Articles by Charlotte Greene

Second Circuit: You Can Film Police in Public

If you have ever wondered, “Am I allowed to record the police from the sidewalk?” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has given a clearer answer for people living in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont: yes. The First Amendment protects recording law enforcement activity in public when...

The Most Talkative Justice, and Why It Matters

When the Supreme Court hears a case, we often picture the big moment as oral argument , the public hour where lawyers and justices volley questions back and forth. It is the most visible part of the Court’s work, and it is also the easiest part to measure. So here is the headline fact: by word...

Mangione Pleads Guilty Federally, Then Tries to Halt New York Murder Case

Luigi Mangione’s federal guilty plea in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has immediately put his separate Manhattan murder case in jeopardy. The reason is New York’s double-jeopardy law , which can bar a second prosecution when the cases are tied to the same criminal act or...

Neil Gorsuch Is the Key to This Supreme Court

When people try to make sense of the Supreme Court today, they often start with the chief justice, or with the Court’s headline decisions. That is understandable. But if you want a clearer picture of why this Court keeps moving in the directions it does, it helps to focus on one particular justice:...

Mangione Plea Raises Double Jeopardy Fight in New York

When people hear “double jeopardy,” they often think it is a simple rule: the government only gets one try. In real life, it can be more complicated because the United States has overlapping criminal systems, including federal court and state court. That overlap is now being tested after Luigi...

How the Executive Branch Cancels Visas

The State Department says it has revoked more than 175,000 visas since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 . In its public statement, the Department described revocations involving people who “ violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against U.S....

Can a Court Order a Security Clearance Restored?

A former Secretary of the Air Force is preparing to take his security-clearance dispute to court, and the legal question underneath it is one the Constitution keeps bringing us back to: who controls access to the nation’s secrets , and how far judges can go when the executive branch says “no.”...

Can Gun Makers Be Sued for a “No-Trigger” Discharge?

When people think about “gun rights,” they usually picture laws passed by legislatures: bans, permits, waiting periods, and background checks. But sometimes the Constitution shows up in a place that feels more everyday and more personal: a product liability lawsuit, filed by someone who says a...

Justice Alito Says He’s Staying

For a few weeks this summer, one question seemed to hover over the Supreme Court like humidity in Washington: Is Justice Samuel Alito about to retire? Justice Alito has now answered that question, at least for the near term. In an interview conducted in his chambers, he put it plainly: “Obviously...

Can Parents Demand Bathroom Policy Answers From Schools?

When parents ask a school a direct question about privacy and parental notice, they usually expect a direct answer. A new federal lawsuit out of North Carolina turns on what the district will say, and what it says it cannot say. The case was filed by Brandon Matthews , a father with a fourth-grade...

Judge Rejects SPLC Bid to Toss Indictment for “Vindictive Prosecution”

In a significant procedural loss for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a federal judge has refused to dismiss the organization’s criminal case on the theory that it is the target of a “vindictive prosecution.” Just as importantly, the court also declined to authorize discovery aimed at...

The “75 Cases” Claim: What Judges Ruled and Where the First Amendment Line Is

When you hear a sweeping claim like “courts have ruled dozens of times that President Trump stifled free speech,” it is worth slowing down and asking two librarian-style questions: What exactly counts as a ‘case’? and what did the judges actually say the government did wrong? Here is the concrete...

Can Fauci Plead the Fifth After a Pardon?

When Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared before a Senate committee on July 29, 2026, he declined to answer questions by invoking the Fifth Amendment . The flashpoint was not just political. It was constitutional: can someone still “plead the Fifth” after receiving a presidential pardon ? This question...

Appeals Court Clears End of TPS for South Sudan and Ethiopia

Two Temporary Protected Status programs, one covering South Sudan and one covering Ethiopia, are now far closer to ending after a federal appeals court said earlier court orders blocking the terminations cannot stand. The turning point was not a new factual finding about conditions overseas. It was...

DOJ Warns Montgomery County Over Armed Worship Ban

Montgomery County, Maryland, has found itself in a fast-moving constitutional clash after the U.S. Department of Justice signaled it may intervene against a local carry restriction that applies to “places of public assembly,” including houses of worship. At the center of the dispute is a county...

Ninth Circuit Limits Mandatory ICE Detention for Interior Arrests

The Ninth Circuit just issued a consequential immigration detention decision with a practical bottom line: in much of the western United States, many immigrants who entered the country without inspection but are later arrested inside the United States generally cannot be placed into mandatory,...

Judge Blocks Ethiopia TPS Termination After Supreme Court Warning

For most of us, “Temporary Protected Status” sounds like an internal immigration term that only matters to lawyers. But when a TPS designation ends, it can quickly become a very ordinary, very human question: Do people who have built lives here get told to leave, and how fast? That question is now...

When Elite Lawyers Break the Law

When an everyday person is convicted of tax evasion, it is usually framed as a private failure with public consequences. When the person is a Supreme Court litigator, it becomes something else too: a stress test for the legal system’s basic promise that the rules are real, and they apply to...

Judge Blocks Ethiopian TPS Termination After Supreme Court Limits Injunctions

When the Supreme Court narrows what lower courts can do, you might expect the next chapter to be fairly straightforward: district judges follow the new boundaries, and any remaining disputes move through the normal appeals process. Immigration law rarely cooperates with that tidy picture. On...

Judge Preserves Ethiopian TPS Protections After Supreme Court Ruling

When the Supreme Court narrows the ability of lower courts to block an immigration policy, many people assume that is the end of the story. But immigration cases often have a second chapter, because the legal theories can change even when the underlying human stakes do not. That is what we are...