New Rockford Transcript - Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said, “If American law were to be represented by a single figure, skeptic and worshipper alike would agree without dispute that the figure could be one alone, and that one, John Marshall.” It has been...

Former President Donald Trump’s invocation of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in the Scottsboro Boys cases (1931) as justification for delaying his trial on charges related to the subversion of the 2020 federal election, was sharply rejected by t...

Justice Joseph Story stands as a giant among those who have held a seat on the Supreme Court. Story was one of the greatest legal figures in the 19th Century, in the upper echelon of everyone’s list of outstanding judges in American history and...

Those Americans in the early years of the republic who idolized the elegant, regal and graceful bearing of English judges, could be forgiven their initial doubts about the potential of Chief Justice John Marshall to lead the Supreme Court. Although...

Two centuries after his service to the United States as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, virtually no one doubts John Marshall’s preeminent status in America law. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, widely regarded as deserving of a seat on a...

It was altogether fitting that James Wilson, second in importance only to James Madison as an architect of the Constitution, would be nominated by President George Washington to the original Supreme Court. From this position, Justice James Wilson cou...

John Jay: first Chief Justice, diplomat, founding era giant When the newly-elected President George Washington turned his attention to the historic opportunity of nominating citizens to fill seats on the first U.S. Supreme Court in 1789, he knew...

Judicial profiles to better understand the Supreme Court We citizens know a lot about our presidents – their background, philosophy and character – and sometimes more than we care to know. The same is true of our congressional representatives....

“Constitution does not shield presidents from defamation suits” The Justice Department’s announcement this week that the Constitution does not shield presidents from civil lawsuits stemming from a president’s defamatory remarks represents...

The Declaration of Independence – its words, elements and ramifications – remains profoundly relevant in America. As the founding document of the world’s longest running democracy, and the ultimate expression of the ideas, values and...

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s repudiation of the “independent state legislature” theory in Harper v. Moore. The widely-admired conservative judge, J. Michael Luttig, called it “the most important...

A reader’s question has captured the history-making nature of the forthcoming trial of former President Donald Trump. “What are the implications of the trial for the Constitution, presidential power and the rule of law?” The gravity of the...

“What are the implications of the trial of Donald Trump for the Constitution, presidential power and the rule of law?” a reader asks, adding another important question: “Did the Framers of the Constitution adequately limit presidential...

Why Congress may impose ethics code on Supreme Court justices Rising calls for Congress to enact new ethical standards for the Supreme Court, sparked by recent revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose financial transactions, have...

A reader recently wrote to ask a question on the minds of many Americans: “If the courts check the other branches of government, who checks the courts?” The reader continued: “Since the Supreme Court enforces constitutional limits on the...

The continued revival of interest among state legislatures in posting the Ten Commandments in public schools may present to the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to reverse yet another decades- old, landmark precedent, this time one that prohibits su...

“Presidential power, the 14th Amendment and the public debt” The debt ceiling standoff between President Joe Biden and House Republicans has illuminated the public debt clause of the 14th Amendment, one of the most obscure provisions in the...

In 1977, in McDaniel v. Paty, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling that held unconstitutional one of the last anticlerical remnants of the founding era, a 1796 Tennessee law that prohibited ministers and priests from holding public...

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, as part of their commitment to separating church from state, unanimously adopted a clause in Article VI, declaring that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or...

 In February 1793, in Chisholm v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court, fully mindful of the evolving political and legal tensions surrounding the nature of the nation-state relationship, rendered its first important decision on the scope of state...

In its first and only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice, the U.S. Senate in 1805 acquitted Samuel Chase of charges against him, a historic decision that raises profoundly important questions about judicial independence and accountability...

Applying impeachment clause to Supreme Court justices National conversations surrounding the remote possibility of impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting – and failing to report – lavish gifts from a GOP billionaire with interests...

Defendant Donald J. Trump and his supporters have assailed the 34-count felony indictment of the former president brought by the Manhattan District Attorney as resting on a flimsy, untested and novel legal theory that converts Trump’s alleged...

A federal lawsuit reflective of the nationwide culture wars is challenging the right of a University of Wyoming sorority to induct a transgender woman, raising questions of central importance to the First Amendment Right of freedom of association...

Former President Donald Trump has said he expects to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury any day now. Although widely anticipated, there is no certainty that he will be indicted by grand jurors in New York or, for that matter, by citizens serving...