Posted on 06/26/2025 6:50:49 AM PDT by CFW
The Supreme Court will be announcing Opinions from the bench for the October 2024 term at 10:00 this morning.
Scotusblog will be liveblogging as the Opinions are released and we will be following along to try to make sense of the Court's decisions.
There are ten cases remaining undecided from this term. That does not include the cases on the emergency docket.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
Anything of import?...............
Here is an article on the 10 cases that remain.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/the-cases-that-remain/
I’m interested in:
Mahmoud v. Taylor (argued April 22):
In this case, the justices are deciding whether it violates the religious beliefs and therefore the First Amendment rights of a group of Maryland parents to require their children to participate in instruction at their public schools that includes LGBTQ+ themes. The parents, who are Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox, want to be able to opt their children out of instruction involving LGBTQ-themed storybooks.
btt
Anchor babies?
Anchor babies?
Oh yeah. Anchor babies. That one is on the Emergency Docket.
Trump v. CASA
Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.
As you can tell from the short introductory thread, I’m running late this morning.
Here we go!
Our first decision is from Justice Jackson in Hewitt v. US
This is a case involving the First Step Act, a 2018 law that reduced some mandatory-minimum sentences for future offenders as well as for past offenders whose criminal cases were still pending. The question before the justices was whether those sentence-reduction provisions also apply to a criminal defendant who was originally sentenced before the law was enacted but whose sentence was thrown out, causing the defendant to be resentenced after the law was adopted.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1002_1p24.pdf
Such minutiae.
It is not unanimous. The vote appears to be 5-4. Alito dissents, joined by Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
The court today holds that a sentence “has not been imposed” for purposes of the provision and the act’s more lenient penalties therefore apply.
SCOTUS rules against Planned Parenthood!
Of course Jackson would want less prison time for criminals, and the spineless softie Gorsuck joined her.
Justice Gorsuch has the opinion in Medina v. Planned Parenthood.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1275_e2pg.pdf
The vote is 6-3. Jackson dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan.
At issue is whether a provision of the Medicaid Act that allows any eligible patient to seek health care from any “qualified” provider creates individual rights that can be enforced under federal civil rights laws. The question comes to the court in a case brought by a South Carolina woman who received care from Planned Parenthood and is challenging an order by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster that bars abortion clinics from participating in the Medicaid program.
The court holds today that Medicaid laws do not clearly give an unambiguous right to bring a federal civil rights lawsuit to challenge the termination.
We will get at least one more case today.
Yes. You knew when you saw that the opinion was by Jackson what the outcome would be.
In Medina, Gorsuch explains that Medicaid offers the states a “bargain”: they get federal funding, and states agree to comply with the conditions that Congress imposes in return.
If a state does not comply, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can withhold Medicaid funding, Gorsuch says.
SCOTUS needs to know that even a Federal Judge is ignoring them.
Justice Sotomayor has the opinion in Gutierriez v. Saenz. It is 6-3, with Alito dissenting, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-7809_3e04.pdf
This is a case about a Texas inmate’s efforts to obtain DNA testing of evidence that he says will show he was not at the scene of the murder he was convicted of committing.
The Fifth Circuit ruled that Gutierrez could not bring a lawsuit becuase even if Texas’s DNA procedures were unconstitutional, the prosecutor “would be unlikely to turn over the physical evidence for DNA testing.”
The Fifth Circuit is reversed. The court holds that the Fifth Circuit’s decision conflicts with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Reed v. Goertz.
At least one more case for today.
SCOTUS needs to know that even a Federal Judge is ignoring them.
Oh, I’m sure they know.
Next and last for the day is Riley v Bondi. It is by Alito.
Issue: whether and when a noncitizen who overstayed his visa and has an order for his deportation can challenge an order denying his request for withholding of removal (an order that allows him to be removed from the United States but not to a country where he could be persecuted or tortured). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that the petition for review filed by Pierre Riley, a citizen of Jamaica, came too late because it was not filed 30 days after an immigration officer issued a final removal order in his case, even if his request for withholding of removal was not resolved for more than a year after that.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1270_6j37.pdf
The court today throws out the Fourth Circuit’s decision. It holds that the BIA’s order in an order about withholding of removal only is not a “final order of removal” and therefore the 30 day filing deadline cannot be satisified by filing a petition for review within 30 days.
And the court holds that the 30-day filing deadline is not jurisdictional — that is, the government can waive it.
The Court announces tomorrow will be the final day of decisions so we will finish up early this year and be done. Tomorrow should be interesting.
Remember that the anchor baby case, CASA, is not on the merits docket but instead on the emergency docket. We will not necessarily get that case tomorrow. It may sit and perk a bit longer.
Tomorrow, we are expecting the remaining five opinions, including Free Speech v. Paxton, Mahmoud v. Taylor, Louisiana v. Callais, Kennedy v. Braidwood, and FCC v. Consumers’ Research.
And possibly the Trump v. CASA case that is on the emergency docket.
I’ll start a new thread in the morning for the final Opinions of this term.
Also, someone at scotusblog pointed out that the chief justice says all opinions “ready” for announcement will be announced. Sometimes, a case isn’t ready, and tomorrow would be the day they announce a reargument order.
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