British-born World War II veteran Ron Holdsworth handled Friday morning’s flight in an open-cockpit Stearman biplane like he was 22 again.Read more

The city of Bakersfield has announced a series of road closures scheduled for next week.Read more

A $3.2 million state grant awarded to Bakersfield College will put local students to work helping educate young people and distributing food, among other activities, while they earn money for school.Read more

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office will conduct its own use-of-force investigation following an incident in Porterville where an armored vehicle intentionally ran over a suspect, killing him.Read more

The Second Amendment states that “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” As both critics and supporters of the amendment recognize, little of that language is particularly straightforward. What is a “well regulated Militia,” and how does that apply to today’s arguments over gun control? What constitutes “Arms,” and when is keeping and bearing them “infringed”? Amid that morass, one phrase that would seem (at least on the surface) a good deal more intuitive is “the people.” After all, doesn’t the people consist of, well, everyone? The answer is … not exactly. So who exactly are “the people” that may possess firearms in the first place? And how might this play into the court’s future decisions on the Second Amendment? “The people” defined (somewhat) To try and answer this question, we need to go back to the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court recognized a personal right to own a handgun for self-defense. In grounding this right, the court first considered who constituted “the people” in the context of the Second Amendment. According to the majority, “in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention ‘the people,’ [being the Constitution’s preamble, Section 2 of Article I, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, and the 10th Amendment] the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community.” For that proposition, it cited to the 1990 case of United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez. Interestingly, Verdugo-Urquidez was not a Second Amendment case. Rather, Rene Martin Verdugo-Urquidez was a Mexican citizen and resident who was arrested by DEA agents for drug-related offenses and transported to the United States. A DEA agent then sought and obtained authorization from Mexican authorities to search Verdugo-Urquidez’s residences for evidence but did not obtain a search warrant from a U.S. magistrate judge. The question before the court was whether the Fourth Amendment applies to a search and seizure conducted by U.S. law enforcement of property that is owned by a nonresident alien and located in a foreign country – in other words, whether Verdugo-Urquidez was one of “the people” entitled to Fourth Amendment protections. The court’s opinion in the case began by contrasting the Fourth Amendment’s use of “the people” (being “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) with the text of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, which use “person” and “accused” instead. Based on this distinction in terminology (and the context of that case), the court found that “the people” was a “term of art” used “to protect the people of the United States against arbitrary action by their own Government,” but not “to restrain the actions of the Federal Government against aliens outside of the United States territory.” Specifically, “the people” “refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.” Relying on Verdugo-Urquidez, the Heller court concluded that the Constitution’s use of “the people” “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community” and there is then “a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.” Left unresolved, however, was what it means to be a “member of the political community.” Although the cases below are not exhaustive, this issue has most often arisen regarding three categories of people: (1) felons, (2) minors, and (3) noncitizens. Felons One of the biggest unresolved questions is whether felons are members of the “political community” and can therefore be restricted from owning firearms. According to 18 U.S.C. § 922, anyone convicted of a felony (or any crime punishable by more than a year in jail) may not lawfully possess a gun. In support of this statute, the government has long argued that felons have “forfeited their membership in the political community” through their offensive acts, and, in support of this, pointed to them being denied such things as “the right to vote,” “the right to hold public office,” and “the right to serve on juries.” Although most federal courts of appeals have sided with the government that felons may not possess firearms, the government’s argument that felons are not part of “the people” in the first place has met with less success. In the 2024 decision of Garland v. Range, for example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit sharply disagreed that felons were not necessarily members of the “political community.” As the 3rd Circuit noted, the government’s position was internally inconsistent with other provisions in the Constitution: The phrase “the people” is used in the First and Fourth Amendments as well, but “[f]elons are not categorically barred” from the protection of those rights “because of their status.” Additionally, the 3rd Circuit rejected any free floating “law-abiding” exception to the Second Amendment, which would give legislatures the authority “to decide whom to exclude from ‘the people’” and thereby manipulate the Second Amendment simply by “choosing a label.”  