U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses One Travel Ban Case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed one of two cases over President Trump's ban on visitors from mostly Muslim countries, suggesting it will step away from the controversy for now.

The court got rid of a case that originated in Maryland and involves a ban that has now expired and been replaced by a new version. Officially, the justices told a lower court to dismiss the original challenge to the president's ban, CBS News' Jan Crawford reports. All nine justices agreed the case should be dismissed. 

But the justices took no action on a separate case from Hawaii. That dispute concerns both the travel ban and a separate ban on refugees, which does not expire until Oct. 24.

Dismissing the cases would allow the court to avoid ruling on difficult legal issues, at least for a while. The dismissal also opens a path for the next round of litigation over the president's latest ban. 

The justices had combined the two cases and set them for argument that was to have taken place Tuesday. But after the travel ban expired last month and a new policy was rolled out, the court canceled the argument and began to weigh whether it should decide the legality of the policy after all.

The third and latest version of the travel ban is supposed to take full effect Oct. 18 and already has been challenged in the courts.

Five of the six countries included in the travel ban the Supreme Court was supposed to review remain in the latest version.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.