The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called the Federalist Society, is an American organization of conservatives and libertarians that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution. It features a student division, a lawyers division, and a faculty division. The society currently has chapters at more than 200 American law schools. The lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. The society is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the United States' most influential legal organizations.
Antonin Gregory Scalia was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Court's conservative wing. For catalyzing an originalist and textualist movement in American law, he has been described as one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important justices in the Supreme Court's history. Scalia was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 by President Donald Trump, and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor.
John Michael Luttig is an American lawyer and a former United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The Antonin Scalia Law School is the professional graduate law school of George Mason University. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Washington, D.C., and 15 miles (24 km) east-northeast of George Mason University's main campus in Fairfax, Virginia.
Leonard A. Leo is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society, where he is co-chairman of the board of directors.
David Bryan Sentelle is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States encompass the gender, ethnicity, and religious, geographic, and economic backgrounds of the 115 people who have been appointed and confirmed as justices to the Supreme Court. Some of these characteristics have been raised as an issue since the Court was established in 1789. For its first 180 years, justices were almost always white male Protestants of Anglo or Northwestern European descent.
The Roberts Court is the time since 2005 during which the Supreme Court of the United States has been led by Chief Justice John Roberts. It is generally considered more conservative than the preceding Rehnquist Court, as well as the most conservative court since the 1940s and early 1950s Vinson Court. This is due to the retirement of moderate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, and the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the subsequent confirmation of the conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett in their places, respectively. Since Ginsburg's death, the Court has been generally regarded as split three ways ideologically, with Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor comprising a liberal wing, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett comprising a centrist conservative wing often reluctant to overrule precedent, and Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch comprising a hardline conservative wing generally willing to overrule precedent.
The lists of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States cover the law clerks who have assisted the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States in various capacities since the first one was hired by Justice Horace Gray in 1882. The list is divided into separate lists for each position in the Supreme Court.
Neil McGill Gorsuch is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since April 10, 2017.
Martin Edward Whelan III is an American lawyer, legal activist and political commentator. Whelan's legal career included clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and serving as a deputy assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration. Since 2004, he has served as the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank "dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy".
William K. Kelley served as Deputy Counsel to United States President George W. Bush. He worked as a deputy to White House Counsel Harriet Miers prior to her departure from the White House, and Counsel Fred Fielding, who succeeded Miers.
The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy is a law review for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship. It was established by Harvard Law School students Spencer Abraham and Stephen Eberhard in 1978, leading to the founding of the Federalist Society, for which it is the official journal. It is one of the top five most widely circulated law reviews in the United States.
Patrick Joseph Schiltz is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. He was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.
With the advice and consent of the United States Senate, the president of the United States appoints the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court of the federal judiciary of the United States. Following his victory in the 2016 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump took office as president on January 20, 2017, and faced an immediate vacancy on the Supreme Court due to the February 2016 death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. During the 2016 campaign, Trump had released two lists of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. After taking office, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia, and Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017. In November 2017, five more names were added to the previous lists of potential nominees. In June 2018, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, creating a second vacancy on the Supreme Court. In early July 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh as his replacement; Kavanaugh was confirmed on October 6, 2018. Following the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett as her replacement on September 26, 2020. Exactly a month later on October 26, 2020, Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48.
The 2016 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 3, 2016, and concluded October 1, 2017. The table below illustrates which opinion was filed by each justice in each case and which justices joined each opinion.
On January 31, 2017, soon after taking office, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Neil Gorsuch for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died almost one year earlier. Then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia on March 16, 2016, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate did not vote on the nomination. Majority leader Mitch McConnell declared that as the presidential election cycle had already commenced, it made the appointment of the next justice a political issue to be decided by voters. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to consider the Garland nomination, thus keeping the vacancy open through the end of Obama's presidency on January 20, 2017.
Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies" for immigration purposes, is unconstitutionally vague. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) classifies some categories of crimes as "aggravated felonies", and immigrants convicted of those crimes, including those legally present in the United States, are almost certain to be deported. Those categories include "crimes of violence", which are defined by the "elements clause" and the "residual clause". The Court struck down the "residual clause", which classified every felony that, "by its nature, involves a substantial risk" of "physical force against the person or property" as an aggravated felony.
Michael Hun Park is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Evan A. Young is an American attorney and judge currently serving as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas.
