Joan Biskupic - CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst
Joan Biskupic
CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst
Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court analyst, has covered the Supreme Court for more than 25 years and has written several books on the judiciary, including a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts (“The Chief") and “Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and its Historic Consequences.”
Latest
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Conservatives have a landmark Scalia religion opinion in their sightsOct 28, 2026Religious groups have long urged the Supreme Court to reverse a 1990 decision that diminished free-exercise protection and that was written, paradoxically, by the conservative exemplar Justice Antonin Scalia. -
Supreme Court’s conservatives have let down democracy, Justice Kagan saysOct 21, 2026Two weeks before the midterm elections, liberal Justice Elena Kagan bluntly sized up the Supreme Court handling of election and voting-related cases, saying, “The court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works.” -
Why Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson goes it aloneOct 19, 2026Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over the past two years has been nearly as visible on the book circuit as she has been at the Supreme Court, recounting her personal struggles and professional successes and emphasizing that she is the embodiment of her “ancestors’ dreams.” -
What the Supreme Court’s cryptic mail ballot ruling means for future electionsSep 16, 2026The Supreme Court’s recent patchwork of election-related decisions gives the public scant clues of how the justices would act if faced with a crucial dispute this fall that would definitively settle which party controls Congress or what to expect in 2028. -
Inside the pipeline enshrining Trump’s conservative legacy on the federal benchSep 14, 2026Experience as a Supreme Court law clerk has long been a prized credential, now drawing signing bonuses up to $700,000 at law firms. But it has increasingly become a ticket to a judgeship of one’s own, ensuring that long after the current justices are gone, like-minded protégés will be shaping the law in America. -
John Roberts draws a line with Trump — over historySep 1, 2026“That construction is likely unlawful,” Roberts wrote in dissent with the court’s liberals as Trump’s ballroom moves ahead -
John Roberts is trying to send a message on Trump. His court’s decisions send anotherJul 28, 2026At the annual Supreme Court Historical Society dinner in June, Chief Justice John Roberts opened with a customary toast to the president of the United States. -
• Live UpdatesLive Updates Trump jokes mostly fall flat at WHCA dinner as he attacks journalists and political foesJul 25, 2026President Donald Trump, who has a fraught relationship with the media and is waging an aggressive crackdown on leaks, made a meandering speech tonight at the rescheduled White House Correspondents Dinner, making personal attacks on journalists and political foes. -
How the Supreme Court has changed on transgender rights since 2020Jul 5, 2026In 2020, when the Supreme Court declared that transgender workers were covered by federal anti-discrimination law, the opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch marked a legal breakthrough. -
Trump’s audacious bid to end birthright citizenship was not an entire loss at the Supreme CourtJul 1, 2026The overall Trump effort – as radical as it was – made surprising headway in both the court and public spheres.
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John Roberts fought for decades to overturn Humphrey’s ExecutorJun 30, 2026For more than 40 years, since his service as a young Reagan administration lawyer, Chief Justice John Roberts has pressed for an exceptionally powerful US president, one who could fire the heads of independent agencies at any time. -
• Live UpdatesLive Updates Supreme Court expands Trump’s power to fire independent agency officials but lets Lisa Cook remain at FedJun 29, 2026The justices also upheld state laws that count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, an unexpected rebuff of Trump’s longstanding attacks on mail-in voting. -
Alito’s testy reaction to Sotomayor underscores tensions at Supreme CourtJun 26, 2026When major rulings are announced, most Supreme Court justices practice a kind of studied impassivity. Then, there’s Samuel Alito. -
Analysis: What the missing center has meant for the Supreme CourtJun 23, 2026For more than a half century, the Supreme Court was anchored by a series of conservative centrists who controlled the most anticipated end-of-term rulings in June, pragmatic justices like Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. -
The Supreme Court gave Republicans another congressional win. But its ruling means much more.Jun 3, 2026Alabama has repeatedly come to the US Supreme Court to defend a racially discriminatory congressional map, asserting dubious claims and employing questionable tactics. -
Once-confidential documents reveal Scalia’s role in Supreme Court taking up famous Dick Cheney caseJun 1, 2026Justice Antonin Scalia persuaded colleagues to take up the appeal after justices initially voted to reject it and went duck hunting with the vice president.
About
Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court analyst, has covered the Supreme Court for more than twenty-five years and has written several books on the judiciary, including a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts (“The Chief,” 2019) and “Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and its Historic Consequences” (2023). Her previous books include Sandra Day O’Connor (2005), American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (2009) and Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice (2014). Biskupic previously was an editor-in-charge for Legal Affairs at Reuters and, earlier, the Supreme Court correspondent for the Washington Post and for USA Today. A graduate of Georgetown University law school, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism in 2015. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2025.
