Just 22% of U.S. registered voters have “a great deal” (7%) or “quite a bit” (15%) of confidence in the Supreme Court, according to a new NBC News poll shared on social media. Voters were more likely to say they had “some” (40%) or “very little” (28%) confidence in the institution. At the Court On Friday, the justices met in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected this morning at 9:30 a.m. EDT. The court will next hear arguments on Monday, March 23, the first day of its March sitting. Morning Reads Trump chides Supreme Court, says it hasn’t had ‘guts to do what’s right’ Sophie Brams, The Hill During a Friday roundtable at the White House, President Donald Trump again criticized the Supreme Court, “voicing deep frustration with ‘a number’ of recent decisions that have included the rejection of his signature tariff policy and his attempts to federalize the National Guard,” according to The Hill. “I think the Supreme Court ought to be ashamed of itself for a lot of reasons, ok?,” the president said. “I got to live with these people. And I say this … and they’ll only vote bad, and I couldn’t care less at this point. They have hurt this country so badly because they haven’t had the guts to do what’s right.” Customs and Border Protection official says new process for tariff refunds could be ready in 45 days Mae Anderson, Associated Press In a Friday filing with the U.S. Court of International Trade, Brandon Lord, executive director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s trade policy and programs directorate, explained that “the CBP is working on a new system [for tariff refunds] that will simplify the process. He said it should be ready in 45 days and require ‘minimal submission from importers,’” according to the Associated Press. “The filing comes after a judge on Wednesday ordered the government to start paying back all importers the illegal tariffs they paid – with interest.” Trump cannot end protections for 350,000 Haitians, US appeals court rules Nate Raymond, Reuters On Friday, a 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “refused to let the Trump administration revoke legal protections that allow more than 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S.,” according to Reuters. “The administration [had] noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had twice allowed it to end [Temporary Protected Status] for Venezuelans. But U.S. Circuit Judges Florence Pan and Brad Garcia, both appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, distinguished the cases and said Haitians sent home would ‘be vulnerable to violence amid a “collapsing rule of law” and lack access to life-sustaining medical care.’” In dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, who was appointed by Trump, said “the case and the earlier Supreme Court litigation involving Venezuelans were ‘the legal equivalent of fraternal, if not identical, twins.’” D.C. Court Strikes Down Local Ban on High-Capacity Gun Magazines Mattathias Schwartz, The New York Times The District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Thursday struck down Washington, D.C.’s ban on “gun magazines that contain more than 10 bullets,” holding that it is unconstitutional because “large-capacity magazines ‘are arms in common and ubiquitous use’” and there is a “lack of ‘history or tradition’ of any blanket prohibition on them,” according to The New York Times. “The District of Columbia could appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, or ask that a larger panel from the local appeals court reconsider it.” Why America needs evangelicals on the Supreme Court — and more Aaron M. Renn, The Washington Post In a column for The Washington Post, Aaron M. Renn advocated for “[a] stronger evangelical presence in elite institutions,” including the Supreme Court, explaining his belief that such presence “could strengthen” these institutions “while addressing polarization and public mistrust.” “Evangelicals are 23 percent of U.S. adults and one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs, with 81 percent backing Donald Trump in 2024. Yet despite six of the nine Supreme Court justices being appointed by Republican presidents, there are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court,” Renn wrote. On Site From the SCOTUSblog Team Will the mystery of the Dobbs leak ever be solved? The leak in May 2022 of a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has been back in the news lately. Here’s a refresher on the circumstances of the leak and a look at what might happen next. Argument Analysis Justices poised to adopt exceptions to federal criminal defendants’ appellate waivers The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday about what exceptions exist to federal defendants’ waivers of their right to appeal. The justices seemed poised to endorse more exceptions than just the two the government endorsed – ones for ineffective assistance of counsel in entering into a plea agreement and for sentences above the statutory maximum. Contributor Corner The emergency docket’s critics have it backwards In her Ratio Decidendi column, Stephanie Barclay pushed back against the claims that, in two recent interim docket orders, “the court bypassed necessary procedural steps in a rush to reach preferred results.” “What is called judicial aggression at One First Street,” Barclay contended, “is often just a response to judicial aggression one floor down – the correction, not the disruption.” Contributor Corner Birthright citizenship: the exceptions provide the rule In a column for SCOTUSblog, Samarth Desai explored the meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment, reflecting on who it excludes and why he rejects the Trump administration’s view that “a child is a birthright citizen only if at least one parent’s domicile, or legal home base, is in America.” Interim Docket Blog Supreme Court Stays to State Courts In his latest Interim Docket Blog post, William Baude addressed the Supreme Court’s recent interim order staying a New York trial court decision, analyzing the circumstances under which the Supreme Court has jurisdiction in disputes working their way through state courts. A Closer Look: When Justices Say Something Interesting Roughly 20 years ago, the editor-in-chief of Black’s Law Dictionary, Bryan Garner, interviewed eight of the nine sitting justices (all but the characteristically press-shy Justice David Souter) about “legal writing and advocacy.” The interviews are excellent, but – as the topic suggests – they were fairly restrained. That has not always been the case. Below are three of the more candid (and perhaps unexpected) remarks given by justices during interviews over the years (we will feature more in future Closer Looks): Justice John Paul Stevens “[W]e were all lined up and they threatened to kill, to shoot everybody with a sub-machine gun,” the late Justice John Paul Stevens once remarked in a free-wheeling 2010 CBS interview, referencing his experience as a boy when gangsters invaded his family’s home in Chicago. In a May 2019 PBS News Hour appearance, the 99-year-old Stevens elaborated on a similar anecdote he included in his book, being his father’s meeting with the infamous Al Capone. As journalist Judy Woodruff, who interviewed Stevens, explained: “Stevens writes that his father and other hotel men in the city thought it important to persuade industry groups to hold their conventions in Chicago. His father and another hotel manager ‘paid a visit to Al Capone, explained how Chicago’s hotel business might be affected if any conventioneers were robbed and asked for his help.’” “According to my father’s account,” Stevens wrote, “Capone said he understood, and, in fact, there wasn’t a single holdup in Chicago during the week of the convention.” Stevens also recalled when his childhood home was broken into and one of his brothers almost shot a neighbor by mistake, noting that he “thought about that frequently, for the fact that these accidents can happen when there are too many guns around. And that has reminded me of reason to be opposed to the Second Amendment.” Justice William O. Douglas “[Robert Kennedy’s] tendency was to get into arguments with Communists trying to convince them that they were wrong – and I said, ‘Bobby, that’s whistling in the wind. You never can argue with these fellows, so why don’t we just forget about it, and spend an evening doing something else rather than wasting it trying to convert some guy who will never be converted,’” the often outspoken Justice William O. Douglas said in a 1969 interview, talking about his 1955 trip to Russia during the height of the Cold War with Robert F. Kennedy, or “Bobby” (the two were friends most of RFK’s life). Douglas went on to discuss RFK’s pivotal 1960 decision to accept the role of attorney general in his brother, John F. Kennedy’s, incoming administration – a choice Douglas helped influence: “He crossed that bridge in my office; he decided to do it,” said Douglas. In a second interview about a month later, Douglas said he and Bobby Kennedy occasionally talked about matters outside of the Justice Department. “Bobby and I, when we met socially, would often talk about State Department problems, foreign policy questions. ‘Is the president doing the right thing? Is he doing the wrong thing? What do you think should be done about this country, that country?’” Justice Antonin Scalia “I’m nervous about our civic culture. I’m not sure the Internet is largely the cause of it. It’s certainly the cause of careless writing. People who get used to blurbing things on the Internet are never going to be good writers,” Justice Antonin Scalia explained in a 2013 New York Magazine interview when asked if he felt like the Internet “coarsened our culture.” “And some things I don’t understand about it. For example, I don’t know why anyone would like to be ‘friended’ on the network. I mean, what kind of a narcissistic society is it that ­people want to put out there, This is my life, and this is what I did yesterday? I mean … good grief. Doesn’t that strike you as strange? I think it’s strange,” continued Scalia. In the interview, Scalia also (when asked why he hadn’t been to a State of the Union address as of late) replied that “[i]t’s childish.” “[W]e are trucked in just to give some dignity to the occasion. I mean, there are all these punch lines, and one side jumps up—Hooray! And they all cheer, and then another punch line, and the others stand up, Hooray! It is juvenile! And we have to sit there like bumps on a log. We can clap if somebody says, ‘The United States is the greatest country in the world.’ Yay! But anything else, we have to look to the chief justice. Gee, is the chief gonna clap? It didn’t used to be that bad.” Scalia also discussed his belief in the devil, his favorite talk show host (Bill Bennett), what part of the Constitution he “found stupid” (the Ninth Amendment), and TV shows (Scalia watched one episode of Duck Dynasty). SCOTUS Quote JUSTICE SCALIA: “Right, you’re relying on the principle that life is not fair, right?” MR. BROCKMAN: “Life is not fair. Maryland taxes are.” — Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne The post SCOTUStoday for Monday, March 9 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.