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Chief Justice William Howard Taft, who famously joined the Supreme Court after serving as president, was born on this day in 1857. Jordan Lorence recently wrote for SCOTUSblog about the concept of “Taft-maxxing” (yes, you read that right).
At the Court
On Monday, the Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s request to pause a district court ruling preventing implementation of parts of a new U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in voting. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Learn more about the decision in the On Site section below.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for it to use the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to identify noncitizens on state voter rolls. A response to the administration’s request is due today by 4 p.m. EDT.
Morning Reads
Trump's mail-in voting restrictions blocked by a second judge
Luc Cohen, Reuters
Ahead of the Supreme Court’s Monday decision on the “U.S. Postal Service rule that tightens mail-in voting requirements,” a second federal judge paused implementation of new USPS restrictions, according to Reuters. Late on Sunday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols “granted a request from the Democratic Party and groups including the NAACP for a preliminary injunction blocking the rule, which they argued was an unlawful intrusion by the federal government into election administration.” “The judge, who was appointed by Trump during his first term in the White House, wrote that the new rule could make it harder for some people to vote by mail and that the new regulation exceeded the Postal Service’s authority.”
A barrage of cases hitting the Supreme Court is stirring midterm confusion
Julian Mark, Mark Berman, and Justin Jouvenal, The Washington Post (paywalled)
In recent months, a “barrage of high-stakes election cases” has been addressed by the Supreme Court on its interim docket, and there are more decisions – and disputes – to come. Legal experts told The Washington Post that the number of cases is already “above historical norms, especially for a midterm election,” and expressed concern that the “flurry of litigation” will fuel distrust in the electoral process, not to mention confusion. The Post noted that “[e]lection-related cases have been increasing for decades, but three factors have sharply accelerated the trend this year: a Supreme Court decision weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prompted Southern states to quickly draw new, sometimes contested electoral maps; Trump’s pressure on GOP-led states to redraw their own maps, and Democrats’ efforts to respond in kind; and Trump’s aggressive push to introduce new voting rules.”
Supreme Court to decide whether to hear Maine lobsterman’s challenge to GPS boat tracker requirement
Patrick Whittle, Associated Press
On Sept. 28, the justices will meet to consider, among other things, “whether to hear a lobster fisherman’s challenge to a government requirement that boats use electronic tracking devices,” a case that “could have broad consequences for the American commercial fishing industry,” according to the Associated Press. “Maine lobsterman Frank Thompson filed” the lawsuit “over a [state] requirement that he install a GPS tracker on his boat to keep his fishing license.” “Thompson asserted that the monitoring constituted unreasonable search and seizure, but a federal appeals court denied his claim last year.” The AP noted that “[f]ishing groups have used the courts over the years to try to curtail monitoring requirements with mixed results. Authorities have said the lobster boat monitoring program is important to improve understanding of the valuable crustacean’s population at a time when it appears to be declining in New England.”
How a Street Brawl Led to a 5th Circuit Case That Casts Doubt on the Constitutionality of Many Federal Laws
Jacob Sullum, Reason
In February 2024, a street brawl in New Orleans led to “dozens of gunshots.” “One of the bullets struck a woman’s leg, and another woman was stabbed.” Curtis Squire was among those arrested in connection with that incident and “charged with attempted second-degree murder.” Prosecutors later “dropped that charge after ballistic testing showed that the Glock pistol found in Squire’s home did not match the gun fired during the melee.” However, “Squire, who had previously been convicted of heroin distribution, still faced a federal charge under 18 USC 922(g)(1), which criminalizes gun possession by people with felony records,” according to Reason. Squire is now challenging his conviction under that law, contending “that Congress had no constitutional authority to enact Section 922(g)(1), which criminalizes purely intrastate, noncommercial conduct under the pretense of regulating interstate commerce.” Squire’s case is pending before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and some court watchers hope it will eventually lead the Supreme Court to revisit “modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence.” Reason noted that Justice Clarence Thomas “reiterated his skepticism of the Commerce Clause justification for federal bans on intrastate gun possession” in a concurring opinion in a Second Amendment case decided during the 2025-26 term.
In Missouri, A Judicial Response to Politicized Election Administration
Bob Bauer, Democracy Project
In a column for NYU Law’s Democracy Project, Bob Bauer revisited the Supreme Court’s decision to prevent Missouri from using a new congressional map designed to favor Republicans in November’s elections, reflecting on what it might tell us about how the justices – and judges in general – approach disputes over election administration. “The Missouri case suggests, though it can never be certain, that the courts will be alert to the most egregious forms of politicized administration. Maybe that is all that can be hoped for: that the worst instances of this conduct will affect how the courts resolve election law controversies,” Bauer wrote. “This checking function could prove crucial in the months before and even after the election.”
On Site
Court News
Supreme Court denies Trump administration’s request to implement parts of rule on mail-in voting
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to allow the U.S. Postal Service to carry out parts of a new rule on mail-in voting. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices left in place a ruling by a federal judge in Boston that bars the USPS from implementing aspects of the rule.