Although in dissent, then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett opined similarly in the 2019 case of Kanter v. Barr while on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. According to Barrett, “[n]either felons nor the mentally ill are categorically excluded from our national community.” Deciding otherwise would mean such people “could be in one day and out the next” as a matter of “legislative grace.” Like the 3rd Circuit, Barrett thus objected to such a precarious definition of “the people” – a position she would be likely to echo if such a question were to come before her as a justice. Minors Another category of such cases addresses firearm restrictions that apply to individuals under the age of 21. As with felons, it has been argued that 18- to 20-year-olds (and those younger) are not members of “the people.” For example, in the 2024 case of Worth v. Jacobson, Minnesota contended that people under 21 were not among “the people” because “at common law, individuals did not have rights until they turned [that age].” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected that argument, concluding such persons were part of the “political community” even if this had not necessarily been the case at the Founding. The court first noted that Minnesota had not “overcome the ‘strong presumption’” that the Second Amendment “applies to ‘all Americans.’” It then rejected the idea that, because 21 was the age at which individuals received full “civil and political rights” at the nation’s start, anyone under 21 cannot be part of the “political community.” In making that argument, the 8th Circuit analogized this to Heller’s rejection of the idea that the Second Amendment protects only “arms” that existed at the Founding; while the Constitution is “fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it,” it “can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated.” In any event, the court noted that even if 18- to 20-year olds were not adults at the Founding, that changed when the 26th Amendment “set[] the age of majority at age 18.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit decided similarly in the 2024 case of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis. There, Colorado argued that individuals under the age of 21 are not among the people because at the Founding they would have ”lived under the supervision of their parents or guardians and did not possess full rights, including the right to vote.” Although the 10th Circuit ultimately upheld the challenged regulation, it made clear that “ordinary, law-abiding citizen[s] under the age of 21” are defined as part of the people. The circuit court noted that for the government to argue that “only those with the full legal rights or ability to vote – at the Founding or otherwise – is to miss the forest for the trees.” Noncitizens A final group of cases where this question has arisen are those involving noncitizens who are unlawfully present in the United States. These individuals (as well as temporary visitors on a nonimmigrant visa) are prohibited from possessing a firearm by federal law. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is in this context that the government’s arguments have gained the most traction. That said, even these have not proven entirely successful.   In the 2024 case of United States v. Medina-Cantu, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit determined that a noncitizen who is unlawfully present in the United States is not considered to be part of “the people.” The court pointed to the Supreme Court’s language in Heller that refers to “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” in self-defense, along with the reference to “members of the political community” and the Second Amendment right presumptively belonging to “all Americans.” Based on these portions of the Heller opinion, the 5th Circuit concluded that “illegal aliens are not law-abiding, responsible citizens or members of the political community, and aliens who enter or remain in this country illegally and without authorization are not Americans as that word is commonly understood.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, however, took a different approach. In 2025’s United States v. Escobar-Temal, the 6th Circuit began by pointing out that “the right of the people” appears in the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments and has the same meaning throughout all of these provisions (otherwise, as pointed out earlier, the Constitution would appear to be internally inconsistent). The court acknowledged that mere presence in the country is not enough by itself to confer such rights when an individual enters the United States unlawfully. But the 6th Circuit also refused to limit the definition of “the people” to citizens because “‘[t]he Constitution’s text shows the when the Framers meant to limit a provision’s application to “Citizen[s]” … they did so expressly.’” And while not necessarily always the case, it was conceivable that some persons unlawfully present in the United States could become part of “the people” when they have “developed substantial connections with” the country. Indeed, the 6th Circuit concluded that was true in the case before it, where the defendant had developed such “sufficient connections” by “arriv[ing] in the United States in 2012 and liv[ing] in the same community for approximately a decade,” “consistently work[ing] as a flooring contractor,” and having “two American citizen children.” Where things stand So – at least in terms of the Second Amendment – who are “the people”? Like a great deal else having to do with this amendment, the Supreme Court has left much to be resolved. It would appear that most law-abiding citizens (and permanent residents) over the age of 21 fit comfortably into this category. But, until the court says otherwise, the boundaries of who else does so will remain a matter of legislative grace rather than a constitutional guarantee. The post Just who are “the people”? appeared first on SCOTUSblog.Read more

