Palestinian authorities seek Supreme Court relief

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court took effect on this day in 2018, just over a month after he announced it. At the Court The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to clear the way for the full implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting. On Tuesday, 12 states – led by Alabama – echoed this request in their own application. Responses to these requests from those states challenging the order are due on Monday by 4 p.m. EDT. The Supreme Court has indicated on its website that its courtroom will be closed from Monday, Aug. 3, until Monday, Aug. 31. No courtroom lectures will take place during that period. Morning Reads Palestinian authorities ask Supreme Court to halt $656M judgment pending appeal The Associated Press Palestinian authorities came to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket and asked the justices “to halt for now a $656 million judgment in a long-running lawsuit filed by Americans killed or wounded in attacks in Israel,” as they prepare a petition for review, according to The Associated Press. “The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority said in court documents that paying the hefty judgment now would ‘destabilize critical government services Petitioners provide in the West Bank, injure innocent citizens, and jeopardize regional security.’” “The emergency appeal comes after a lower court reinstated the damages in the wake of a Supreme Court decision” in June 2025 holding that the lawsuit against Palestinian authorities, which was brought “under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a law aimed at opening U.S. courts to victims of international terror attacks,” could move forward. Favorable views of Supreme Court remain near historic low Ted Van Green, Pew Research Center Following Gallup’s release of survey data showing that Supreme Court job approval is at a record low, Pew Research Center shared its own data on Americans’ views of the court, showing that “[j]ust over half of Americans (53%) currently have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, while a smaller share (45%) views the court favorably.” Pew noted that “[t]he court’s favorable rating is 20 percentage points lower today than in April 2021, when 65% of Americans held a positive view.” The survey also showed that “[m]ore than half of Americans (56%) say the Supreme Court has the right amount of power, while 32% say it has too much power. One-in-ten say the court has too little power.” Confusion escalates about whether TPS has actually ended for Haitians Lauren Kaori Gurley, The Washington Post In a June 25 ruling, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end removal protections for Haitian nationals. But more than a month later, it is unclear whether temporary protected status has yet been revoked. The Department of Homeland Security “has indicated online that the humanitarian program for Haitians was ‘terminated, effective July 27, 2026,’ this Monday. But lawyers say that TPS cannot officially end until lower courts execute [the] Supreme Court ruling and officially allow the Trump administration to terminate the program,” according to The Washington Post. Amid the uncertainty, “[s]ome employers have terminated workers and subsequently rehired them. Others have preemptively removed workers from schedules without pay or have fired workers in fear of becoming targets of immigration enforcement.” Two more federal appeals courts reject ICE mass detention policy Kyle Cheney, Politico On Thursday, panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit “shot down the Trump administration’s bid to subject millions of immigrants – most of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without criminal records – to mandatory detention without bond,” becoming the fifth and sixth federal appeals courts to do so, according to Politico. Both panels, by a vote of 2-1, “found that the Trump administration had … misconstrued decades-old immigration laws to justify its expansive detention policy.” The 11th, 2nd, 10th, and 6th Circuits have issued similar decisions in recent months, while “the 5th Circuit and the 8th Circuit ... have sided with the Trump administration. Rulings are pending in three other circuits.” Politico noted that “[t]he issue appears destined for Supreme Court consideration.” On Site Completing the picture of the court’s criminal law term By Rory Little In his SCOTUSCrim column, Rory Little reviewed 19 cases argued and decided during the 2025-26 term that, while not pure criminal law cases, are broadly related to criminal law topics, emphasizing that “a whopping 60%” of the court’s merits docket work was tied to criminal law. And Little noted that, “[w]hether due to careful case selection or other factors, the fact is that the justices found more agreement than disagreement in the criminal law cases they decided to hear.” Justice Kavanaugh: the great concurrer of the Roberts court? By Rodger Citron Justice William Brennan was “the playmaker.” Justice John Marshall Harlan was “The Great Dissenter.” Is Justice Brett Kavanaugh the great concurrer? In a column for SCOTUSblog, Rodger Citron highlighted some of Kavanaugh’s most notable concurring opinions and explored what they tell us about the justice and the court itself. How a seemingly unexciting case on retirement plans could have massive consequences By Cory L. Andrews In a column for SCOTUSblog, Cory L. Andrews analyzed Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, a case that will be argued during the 2026-27 term on what a lawsuit over retirement fund underperformance must allege to survive its first test in court. Andrews believes “the stakes could hardly be more far-reaching.” Podcasts Receipts on the Senate