SCOTUStoday for Monday, February 9

Yesterday marked 85 years since the death of Justice Willis Van Devanter. Van Devanter served on the Supreme Court from 1911 to 1937, and, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, was part of the four-justice conservative bloc known as the “Four Horsemen.”

SCOTUS Quick Hits

• The court could rule at any time on an interim docket case on California’s policies for parental notification if a student chooses to use different names or pronouns.
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor is expected to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Japanese American Bar Association’s gathering in Los Angeles tonight.
• The court has not yet indicated when it will next release opinions. If the court follows its typical pattern, the earliest the next opinion day may be is Friday, Feb. 20, when the justices are next scheduled to take the bench.
• The court will next hear arguments on Monday, Feb. 23, the first day of its February sitting.

Morning Reads

• US appeals court upholds Trump’s immigration detention policy (Nate Raymond, Reuters)(Paywall) — On Friday, a divided panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld “the Trump administration’s policy of placing people arrested in its immigration crackdown in mandatory detention without an opportunity to be released on bond.” The policy stems from the administration’s belief that “non-citizens already residing in the United States” still qualify as “applicants for admission” under federal immigration law and are therefore “ineligible for bond hearings.” The 2-1 decision “marked the first time an appeals court had upheld the policy and came despite hundreds of lower-court judges nationally declaring it unlawful,” according to Reuters. “Other appeals courts are slated in coming weeks to take up the issue, which the U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately need to resolve.”
• Trump administration files official appeal notice in Haitian TPS suit (Bethany Bruner, The Columbus Dispatch) — The Trump administration has indicated its intent to appeal a Feb. 2 ruling from U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes “that stopped the administration from canceling the temporary protected status for immigrants from Haiti,” according to The Columbus Dispatch. “In addition to the notice of appeal, government attorneys also requested Reyes to pause her order allowing TPS to remain in place. The motion asked Reyes to make a decision by noon” today. Once the case is in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it will be just one step away from the Supreme Court.
• Redistricting court battles: Where things stand (Jack Birle, Washington Examiner)(Paywall) — In the past two months, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Texas and California to use new maps in the 2026 elections, but other redistricting battles are still ongoing, according to the Washington Examiner. Democrats are hoping to gain seats in Virginia, where “Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) [has] signed into law legislation that would call a special election on April 21, with voters deciding whether to allow a redraw of the commonwealth’s congressional map to net Democrats four House seats. While the measure has been signed into law, the referendum may not proceed as it faces a challenge in court.” In other states, lawmakers have pushed back key election deadlines in hopes of having time to put new maps in place after the Supreme Court releases its highly anticipated ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, on race, redistricting, and the Voting Rights Act.
• Too busy? Trump’s unusual Supreme Court push to toss E. Jean Carroll case (Maureen Groppe, USA Today) — At their private conference on Feb. 20, the justices will consider a petition for review from President Donald Trump, who wants the court to weigh in on the 2023 verdict against him in a civil suit brought by E. Jean Carroll. In their final brief on the petition, Trump’s lawyers “topped their legal arguments with a practical one,” contending that the court should overturn the verdict because Trump is “busy,” according to USA Today. “It is deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic for President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, to have to take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive to continue fighting against decades-old, false allegations and the myriad wrongs throughout this baseless case,” they wrote in the brief.
• Law School Hosts Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for Dual Events (Henry Adams, Pepperdine University Graphic) — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared at Pepperdine University on Jan. 30 to help judge a moot court competition and speak with students about her outlook on life and her legal career. While answering questions from participants, Jackson pointed to her “family, faith and work” as “the three most important things in her life,” according to the Pepperdine University Graphic, and reflected on how she would like to be remembered after death. “Jackson said she would like to be remembered as an effective communicator and a hard worker. She referenced an article she recently read about a person walking through an ancient cemetery and noticing a tombstone that read something along the lines of, ‘Here lies Mary. She did what she could.’ After the audience laughed, Jackson said she appreciated the message on the epitaph.”

A Closer Look: Upcoming Books from the Justices

As the Supreme Court’s winter recess stretches on (scheduled to end on Feb. 20), Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor are spending some time celebrating their latest books. Jackson, whose memoir, Lovely One, was published in September 2024, attended the Grammys on Feb. 1 after being nominated for the award for best audiobook narration. (She lost to the Dalai Lama.) And Sotomayor will be in Texas this week to speak about her children’s book, Just Shine!, which was published in September 2025.

But Jackson and Sotomayor likely aren’t the only justices thinking about books this month. A few of their colleagues are set to release books in the near future and may be spending the winter recess working on their latest draft.

A children’s book from Justice Neil Gorsuch and one of his former clerks, Janie Nitze, is expected this spring. According to HarperCollins Publishers, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence will “[e]xplore the courage and sacrifice of some of the heroes of the American Revolution and the stories behind the document that started it all—The Declaration of Independence.” In a statement, Gorsuch said that he and Nitze wanted “to share the human stories” behind the Declaration of Independence. “So many brave yet often forgotten men, women, and children gave their hearts and sometimes their lives to the cause of independence. I hope children and families will be inspired as they step into the lives of who helped build our nation,” he said.

Justice Samuel Alito also has a book release planned for 2026. So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country is scheduled to be released on Oct. 6, according to Hachette Book Group. In it, Alito “elaborates on his judicial philosophy and reflects on the roles of the law, the Constitution, and the courts in preserving America’s spirit of liberty.” Hachette describes the book as “surprisingly personal.”

In 2024, The New York Times and Axios reported that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has a book deal in place for a legal memoir, but little has been reported since then about when the book will be released.

Book projects are attractive to justices for a number of reasons. For one thing, books allow them to try and shape their public image and legal legacy. For another, the contracts and royalties provide a major boost to the justices’ annual salary, which is around $300,000. While they “are barred from receiving more than about $30,000 in outside income annually,” book revenue doesn’t count against that cap, according to CNN.

Indeed, according to the justices’ most recent financial disclosures, which covered 2024, Jackson received more than $2 million in book advances from Penguin Random House that year, Gorsuch received $250,000 from HarperCollins, and Sotomayor received $134,000 from Penguin Random House. The 2023 disclosures revealed that Kavanaugh received a book advance of $340,000 for the yet-to-be-released project.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are the only current justices who have not (yet) authored a book and who are not publicly known to be under a book contract.

SCOTUS Quote

JUSTICE ALITO: “Do you know how many pages were issued in the Federal Register in 2018?”

(Laughter.)

MR. HARA: “I do not.”

JUSTICE ALITO: “I think it’s something like 90,000 pages.”

MR. HARA: “Right. But somebody in 2013 –”

JUSTICE ALITO: “I once – I once saw somebody riding home on the Metro at midnight in Washington, D.C., reading the Code of Federal Regulations, and I thought: Only in Washington, D.C., could you see this sight.”

— PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc.

On Site

From the SCOTUSblog Team

The justices and gender pronouns

Two cases on transgender athletes, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., are among the most closely watched of the current term. In addition to sparking debate about the future of transgender rights, they have prompted reflection on how the court’s approach to transgender issues has evolved over time. Nora added to this by analyzing how the pronouns used by the justices for transgender people during the Hecox and B.P.J. arguments compared to their pronoun usage in past cases.

Contributor Corner

How academic briefs shape Supreme Court decisions

In his latest Empirical SCOTUS column, Adam Feldman explored the expanding influence of Supreme Court briefs submitted by scholars, seeking to determine “whether these briefs genuinely inform constitutional interpretation or merely provide scholarly backing for predetermined conclusions.”