The U.S. Supreme Court will review President Obama’s executive immigration actions from 2014, CBS News reports. Tennessee and 25 other states challenged the legality of the actions that were aimed to block millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in November 2015 in favor of the states; the Obama administration appealed the decision. The case will be argued in April and decided by late June.

In a new report, the Brennan Center details how it believes six closely divided U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the last decade have transformed campaign finance in America. The full paper Five to Four, is available online.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declared Florida’s death penalty law unconstitutional because it requires the trial judge, not the jury, to decide whether convicted criminals deserve the death penalty. "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough," wrote Sonia Sotomayor. The 8-1 majority ruling sends the case of a man convicted of fatally stabbing his co-worker back to the lower courts. NBC News reports it is unclear how many other cases the ruling will affect.

More than a hundred women in the legal profession who “have exercised their constitutional right to an abortion” filed a brief in support of petitioners in an upcoming abortion case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Whole Women’s Health v. Cole, debates restrictions on clinics and physicians who provide abortions in Texas. “To the world, I am an attorney who had an abortion, and, to myself, I am an attorney because I had an abortion,” one of the women wrote. Read more from The Atlantic.

In his annual end-year report on the state of the judiciary, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. urged trial judges to manage cases more efficiently. Roberts also suggested that lawyers avoid “antagonistic tactics, wasteful procedural maneuvers, and teetering brinkmanship.” His report comes on the heels of the adoption last month of major changes to the rules governing civil litigation in the federal courts. The rules limit the pretrial exchange of information.

Abortion, affirmative action and immigration are among major decisions expected from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, according to the Tribune Washington Bureau. “In several cases, conservatives are hoping the high court will shift current law to the right or block President Barack Obama’s policies, while liberals are defending the status quo,” the author writes.

Several hip-hop artists filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a Mississippi high school student suspended for posting a rap song on social media. The song threatened two coaches and accused them of sexual misconduct. “The government punished a young man for his art — and, more disturbing, for the musical genre by which he chose to express himself,” the brief says. Read more from The New York Times [subscription required].

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., are calling for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from Abigail Noel Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, an affirmative action case. Justice Scalia was accused of being racist after comments he made during oral arguments. "I think he should be held accountable," Grayson said. "We have to understand that this is a government of laws, not of men, and we need to have unbiased justice." Read more from KUTV.

The Obama administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to refuse to hear a challenge to Colorado’s legalization of marijuana, USA Today reports. Nebraska and Colorado claim Colorado’s marijuana system has created “modern-day bootleggers” who are selling marijuana illegally across state lines. “Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here — essentially that one state’s laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another state — would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this court’s original jurisdiction,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. said.

Who would Justice Stephen Breyer like to have dinner with? The U.S. Supreme Court member sat down with NPR for a chat (the answer in Alexander Hamilton) while promoting his new book, “The Court and the World.” Justice Breyer discusses what he learned from working with Sen. Ted Kennedy and how the justices approach questions in oral arguments. “It's horrible for the poor lawyers! Because we do not think that that half hour, each side, is for them to make their argument,” Justice Breyer said. “We think we know the argument.”