U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Friday it would “be a good thing” for the court to adopt a code of ethics, even if it had to be slightly different than the one for lower court judges, Courthouse News Service reports. Speaking at Notre Dame Law School, Kagan said ethics guidelines would “help in our own compliance with the rules, and it would, I think, go far in persuading other people that we were adhering to the highest standards of conduct.” She went on to say there are legitimate concerns with the court just adopting the code of ethics applicable to lower courts but said the rules could be adapted to reflect certain differences.

The U.S. Supreme Court today put a temporarily hold on an order restricting the Biden administration to encourage social media companies to remove content it considers misleading, reports Reuters. Justice Samuel Alito, acting for the court, issued an order freezing a lower court's decision finding that federal officials had likely violated the free speech protections by coercing social media platforms into censoring certain posts. Earlier today, the Justice Department asked the justices to stay a decision made Friday by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found federal officials had likely violated the free speech protections by coercing social media platforms into censoring certain posts. The administration argued the appeals court imposed “unprecedented limits” on federal agencies’ ability to address matters of public concern, prevent threats to national security and relay information, calling the court’s findings “startling.”

The Biden administration formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to overturn a ruling from a federal appeals court that would limit the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone, The Hill reports. The manufacturer of the brand name pill, Danco Laboratories, also filed an appeal with the court. In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the drug could stay on the market in states where abortion is legal, but struck down changes made in 2016 to expand access. The appeals court said those changes did not follow proper procedure. Its decision, however, remains on hold while the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case.

The American Bar Association (ABA) filed an amicus brief last week with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the court to uphold protections granted by Congress to administrative law judges (ALJs). In its next term, the court has agreed to hear a case challenging whether Congress violated Article II of the U.S. Constitution by limiting removal of ALJs. In May 2022, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that for-cause removal protections violate the constitution’s requirement that the president ensure the laws be faithfully executed. The ABA argues that ALJs need “decisional independence … to maintain public confidence in their decisions.” Read more about the case from the ABA.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says there is “no valid reason” for his recusal from an upcoming tax case. The Associated Press reports that Senate Democrats question Alito’s ability to judge the case fairly because he was interviewed for several hours by a Wall Street Journal opinion page editor and David Rivkin, one of the lawyers in the tax case. Rivkin also represents Leonard Leo, former leader of The Federalist Society, who helped arrange a private trip Alito took to Alaska in 2008. In the second of two articles from the interviews, Alito said Congress lacked the authority to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court. Alito’s statement was issued a day after Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he is hopeful that the court will soon take “concrete steps” to address ethical concerns.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has disclosed three trips he accepted from billionaire Harlan Crow last year, according to documents made public today, The Hill reports. Thomas has denied any wrongdoing in accepting the trips, saying he was advised they fell under a personal hospitality exception and did not need to be reported. For one of the trips, Thomas said he flew private because of security concerns following the leak of the draft abortion opinion. The new financial disclosure form also includes supplemental information about a 2014 real estate transaction with Crow, which Thomas’ attorney said was “inadvertently omitted” from past reports. In 2014, Crow bought three properties from Thomas and his family.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s travel, paid for by wealthy friends, is more extensive than previously reported, according to a new ProPublica report. The additional trips include a yachting excursion around the Bahamas, travel to premium sports events and transportation to events aboard private aircraft. The group of benefactors also has expanded from initial reporting and now includes David Sokol, a former top executive at Berkshire Hathaway, H. Wayne Huizenga, a billionaire who turned Blockbuster and Waste Management into national businesses, and oil executive Paul “Tony” Novelly. Pro Publica now reports that since he was appointed in 1991, Thomas has received at least 38 destination vacations and 34 flights by private jet or helicopter.

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily halted a bankruptcy arrangement for Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, which sought to shield the Sackler family from further lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic. This decision, likely to delay compensation to opioid crisis victims, follows an objection by the Justice Department. The deal was set to offer the Sacklers immunity from civil legal disputes in exchange for a significant payout. The Supreme Court's decision to hear the case in December could have broad implications for similar mass tort cases resolved through bankruptcy courts. The New York Times has the story.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Tuesday to put on hold a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that invalidated regulation of “ghost gun” kits, the Associated Press reports. Justice Alito had previously put a one-week hold on the ruling. The new rule, issued last year, changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts. Firearms made with ghost gun kits do not have serial numbers and have been increasingly found at crime scenes across the nation. The regulation will remain in effect while the Biden administration appeals the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan announced last Thursday at a judicial conference in Portland that she supports an ethics code for the U.S. Supreme Court, reports Associated Press. Kagan said her opinion was not a response to fellow Justice Samuel Alito’s recent editorial for the Wall Street Journal related to ethics concerns in the court, and there was no consensus yet among the justices on how to proceed. “It’s not a secret for me to say that we have been discussing this issue,” said Kagan. “And it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a variety of views about this.”