Supreme Court - Opinion Day - 1/14/26

scotusblog ^ | 1/14/26 | Justices

[CFW]

The Supreme Court released opinions in three cases this morning.

The first case is by Justice Jackson in Barrett v US, a case about whether a defendant who commits a single act that violates two separate provisions of 18 USC 924 can be convicting under only one provision or the other, or instead can be convicted under two.

The court holds that Congress did not clearly authorize convictions under both.

Barrett opinion

Next in Case v. Montana, by Kagan, the Court ruled:

"The court holds that the "objective reasonableness" standard for warrantless entries to render emergency aid applies "without further gloss." And it was satisfied in this case, Kagan holds, becaues the police had "an objectively reasonable basis for believing" that a homeowner intended to take his own life and, indeed, may have already shot himself."

Case v Montana opinion

The final Opinion is Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections. The opinion by Chief Roberts.

"The court holds that Bost, a member of Congress, has a right to sue (known as standing) because he is a candidate for office and "has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election."

Bost v Illinois

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TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: constitution; elections; laws; scotus

[CFW]

There were 3 opinions issued at SCOTUS today.

I didn't have the opinion day on my calendar so wasn't expecting them. My bad!

[CFW]

The election case was of the most interest.

Here is some background if you are interested.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/justices-seem-willing-to-allow-candidate-to-challenge-elections-law-on-mail-in-ballots/

[CFW]

Late SCOTUS ping!

[spincaster]

Not the ones i was waiting for.

[pepsi_junkie]

"The court holds that Bost, a member of Congress, has a right to sue (known as standing) because he is a candidate for office and "has a personal stake in the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election."

And yet Trump never had standing in 2020, in fact it turns out that nobody did.

[Retain Mike]

"The court holds that Congress did not clearly authorize convictions under both."

You have got to be kidding. Conviction under both would be assumed by any normal person. Congress would have to specify conviction on only one.

[CFW]

“And yet Trump never had standing in 2020, in fact it turns out that nobody did.”

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The decisions against the previous Trump administration regarding the 2020 election will never be mentioned in court decisions in the future. It will be as if they never happened. Because, they can’t be justified.

[Dr. Sivana]

And yet Trump never had standing in 2020, in fact it turns out that nobody did.

That's Sheila Jackson's logic in her dissent.

[CFW]

From the Bost decision:

[Iron Munro]

[CFW]

Court and election related:

STATE OF COLORADO v. TINA PETERS. Permission from the court to livestream has been granted. TODAY at 2:30 MT (4:30 EST) Watch oral arguments live!

youtube.com/live/F3Ez1BW6oYA?si=NUBIw4HHhvNMBQ_r

[bobbo666]

Those lack of standing rulings were by swing state judges already on the take to cover for the unconstitutional voting practices. Practices ignored by Roberts in turning away the dozen of states who filed with SCOTUS.

[circlecity]

Actually this can be an arcane area of statutory construction. Under double jeopardy you can’t be convicted of the same crime twice which means only one conviction at trial for the exact same behavior. But with these massive 1000 page pieces of legislation it gets difficult. The statutes are constantly cross-referencing each other, many times in a single statute defining a crime. When I have a client charged with two crimes in Federal Court I have to look up over a dozen different statutes (if I’m lucky) to figure out just what my client is accused of doing.

Here, the congress decided to enhance the penalties for certain crimes so they added to the law to provide for this. Well, somebody mapped out these statutes all over the US code and claimed actually it created two separate crimes for the exact same acts instead of just enhancing penalties for certain crimes. Technically. The court dodged the main question and punted it back to congress saying we can’t tell what you intended to do so rewrite the section at issue or the current enhancements cannot be enforced. It’s easily fixable if congress has the will to do so.