This is going to be a big year for the Supreme Court. Its decisions will be intensely scrutinized and will precipitate profound disagreements in American society, no matter which way they go. If there ever was a time for the Court to buttress public confidence in its propriety and objectivity,...

Last night was the occasion of the Federalist Society 2011 Annual Dinner, a black-tie fundraising event in Washington, D.C., that serves as the gathering of the conservative legal clans -- the powerhouse law firms, think tank staff, big funders, politicians, former attorneys general, academics, torture-memo writers, and conservative media.

This is going to be a big year for the Supreme Court. This election cycle is going to remind everyone of the effects of its infamous Citizens United decision, as vast sums of corporate money flood the electoral system. The blockbuster healthcare case could be heard and decided right in...

As the Occupy Wall Street movement grows in size and intensity by the day, it's worth noting that Saturday marks the twentieth anniversary of the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. In our view, one has led directly to the other.

While Congress is consumed with a bitter fight over the federal budget deficit, the federal judge deficit continues to fester. Today, there are 115 federal district and circuit court judgeships currently or soon-to-be vacant -- that's one out of seven seats. Tragically, that's actually more vacancies than existed at the...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is an adamant believer in the original intent of the Constitution, so much so that the two centuries between its adoption and our own time might as well not have happened. For him, American law is frozen in amber like a fossilized centipede from the...

Today was another bad day for the women who work, have worked, or will work at Wal-Mart. In addition to having faced a clear pattern of gender discrimination throughout the company's thousands of stores, they now have to contend with a Supreme Court decision that will make it impossible for...

The Corporate Court is at it again. This time the case is AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, and this week's 5-4 decision in favor of the cell-phone giant is yet another far-reaching betrayal of some of the most fundamental principles of American justice.

In this case, big business,...

What's it like to be a female employee of Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer?

According to Betty Dukes, it's frustrating, as well as economically and psychologically debilitating. Ms. Dukes was an enthusiastic Wal-Mart employee, eager to work her way up from store "greeter" to a position in management. But after...

Today marks the one-year anniversary of one of the most notorious and unpopular Supreme Court decisions of recent years. Citizens United v. FEC overturned long-standing precedent and policy, unleashing a torrent of corporate money into American elections that threatens to further distort a political process that is already disproportionately beholden...

No one who has followed the career of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is surprised that he has agreed to participate in a meeting of the so-called "Constitutional Conservative Caucus," organized by extremist Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

The decision by Justice Antonin Scalia to serve as a featured speaker in...

The 111th Congress wrapped up its business last night, and a last-minute flurry of action resulted in some important victories for the administration and its allies, especially the long-overdue repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Discrimination and hate should never be enshrined in our laws and it is...

This week, along with the spectacle of former President George W. Bush bragging on national television about authorizing torture, federal prosecutor John H. Durham allowed the statute of limitations to expire without pressing charges against C.I.A. agents and attorneys who participated in the destruction of videotapes chronicling the interrogations and...

In March 2003, a Kansas-born former University of Idaho football star named Abdullah al-Kidd went to Dulles Airport to board a flight to Saudi Arabia. Al-Kidd, whose birth name was Lavoni Kidd before he converted to Islam, was on his way to continue his studies in Arabic and Islamic law....

This week marked the opening of the new Supreme Court term, with John Roberts at the helm, the conservative majority champing at the bit, and the newest justice, Elena Kagan, taking her seat for the first time. It also is the occasion of the release of Alliance for Justice's new...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent seven more of President Obama's judicial nominees to the full Senate for a final vote. They are joining 16 others currently stuck in procedural quicksand, blocked from confirmation by an intractable and shameless Republican minority.

The clock is ticking, though, on breaking the...

Thanks in part to Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing, a great deal of long-overdue attention has been focused on the strong corporate bias in the current Supreme Court. But the Corporate Court is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to special interest influence in...

The hearings to confirm Elena Kagan as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court are over and the conclusion is all but inevitable: starting on the first Monday in October, there will be three women sitting in the big leather chairs in the Court's hallowed chamber, dispensing justice and...

It seems appropriate on the day that Elena Kagan went before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a seat on the Supreme Court to quote another woman pioneer. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, "Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both."

Unfortunately, the First Lady's...

In Washington, it's an article of faith that what the National Rifle Association wants, the National Rifle Association gets. But today, people are pushing back against what many feel is an abuse of democratic principles and the entrenched culture of special favors for the most powerful.

Alliance for Justice,...