Carol Zimmermann

Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, said the program must be reopened for first-time applicants and the period of protection for DACA recipients must be reinstated to its initial two-year extension.

A move by the Department of Justice to expand how it carries out federal death sentences — to include electrocution, gas or firing squads along with lethal injections —was sharply criticized by Catholic anti-death penalty activists.

In oral arguments Nov. 30, the Supreme Court weighed in on President Donald Trump's order to exclude immigrants living in the country illegally from the 2020 census for purposes of redrawing congressional districts.

Longtime anti-death penalty activist Sr. Helen Prejean tweeted after Orlando Hall's execution by lethal injection that under Attorney General William Barr's leadership, "the Justice Department worked into the early morning hours filing reams of appeals, ultimately succeeding in gaining court approval to execute a Black man who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. This is not 'Christlike behavior.'"

In response to the upcoming federal execution of Orlando Hall Nov. 19, and two more federal executions scheduled to take place in December, two U.S. bishops' committee chairmen called on the government to end this practice.

A federal judge ruled Nov. 14 that the suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, announced this past summer by the Department of Homeland Security, was invalid because the agency's top official, Chad Wolf, did not legally hold his position when he issued the order.

In Nov. 10 oral arguments, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh stressed that they didn't see how it was necessary to strike down the entire health care law even if its individual mandate, requiring each person to buy health insurance, was invalidated.

The reprieve for Pervis Payne was granted "due to the challenges and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," Gov. Lee said. Payne, a 53-year-old Black man, has always claimed his innocence in the 1987 murder of a mother and daughter, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.

When the death of Alex Trebek — beloved longtime host of "Jeopardy!" — was announced, celebrities and fans around the country took to social media to express their grief.

The Supreme Court seemed willing to find a compromise about a Catholic social service agency shut out from Philadelphia's foster care program for not accepting same-sex couples as foster parents. 

Tennessee's bishops have urged the state's Republican governor, Bill Lee, to stop the upcoming execution of a man on death row, saying: "Carrying out this execution does not serve the cause of justice."

The Supreme Court, with a full bench, will hear oral arguments by teleconference Nov. 4 about a Catholic social service agency that had been excluded from Philadelphia's foster care program for not accepting same-sex couples as foster parents.

For the second time this fall, a panel of three federal judges said President Donald Trump acted unlawfully with his order in July to exclude immigrants in the U.S. without legal documentation from being counted in the 2020 census for the redrawing of congressional districts.

The Supreme Court, in an unsigned order Oct. 13, has cleared the path for the Trump administration to end the census count early by blocking a lower court order that had required the government to continue with the U.S. count until the end of October.

The U.S. Supreme Court is temporarily allowing drugs used to medically induce abortions to be mailed or delivered without requiring the recipient to make a doctor's visit during the coronavirus pandemic.

Although the Supreme Court began its new term Oct. 5, it is hardly business as usual since the court only has eight members on the bench and it is continuing to hear oral arguments by teleconference due to heath concerns.

This election year, in the midst of a global pandemic and with the Affordable Care Act about to be challenged for the third time before a Supreme Court that is in flux, it's no surprise health care is a bigger issue than it has been in previous presidential elections.

If Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court, she will be the first Notre Dame Law School graduate to sit on the bench of the nation's highest court and the only sitting justice with a law degree not from Harvard or Yale.

Eight days after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump announced Sept. 26 that Judge Amy Coney Barrett is his nominee to fill that seat.

The Supreme Court denied the appeals of two federal death-row inmates in late September. On Sept. 22, it denied an appeal to postpone the execution of William LeCroy, who had argued that his execution should be postponed to allow his longtime lead attorney to attend. The attorney has leukemia and is vulnerable to COVID-19, so could not be present for health reasons during the pandemic.