One of the more frequent questions we get here at SCOTUSblog is how the court decides which cases to review on the merits – that is, to have additional briefing and oral argument on, followed by a written opinion. Although this has been written about in SCOTUSblog before, we thought it might be useful to have a thorough refresher on the subject as the court picks what cases to hear next term. In many ways, the initial decision to review a case is the most consequential: after all, nearly every landmark ruling in the court’s history, from the recognizable names of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, began with the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari. And having a petition granted is remarkably rare: of the 3,856 petitions filed in the 2024 term (2,527 of those being in forma pauperis, or without paying filing fees or following printing requirements due to a financial inability), only 73 (or 1.9%) of these were granted and argued on the merits. But let’s begin at the beginning. What is a cert petition? Certiorari, Latin for “to be more fully informed,” is the mechanism by which a higher court “calls up,” or accepts the record (that is, the evidence, papers, and proceedings) of a lower court. As the court’s recent exhibit on the petition process explained: “A petition for a writ of certiorari, or ‘cert petition,’ is a document by which a litigant who lost in another court asks the Supreme Court to review their case.” Under the Supreme Court’s rules, a cert petition normally must be filed within 90 days (extendable up to 120) after the lower court issues its final judgment. (In March 2020, the court extended the deadline to 150 days from the lower court’s judgment, before returning to the original deadline in July 2021.) Notably, the cert deadline in civil cases is mandatory and jurisdictional – it cannot be further extended. The deadline in criminal cases can be relaxed, in theory, but the court does so very rarely. As the court exhibit further explains (and as we’ll get into more later): “A cert petition presents legal questions the petitioner” – the litigant seeking Supreme Court review – “believes call for the Supreme Court’s review and explains why the Court should hear the case. Most commonly, a successful cert petition will show differences between courts that have decided the same legal question.” This alludes to the fact that the Supreme Court is not, primarily, a court of error correction: in other words, its job is to decide unresolved legal questions, rather than to fix lower court mistakes. And by granting cert, the court is not automatically signaling agreement or disagreement with the lower court’s ruling. But the court did not always get to choose which cases it would decide. Before 1925, many categories of cases carried an automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning the justices did not have discretion over what cases they heard. That changed with Chief Justice William Howard Taft. As the inscription of Taft’s bust at the Supreme Court building reads: While chief justice from 1921 to 1930, Taft “coordinated the effort to change the Supreme Court from a Court of Error to one tasked with uniformity of interpretation of law.” Specifically, “his efforts led to the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1925, which solidified the cert process as the main pathway for Supreme Court review of a case.” Today, thanks to Taft’s efforts, the Supreme Court thus has nearly complete discretion over its docket. In other words, if the justices don’t want to hear a case, they usually don’t have to. There are two exceptions to that general rule. The first is for cases which fall under the court’s original jurisdiction, which means that they go straight to the court, without having a trial or an appeal in a lower court first. These traditionally involve such things as disputes between two or more states over matters like boundaries or water rights, or between states and the federal government. There are also a handful of cases over which the court has mandatory appellate jurisdiction – such as rulings by three-judge district courts in redistricting cases. In such cases, the justices must take some action on the appeal – whether that is to affirm the lower court’s decision without further briefing, reverse it, or hear oral argument and issue a decision on the merits. How does the cert process get started? The party seeking Supreme Court review is known as the petitioner, while the side that won below – which typically opposes Supreme Court review – is known as the respondent. After the petitioner files its cert petition (which again, must generally be done within 90 days of the lower court’s final judgment), the respondent has 30 days to file a brief arguing that the Supreme Court should not hear the case. The petitioner may also file a reply brief, which is due 