Filibuster | Interview: Mike “Frags” Fragoso Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the Trump administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court about its mail-in voting executive order. Then, they speak with Mike Fragoso, former chief counsel to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and partner at Torridon Law, about the food truck nature of Senate judicial nomination. Justice Thomas Johnson Justice Thomas Johnson has the distinction of holding the third-shortest tenure of any associate justice in Supreme Court history. But although his time as a justice was fleeting, the career that preceded (and followed) it was remarkable. Johnson was born in November 1732 in Calvert County, Maryland, the fifth of a planter’s 12 children. Schooled at home, he found work in Annapolis at the Land Office, and then read law in the office of Stephen Bordley, getting admitted to the bar in 1760 at what one account called “the relatively advanced age of twenty-seven.” In 1766, Johnson married Anne Jennings, his former boss’ daughter. He also came to operate a network of furnaces and mills in western Maryland with three of his brothers. Johnson’s political rise began with a seat in Maryland’s Lower House in 1762. As the split with England deepened, he joined both the committee of correspondence and the council of safety. He then represented Maryland at the First and Second Continental Congresses, where, on June 15, 1775, he put George Washington’s name in the running for commander-in-chief. (The two were close friends; some of Washington’s letters to Johnson are stored in a Maryland public library.) Johnson returned to Maryland shortly after to help recruit soldiers for the state, and in doing so missed the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When Washington asked for military reinforcements while retreating across New Jersey, Johnson organized 1,800 militiamen and led them to Washington. Arriving in January 1777 covered in mud, a guard tried to turn him away. Per one historian: “Splattered with mud from the march, and diminutive of stature, Johnson looked anything but a brigadier general of militia. ... [T]he [guard] reported to General Washington that there was a filthy red-headed little man who demanded to see him and that the general’s orders could be damned but he intended to see him. The Commander-in-Chief exclaimed, ‘Oh! It is Johnson of Maryland! Admit him at once!’” Weeks later, the Maryland Legislature elected Johnson to be the state’s first governor, unanimously returning him to office twice, the maximum consecutive terms allowed by the state’s constitution. Having helped draft Maryland’s constitution in 1776, Johnson later sat in the House of Delegates and the 1788 ratification convention, then turned down Washington’s 1789 offer to be Maryland’s first federal district judge. Instead, Johnson became chief judge of the General Court of Maryland in 1790. In August 1791, Washington named Johnson to the Supreme Court. His confirmation followed in November – making Johnson the first Supreme Court justice ever appointed during a Senate recess. Johnson had initially hesitated, fearing circuit duty, but accepted the position after reassurances from both Washington and Chief Justice John Jay. Nevertheless, he was handed the Southern Circuit (arguably the most arduous of them), having been – in one historian’s judgment – “outmaneuvered by Jay and the other Justices with greater seniority.” Johnson would not have it, and he resigned in January 1793. During his short time on the court, Johnson participated in Hayburn’s Case, in which he took the position that the attorney general could require a federal court to hear a petition without the president’s specific permission. This view did not prevail given that the court split evenly. Perhaps more notably, Johnson authored the court’s decision (his only written opinion) in Georgia v. Brailsford, which “implicate[d] states’ rights, international treaties, fair credit, and the reputation of the still-new Supreme Court.” After leaving the court, Johnson declined to be nominated as Secretary of State in 1795. On Feb. 22, 1800, Johnson delivered a eulogy for Washington. Continuing his pattern of declinations, he turned down the role of chief judge of the new capital’s territory in 1801 – though he did serve as a commissioner of the new capital in D.C. before and during his court term, helping to settle details such as where the capital would be located and what it would be called. Johnson died on Oct. 26, 1819, at “Rose Hill” near Frederick, Maryland. In 1913 his remains were moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery, where a monument now honors him. SCOTUS Quote MR. ELWOOD: “The way I understood your position is he has to know that a reasonable person –” JUSTICE BREYER: “Yes, he does. Just as if you go into a bank, you have to know certain elements for it to be bank robbery. You have to know that you have a threat, you have to know – et cetera. Now, here one of the elements of the crime is to communicate, in commerce, a true threat. So you have to know. Communicate, in commerce, a true threat.” MR. ELWOOD: “Well, the thing is, though –” JUSTICE BREYER: “I wouldn’t have asked it if I didn’t want your view, so what is your view?” MR. ELWOOD: “I’m trying hard to give it to you.” — Elonis v. United States (2014) Kelsey Dallas is SCOTUSblog's managing editor and the primary author of the SCOTUStoday newsletter. Nora is an editorial assistant at SCOTUSblog, based in Washington, D.C. Recommended Citation: Kelsey Dallas & Nora Collins, Palestinian authorities seek Supreme Court relief, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 31, 2026, 9:00 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/palestinian-authorities-seek-supreme-court-relief/