Supreme Court Cases of Interest

With the death of the iconic Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Monday in October started the Supreme Court’s 2020–21 term under a dark cloud. And as this column went to print, the Senate, after contentious hearings and a partisan vote, had just confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as the 103rd associate justice of the Supreme Court. While the Court’s criminal law cases will likely be overshadowed by the addition of a new justice—and what that means for the term’s health care and other marquee cases—the Court will consider several important issues in the criminal sphere.