14 days after that, unless the petitioner wants to file it sooner to expedite the court’s consideration of the briefs. Outside individuals or groups with an interest in the issue at the center of the dispute can also file “friend of the court” (amicus) briefs at this stage, asking the justices to grant review. An amicus brief in support of the petitioner must be filed within 30 days after the case is placed on the docket or the court calls for a response (whichever is later). (For those really into this stuff: An amicus brief in support of an original jurisdiction case has 60 days.) Amicus briefs in support of the respondent are rare (because respondents generally want to downplay the case’s significance), but they have their own deadline (see, we told you this would be thorough!). The whole bundle of certiorari-stage documents (the petition, brief in opposition, reply, and any amicus filings) is then distributed to the justices’ chambers for review – an action that is reflected on the court’s electronic docket with the notation “[Distributed].” Filings are submitted both electronically and on paper – paper is the official means of filing, so electronic filing requirements are in addition to, not a replacement for, the existing paper requirements. For paid petitions, 40 booklet-format copies are required, with IFP petitioners exempt from these printing and copy requirements. The cert pool, the discuss list, and the dead list Seven of the nine current justices (everyone except Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch) participate in the “cert pool,” a labor-saving device in which a cert petition is first reviewed by a law clerk in one of the seven chambers. That clerk typically prepares a memo (known as a “pool memo”) about the case which includes an initial recommendation as to whether the court should review the case. That memo is then circulated to all seven chambers and reviewed by the clerks in those chambers (and perhaps even by the justices, depending on the issues it raises). As for Alito and Gorsuch, their clerks review all the cert petitions filed each year, which makes for a lot of work but potentially acts as an independent check on the cert pool process to ensure that nothing is missed. Once those recommendations have circulated, any justice can flag a petition for discussion at the next private conference. Petitions that clear this threshold are added to the “discuss list.” If no justice asks to add a case to the discuss list, it is placed on the “dead list,” and certiorari is automatically denied without the justices having ever discussed or voted on it. The dead list is not published and is never explained. For most petitions, that is both the outcome and end of the road. The conference But for those petitions that make it to conference, even more proceedings await! During their private meetings (which are usually held on Wednesdays and Fridays during the term), the justices review petitions, discuss oral arguments, make initial votes on cases they have heard, and conduct other court business. And these meetings are truly private: Not even the clerks are allowed in the room, with the most junior justice (currently Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson) acting as doorkeeper. The chief justice presides, sets the agenda, and leads discussions; when voting, though, the chief justice’s vote is worth the same as everyone else’s. At the start of each term, the court also holds what is known as the “long conference,” a single large session at which the justices work through all the petitions that piled up over the summer recess (when the justices are, yes, on vacation). Filings ramp up from late spring into fall and generally peak between September and November. This peak helps explain why grant rates can be strong in early fall even as volume surges, since the court must stock its merits calendar relatively quickly at that point. Although it is not a formal rule, granting certiorari traditionally requires the votes of four justices, colloquially known as the “rule of four.” If four justices agree to take the case, the court announces the grant as part of an order list released (depending on the time of year) either shortly after the conference on Friday or on the Monday after the conference. At that point, “the Clerk of the Court sets dates for briefing and then for oral argument” – and we’re off to the races. But what makes a successful petition? This question is not easy to answer, especially given that the justices do not announce specific criteria in advance nor normally explain their denials, and they have historically been reluctant to discuss the cert process in any detail. The most reliable path to success lies in a circuit split, or a disagreement among the federal courts of appeals about how to resolve the same legal question. For that reason, petitioners will often point to a supposed disagreement among lower courts on the issue that they are asking the justices to take up, and respondents will counter that no such conflict exists. Circuit splits are far from the only factor the justices take into account when considering whether to grant cert, however. An analysis of over 12,300 paid petitions filed from 2017 through 2024 by SCOTUSblog contributor Adam Feldman found that several other factors consistently increase the probability of whether a case is granted, including when the case is relisted three or more times (that is, considered at several conferences without being granted or denied), when both parties are represented by