The Secret Origins of the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket

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Upholding bans on transgender athletes. Making it easier for billionaires to control our elections. Expanding President Donald Trump’s powers to a historically ludicrous degree.

Last week, the Supreme Court was working in overdrive, laying down rulings that ranged from preserving our fledgling democracy to poking more holes in its foundation. Most of these were passed in a way that most of us recognize, with the justices voting either yea or nay after plenty of arguments on the subject.

However, for the past decade, Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has been using a method that many of us might not know about: the shadow docket. The shadow docket, or the emergency docket, is a method that allows the court to issue rulings without oral arguments and little explanation.

Historically, past courts rarely used it. But under Roberts, it’s been expanded tremendously. New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak published a series of previously unreported memos detailing this shift.

“So many major decisions about presidential power are being made on the shadow docket,” Kantor says. “And the question for the Supreme Court is why they’re doing business in this way and why in a lot of these decisions they are not writing opinions.”

This week on More To The Story, Kantor explains why the Roberts court is relying on the shadow docket and how its use is eroding the public’s trust in the Supreme Court. Check it out at the link above.

-Arianna Coghill

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The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 1

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The last thing you may have heard about Sam Bankman-Fried was that he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud. Since then, controversy has swirled around his former company's expensive bankruptcy.

In November 2022, his company, FTX, imploded within a matter of days. All around the world, customers of the cryptocurrency exchange were suddenly cut off from their money.

“I tried to withdraw an amount, you know, and it would spin and say, your, your withdrawal is pending,” says Tareq Morad, an investor from Canada. “I remember myself doing that around 7, 8 o’clock at night, checking back, going to look: Okay, did it go through? Did it go through? No. No. No.”

Meanwhile, inside the company, employees were panicking. “All that we were told was there's been a run on the bank and, somehow, money is missing, and we don't know who to trust,” remembers Caroline Papadopoulos, part of FTX’s accounting leadership at the time.

This week on Reveal, in an update of an episode that first aired in September 2025, we use exclusive interviews to take you through the collapse of his company and examine the bankruptcy battles that have played out since Bankman-Fried’s conviction.

Bonus: You can also read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal.

🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify, Overcast, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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🎧 Has America Lived Up to Its Founding Promise?

We examine the famous quote from the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal,” and the 250-year struggle to live up to that statement.

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🎧 The Beautiful Game Is More Unaffordable Than Ever

Three reporters who love soccer dig into the World Cup. Why are tickets so expensive? Why is Gianni Infantino always on camera? And why wasn’t Haiti bound to win a game?

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🎧 Trump’s Impulsive Foreign Policy Is Tearing Apart the Global Order

During this week’s NATO summit, Trump reiterated that the US should control Greenland, showing us that his “hit-and-run” approach to foreign policy isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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Next Week on Reveal

The FTX story didn’t end with the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried. Next week on Reveal, we investigate the bankruptcy that followed and how some FTX customers feel they’ve been shortchanged by the repayment plan.

Tune in next week.

This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!

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