Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is 90. The liberal jurist likely will retire while a liberal president has a chance to replace him. Stevens is not only a political minority on the court. As a Protestant, he also numbers in the religious minority. Six of the justices are Catholic. Once upon a time, tradition reserved one seat for a Catholic, and then one for a Jew. Religious faith no longer plays the salient role it once did in public life. It seems to matter even less in court appointments, being a poor predictor of how someone might rule. What is the Catholic or Anglican position on vertical pricing arrangements like those at issue in the Leegin case?

The Supreme Court appeared willing Tuesday to say that the Constitution’s right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.

A new poll shows that a majority of Americans disapprove of the recent Supreme Court ruling on political speech. Across the political spectrum, the public thinks letting corporations and unions express their views freely is a bad idea. Members of Congress are crafting legislation to chip away at the high court’s ruling in Citizens United. But the new poll presents them with an excellent opportunity to do the courageous thing: nothing.

The National Rifle Association didn’t get to join in the landmark Supreme Court case striking down D.C.‘s handgun ban two years ago. But it will have some face time with the justices during oral arguments in the next big gun-control case. There are two big questions in McDonald v. Chicago. The first is whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws. If the answer is yes, the second question is why. That is a rather esoteric matter, but it could have profound effects.

The Supreme Court has OK’d Florida’s version of the well-known Miranda rights warning despite complaints that it wasn’t clear a suspect could have a lawyer present during questioning.

CHARLOTTESVILLE—Another semester at the University of Virginia School of Law, another U.S. Supreme Court case to prepare for argument. The school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic is representing a man whose case will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court later this year. Kevin Abbott v. United States of America, the clinic’s fifth case in four years before the Supreme Court, focuses on part of the law regarding sentence enhancements in federal firearms cases.

WASHINGTON Last week’s Supreme Court decision that substantially deregulates political speech has provoked an edifying torrent of hyperbole. Critics’ dismay reveals their conviction: Speech about the elections that determine the government’s composition is not a constitutional right but a mere privilege that exists at the sufferance of government.

LEXINGTON The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC was remarkable in several respects. The court announced the decision in a special session in the middle of January. It also overruled several other re cent closely divided campaign spending decisions that addressed whether corporations have speech rights and, if they do, whether they may be restricted.

A new execution date could be set soon for death-row inmate Paul Warner Powell, whose most recent appeal was rejected yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court. Powell, 31, twice has been sentenced to death for the Jan. 29, 1999, murder of Stacie Lynn Reed, 16, in her Manassas-area home. After killing Stacie, he raped and cut the throat of her 14-year-old sister, Kristie, who survived.

The ranks of the ACLU must be dwindling toward zero in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on campaign-finance law. The rage at that ruling in liberal precincts has been deafen ing—and apoplectic. It was a ruling that “strikes at democracy itself” (Barack Obama); “a major victory for oil companies, banks, health insurance companies and other special interests” (DNC chairman Tim Kaine); a “blow to democracy” (The New York Times); a “Supreme Sellout” (The Daily Beast); “Terrifying” (Huffington Post) . . . .

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning refused to consider an appeal from Paul Warner Powell, freeing Virginia authorities to set a new execution date. Powell, 31, has been sentenced to death twice for the Jan. 29, 1999, murder of Stacie Lynn Reed, 16, in her Manassas-area home. He then raped and cut the throat of Reed’s sister, Kristie, who survived.

The Supreme Court threw out a 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of big business and unions on elections Thursday, ruling that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress.

The Supreme Court threw out a ruling that had set aside the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in the 1980s in a racially tinged case that has made the former Black Panther an international cause celebre.

The Supreme Court has rejected California’s challenge to a court order to reduce its prison population by more than 40,000 inmates over two years.

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was one of the most prominent, influential, and controversial conservative intellectuals of our time. In his new book, Rehnquist: A Personal Portrait of the Distinguished Chief Justice of the United States (Simon & Schuster), Herman J. Obermayer, a former newspaper publisher, offers a warm and personal behind-the-scenes memoir of his long friendship with the man he calls “Bill.“