seasoned Supreme Court practitioners, or when three or more cert-stage amicus briefs have been filed. How we track this at SCOTUSblog A related question we’re frequently asked is how we track all of this at SCOTUSblog. The short answer: categorize, and triage. The long(er) answer: We first narrow the docket by screening out petitions that are unlikely to receive consideration, such as petitions filed pro se or in forma pauperis, as the court rarely hears cases in which the petitioner represents himself or cannot pay the court-imposed fees (whether this is a good thing or not is an entirely separate question, for a separate column). We then review the questions presented by each remaining petition, taking into account the importance and potential impact of the questions presented by the petition, whether the courts of appeals appear to be divided on that question, whether the case appears to be a good candidate for the court’s review (for example, whether the case has any procedural issues or irregularities), and whether there are “friend of the court” briefs filed in support of the petition. The results of that filtering process are what you see in our Petitions We’re Watching section, a list of cases that, in our judgment, have at least a chance of progressing to the court’s oral argument docket. But, at the end of the day, choosing which petitions will catch the court’s eye is more an art than a science, and can sometimes rest more on human psychology than any hard and fast rules.  The post How the justices decide … which cases to decide: an explainer appeared first on SCOTUSblog.Read more

Yesterday marked 81 years since the inauguration of President Harry Truman, who went on to select four Supreme Court justices while he was in office. Will President Donald Trump have the opportunity to place four justices on the court, as well? Read the latest on a potential retirement this term in the Morning Reads section. Plus, tomorrow is publication day for Sarah Isgur’s book, Last Branch Standing, and The Dispatch is running a special promotion for Dispatch members who order it. Check it out here. At the Court The court will next hear arguments one week from today, on Monday, April 20, the first day of its April sitting. The court has not yet indicated when it will next announce opinions. Morning Reads As Election Looms, Washington Wonders if Trump Will Get a New Supreme Court Pick Ann E. Marimow, The New York Times Speculation has been swirling that Justice Samuel Alito, 76, will soon announce his retirement, but “the taciturn justice has not indicated even to friends whether or when he might retire,” according to The New York Times. “Ed Whelan, a prominent conservative legal commentator,” told the Times that he does not expect a vacancy this year, in part because, in retiring, Alito would be walking away from “so many big cases at the court” and “‘the potential to be in the majority in a way that he couldn’t count on in his first dozen years’ on the bench.” But one factor pushing Alito toward retirement may be the 2026 midterm elections, when Republicans may lose control of the Senate. “In interviews, Justice Alito’s friends, former colleagues and law clerks said that the justice is well aware of the political calendar and would prefer to have a Republican president choose his successor.” Federal court hears new case against Trump’s latest global tariffs Mae Anderson and Paul Wiseman, Associated Press On Friday, the U.S. Court of International Trade heard arguments “in an attempt to overturn the temporary tariffs Trump turned to after the Supreme Court in February struck down” those imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The temporary tariffs were imposed under “Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose global tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days, after which congressional approval is needed to extend them.” The text of Section 122 addresses “fundamental international payments problems,” and the current dispute involving the administration, two dozen states, and some businesses concerns is over “whether that wording covers trade deficits.” Ryan Majerus, a former U.S. trade official, told the AP that he expects the CIT to side with the administration “considering that [the tariffs] will expire in three and a half months anyway.” Federal appeals court sends White House ballroom construction lawsuit back to lower court CBS News The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Saturday sent a case on the White House ballroom construction project back to the district court for reconsideration of “the possible national security implications of halting construction,” according to CBS News. The “three-judge panel … said it did not have enough information to decide how much of the project can be suspended without jeopardizing the safety of the president, his family or the White House staff.” “Government lawyers had argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of possible threats, such as drones, ballistic missiles and biohazards,” contending that those security upgrades need to be installed as soon as possible. The trial judge had put the construction on hold until April 14, but “[t]he appeals court extended that for three days, to April 17, to allow the Trump administration to seek Supreme Court review.” Trump’s mandatory detention policy gets court victory as immigration issue heads toward Supreme Court Jack Birle, Washington Examiner On Thursday, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit declined to review a