Jack Fruchtman
Upholding Native American rights
In mid-June, the Supreme Court released one of its most important decisions guaranteeing Native American sovereign rights. The ruling will have a direct impact...
The Dershowitz flap at the Chilmark Free Public Library
The Chilmark Free Public Library board of trustees earlier this year unanimously voted to invite Chilmark summer resident, defense attorney, and retired Harvard law...
Vineyard wetlands and future development
A recent ruling by the Supreme Court on filling wetlands for construction may have a profound impact on the future of Martha’s Vineyard, and...
An ethics code for the Supreme Court
Federal judges must avoid even “the appearance of impropriety,” according to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which went into effect in...
Protecting the news media
One of the most closely watched cases so far this year involved Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News. The network’s on-air personalities claimed...
The Trump indictment, an explainer
Two fundamentals stand out in the Manhattan grand jury indictment of Donald J. Trump: One is that under our constitutional system, a person is...
The abortion-pill wars
After the Supreme Court last June overruled Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, ending a woman’s right to an abortion,...
Forgiving student loans and the court
Have you ever heard of a legal theory called the “major questions doctrine?”
Most people, including lawyers and law students, have not. It’s a made-up...
Book burning in the 21st century
Seventy years ago, Ray Bradbury published his dystopian novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” depicting the duty of firemen to burn books regarded by the government as...
A leaky Supreme Court
Should an institution like the U.S. Supreme Court objectively investigate itself after wrongdoing is discovered? And why should we care about this?
After the Politico...
At stake: Native American sovereignty
With the nation’s attention focused on abortion, gun safety, and religious liberty, and more recently the lengthy struggle in the House of Representatives to...
Equal rights, fair elections, and the court
This past June, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority made a huge mark: It ended the constitutional right to abortion, restricted the states’ ability to...
The court and the death penalty
The Supreme Court, in the week of Nov. 13, declined to hear or halt the execution of four prisoners on death row in Arizona,...
Ending affirmative action?
Like the debate over abortion rights, affirmative action in college admissions procedures is one of the most controversial political and cultural issues in the...
The court: Narrowing voting rights
The bedrock principle of a democratic order is the right to vote. When election officials restrict an eligible citizen’s voting rights, they take the...
Ron DeSantis’s good fortune, Greg Abbott’s reversal
“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” –President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, address to...
Should the United States have a new Constitution?
The question posed in the title recently surfaced in the New York Times. A conservative House Republican from Texas, Jodey Arrington, introduced legislation directing...
The postal service and abortion
Most women seeking abortions today now go about self-medication by ordering two pills through the mail. According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortion is...
Abortion and the right of locomotion
The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the freedom of movement. Law enforcement authorities may detain a person from leaving a state if they...
A further reckoning: The Supreme Court’s next term
If last year’s Supreme Court term was full of blockbuster landmark rulings, next year promises more to come. To date, the justices have accepted...