From the SCOTUSblog Team
When justices drift
When President Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, he praised her “towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.” Those words stand in stark contrast to his complaints about her after she ruled against his signature tariffs. Nora explored the phenomenon of presidents having “buyer’s remorse” as to their Supreme Court picks and how the vetting process is evolving to try and prevent “judicial drift.”
Contributor Corner
The “born free and equal” clauses and the noxious Buck v. Bell
In his Born Free and Equal column, Steven Calabresi explored the role of the “born free and equal” clauses in what he described as “one of the most atrocious rulings in Supreme Court history: the 1927 case of Buck v. Bell, in which the court, 8-1, upheld a model eugenics statute.”
A Closer Look
Clarence Gideon
This is the seventh entry in our Closer Look series on famous Supreme Court plaintiffs. Today, we look at Clarence Gideon, the plaintiff in 1963’s Gideon v. Wainwright, which established that indigent defendants accused of serious crimes have a right to a court-appointed lawyer in state court under the Constitution's Sixth and 14th Amendments.
Clarence Earl Gideon was born on Aug. 30, 1910, in Hannibal, Missouri. His father, Charles, was a shoemaker, who passed away when Gideon was just three years old. Gideon’s mother, Virginia, remarried when Gideon was five, but Gideon never got along well with his stepfather. Speaking of his childhood, Gideon said, “My stepfather never could accept me or I could not accept him. My mother was very strict and my life as a child was of the strict[est] discipline.”
When Gideon was 14, he ran away from home and went as far west as California, saying he “accepted the life of a hobo and tramp in preference to my home.” After about a year, he returned home to Missouri and lived with his uncle.
Gideon’s encounters with the law began upon being discovered living with his uncle by his mother. She had Gideon sent to a jail in Hannibal for absconding. However, after a day, Gideon escaped from jail and broke into a country store to steal winter clothes, which landed him a three-year sentence in reform school. Gideon later said he was badly whipped and beaten in the reform school. He was paroled after a year.
Upon his release, Gideon began working at a shoe factory, which paid up to $25 a week, and got married. After about a year, he was laid off from his job at the shoe factory and his interactions with the law resumed. “I [was] without a job and I committed some crimes in 1928. I was caught and [through] a court appointed attorney was sentenced to the Missouri Prison for ten years for robbery with three sentences of Burglary and [larceny] running concurrently,” said Gideon. Around this time, he also got divorced.
Gideon was paroled in 1932, but with little education and work experience, he was unable to find employment in the midst of the Great Depression. Gideon again resorted to stealing and was arrested and sentenced to prison four times between 1934 and 1940. In 1943, Gideon escaped from prison and ended up on the most wanted list in True Detective magazine. Using a fake name and having forged a Selective Service card, he worked as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad until he was caught in 1950 and incarcerated once more. He was again arrested in 1951 for breaking into a home in Texas.
In 1955, Gideon married Thelma Kurtz. The couple owned “Smitty’s Bar,” a pool hall and beer parlor in Orange, Texas. After six months in Orange, the two divorced. Later that year, Gideon married Ruth Ada Carpenter Babineaux – they had three children together and moved to Panama City, Florida. During this time, Gideon worked as a cook and ran gambling games.
In 1961, Gideon was arrested for breaking and entering into the Bar Harbor Poolroom in Panama City. At Gideon’s trial, he requested a court-appointed lawyer, but the judge denied his request. After representing himself at trial, Gideon was convicted by a jury and sentenced to five years in prison. His appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, on the grounds that he was not provided the right to counsel, was summarily dismissed.
Gideon then appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The question is very simple. I requested the court to appoint me an attorney and the court refused,” Gideon wrote in his handwritten petition for certiorari. In 1962, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Gideon’s case and assigned the accomplished lawyer Abe Fortas (who would later serve on the court) as his court-appointed counsel.
In March 1963, the court sided with Gideon in a unanimous opinion, which held that the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel clause provides indigent defendants, accused of serious crimes, with attorneys. In his majority opinion, Justice Hugo Black wrote, “lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries.”
Gideon was retried on the same charges that he was originally convicted of. This time he had counsel. On retrial, Gideon was found not guilty by a jury.
In 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said at a speech to the New England Conference on the Defense of Indigent Persons Accused of Crime: “If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in his prison cell with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court … the vast machinery of American justice would have gone on functioning in its accustomed way.”
For the remainder of Gideon’s life, he continued to work odd jobs. Gideon passed away in January 1972 at 61 years old, either from cancer or complications from tuberculosis. He was buried in Hannibal. A made-for-television film about the case, “Gideon’s Trumpet,” adapted from a 1964 book by Anthony Lewis, was released in 1980 and starred Henry Fonda, who played Gideon.
In November 1984, the American Civil Liberties Union purchased a gravestone for Gideon, which included a line from a letter from Gideon to Fortas, stating: “I believe that each era finds an improvement in law for the benefit of mankind.”
SCOTUS Quote
SOLICITOR GENERAL KAGAN: “Mr. Chief – excuse me, Justice Scalia – I didn't mean to promote you quite so quickly.”
(Laughter.)
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “Thanks for thinking it was a promotion.”
— United States v. Comstock (2010)
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