three-judge panel’s ruling upholding “the Trump administration’s policy of keeping illegal immigrants in detention during their deportation proceedings,” according to the Washington Examiner. “The 5th Circuit’s 2-1 ruling earlier this year found that just because previous administrations did not use their power under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to detain illegal immigrants indefinitely, rather than allow them to seek release on bond, that does not mean presidents do not have that power.” “It is unclear if the Supreme Court would take up the case from the 5th Circuit for review, but if the justices were to do so, the earliest it would likely be heard is during the high court’s next term, which begins in October.” U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor urges women to lead with passion Williesha Morris, AL.com During a Thursday appearance at the University of Alabama, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reflected on the rise of artificial intelligence, the importance of reading Supreme Court opinions, and how to be a better leader, according to AL.com. AI, she said, “has the potential to perpetuate the very best in us and the very worst in us. If it’s bad data, what comes out is bad results. And, so it can be a very dangerous tool, particularly in judging the complexity of human endeavors or human situations.” Sotomayor also reflected on how difficult judges’ work can be. “We aspire as judges to rise above our prejudices,” she said. “It’s not easy.” Additionally, she encouraged women who hope to be leaders to identify a cause they really believe in, noting that such belief, when paired with hard work, makes a leader more effective. “The only way to lead people is if you have a passion about your cause,” Sotomayor said. On Site From the SCOTUSblog Team The sports stars, hip-hop artists, and celebrity magicians playing a role in pending Supreme Court petitions Among the petitions for review awaiting the justices’ attention this spring, there are at least four that involve well-known petitioners or “friends of the court,” including sports figures, rappers, and two of the country’s most famous magicians. Here’s an overview of those four petitions and their significance, and a brief reflection on what a public figure’s involvement can mean for a case. SCOTUS Outside Opinions Law, memoir, and the mystery of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s writing The Supreme Court justice memoir, so lucrative for its authors, tends to be a less than illuminating genre. Hence, the pleasant surprises in reading Justice Anthony Kennedy’s memoir, Life, Law & Liberty, published last fall and promoted by Kennedy in an interview this year. But how do we reconcile the modest yet elegant prose of the book with the oft-criticized sweeping rhetoric of his judicial opinions? A Closer Look: Words on the Supreme Court Building The iconic marble façade of the Supreme Court Building prominently displays the words “Equal Justice Under Law” above its main (west) entrance facing the U.S. Capitol. But even Supreme Court obsessives may be unfamiliar with its counterpart inscription on the rear (east) pediment: “Justice the Guardian of Liberty.” These inscriptions – like many things having to do with the Supreme Court – have their own surprising history. The phrase “Equal Justice Under Law” originated not with a jurist or prominent philosopher (as far as we know), but with Cass Gilbert’s architectural firm. (Gilbert was the Supreme Court building’s architect, having been chosen by the Supreme Court Building Commission in 1929.) The phrase first appeared on a firm drawing from July 7, 1931, although it is not known if Gilbert came up with the phrase himself. Earlier drafts from 1929–1930 used placeholders such as “LEX ET JUSTITIA” (“Law and Justice”) and “EQUAL AND EXACT JUSTICE” (taken from President Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address). As for the east pediment’s inscription, “Justice the Guardian of Liberty,” the original proposed inscription was “Equal Justice is the Foundation of Liberty,” but this was rejected by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Instead, in a May 16, 1932, handwritten note (possibly from the bench during a court session) between Hughes and Justice Willis Van Devanter (who also served on the building commission), the chief justice wrote that “I rather prefer ‘Justice the Guardian of Liberty.’” Van Devanter replied with a simple “Good (W.V.),” and Hughes subsequently directed the use of that phrase. Like the west inscription, no ancient, literary, or historical source has been identified as the origin of those words. Both inscriptions were executed in English, as Hughes rejected Latin alternatives for the sake of public accessibility, and they were among the final elements settled upon before the building’s completion in 1935. Whatever their actual source, the words have taken on a life of their own, “symboliz[ing] the American heritage of democracy and the rule of law.” SCOTUS Quote JUSTICE GORSUCH: “… Whatever the test is, is [it] always going to be de novo [from scratch] review?” MR. CROSS: “It has to be de novo –” JUSTICE GORSUCH: “Always. Okay.” MR. CROSS: “– review because statutes have to be consistent –” JUSTICE GORSUCH: “Assume I don’t buy that. Then what should I do?” MR. CROSS: “Well, then I’m in trouble.” — U.S. Bank National Association v. Village at Lakeridge, LLC  (2017) The post SCOTUStoday for Monday, April 13 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.Read more