April 25, 2007
Court Hears Arguments on Restricting Campaign Ads
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on a part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that, under certain conditions, bars campaign ads by interest groups close to elections. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal discusses the case.

April 18, 2007
Court Rules 5-4 to Uphold 'Partial-Birth' Abortion Ban
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowly upheld a nationwide ban on the controversial abortion procedure known as partial-birth abortion. In a 5-4 ruling, the court said the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

April 2, 2007
Supreme Court Says EPA Can Regulate Greenhouse Gases
In a defeat for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars under the Clean Air Act. In a separate decision, the court ruled against a power utility in a Clinton-era case demanding fines for past pollution.

Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal, along with Carol Browner, former EPA administrator during the Clinton administration, and Ann Klee, a former general counsel to the Environmental Protection Agency during the Bush administration, talk about both rulings.

March 19, 2007
Justices Weigh Free Speech for Students
The Supreme Court heard a case about the free speech rights of students after a high-school senior in Juneau, Alaska, was suspended for displaying a sign, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at an off-campus school activity. The school said its actions were consistent with its responsibility to teach students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal discusses the case.

February 27, 2007
Court Hears Arguments on Special Education, Police Rights
The Supreme Court heard two notable cases this week, one involving lawyer rights for parents of special education students and the other on the constitutionality of police tactics in high-speed chases. The National Law Journal's Marcia Coyle details the arguments.

February 22, 2007
Released Audio Tapes Shed Light on Court Proceedings
The Supreme Court has released the audio tapes of some of its highest profile hearings, granting the public unprecedented access to courtroom proceedings. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman provides a report.

February 20, 2007
Supreme Court Overturns $79.5 Million Tobacco Award
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a $79.5 million jury award levied against the Philip Morris tobacco company, ruling in a 5-4 decision Tuesday that the verdict was invalid because the jury had overstepped its bounds.

January 29, 2007
Legal Experts Offer Glimpse into Supreme Court
Two veteran court watchers -- George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen and ABC legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg -- offer some new perspectives on the Supreme Court in their recently published books.

January 22, 2007
Court Rules Against Sentencing Rules in California
In a decision that could affect thousands of California prisoners, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Monday that state's system of sentencing criminals is unconstitutional because it gives judges some authority that really belongs to jurors and thus deprives a defendant of a fair trial. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the ruling.

December 6, 2006
Supreme Court Ponders Desegregation Cases
The Supreme Court considered whether programs in Kentucky and Washington in which race is a factor in placing students in schools is an acceptable means of diversifying the student body or another name for illegal racial quotas. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the arguments.

November 29, 2006
Court Takes Up Issue of Climate Change for First Time
The Supreme Court heard its first case on global warming Wednesday with 12 states asking the court to mandate limits on greenhouse emissions from new cars and trucks. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the arguments and then David Rivkin, who wrote a brief defending the EPA and served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and Vicki Patton, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, discuss the significance of the case and what it means for the government’s response to global warming.

November 27, 2006
Justices Hear Both Sides of Wage Discrimination Case
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday dealing with the statute of limitations on claims of gender discrimination in pay. NewsHour regular Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal explains the arguments.

November 8, 2006
Court Hears Arguments on 'Partial-birth' Abortion Ban
The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments on the federal late-term abortion ban, the first major abortion issue before a more conservative court now that Samuel Alito has replaced retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The procedure in question in the current cases, Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, is called by critics "partial birth" abortion and is medically known as "intact dilation and extraction," or "D & X," and usually occurs in the second trimester of pregnancy. A doctor partially delivers a fetus, then suctions out its brain and collapses its skull to permit the head to exit.

The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health organization affiliated with Planned Parenthood, has called the procedure rare and said only 2,200 were performed in 2000, but advocates of the ban say the number is much higher.

Four liberal justices are considered certain votes against the law, according to legal analysts, and four conservatives are expected to uphold it, although it is unclear how far they will go towards rolling back the established precedent on abortion, Roe v. Wade. Many expect Justice Anthony Kennedy, the 70-year-old centrist with a multifaceted record on abortion, to be the deciding vote.

In a dissenting opinion to the 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision that struck down a state ban on the procedure because there was no exception for the health of the mother, Kennedy called D & X "a procedure many decent and civilized people find so abhorrent as to be among the most serious of crimes against human life."

RealAudio | MP3: Full audio of today's oral arguments

October 2, 2006
New U.S. Supreme Court Term Opens
A new session of the U.S. Supreme Court begins Monday. The justices are expected to tackle a bevy of cases on abortion, affirmative action and environmental laws. A panel of legal experts, including NewsHour regular Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal, discusses the cases facing the court.

September 26, 2006
Supreme Court Justices Reflect on Judicial Independence
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor discuss judicial independence, the subject of a two-day conference this week at Georgetown University Law School.