Posted on 06/20/2025 6:45:20 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 15 cases remaining undecided for this term. All cases from October, November, and December sittings have been announced. There is also several cases remaining on the Emergency Docket (mainly Trump admin related cases).
Of interest from the January sitting is:
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, No. 23-1122 [Arg: 01.15.2025 ]
Issue(s): Whether the court of appeals erred as a matter of law in applying rational-basis review, instead of strict scrutiny, to a law burdening adults' access to protected speech.
"Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton" is a Supreme Court case challenging a Texas law requiring age verification on websites that host a significant amount of sexually explicit content. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry trade group, argues the law violates the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, while Texas, represented by Attorney General Ken Paxton, maintains it's a valid measure to protect children.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
Mahmoud v. Taylor, No. 24-297 [Arg: 04.22.2025 ]
Issue(s): Whether public schools burden parents' religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents' religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.
We may get just one boring opinion or several as we have over the past two weeks. Depending on how many cases we get today, we will have an idea of how many Opinion days we will have next week. One is already scheduled for Thursday, so I expect another one will be announced for Wednesday or Friday.
Remember, cases are announced in reverse seniority of the author of the Opinion. For instance, if we hear from Kavanaugh first, then we will not hear from Jackson or Barrett today.
SCOTUS ping!
Been waiting for this thread - thanks
Heh! I click on these and immediately look for banglist in the keywords, fingers crossed.
There are two boxes of opinions today. So either a couple of long long opinions, or 3, 4 or maybe even 5 relatively short ones.
Oops. Now I’m hearing 3 boxes of opinions. The Court is ready to get this term over and done so they can get out of DC.
The first case is from Justice Barrett. It is FDA v. RJR Vapor.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1187_olp1.pdf
It is 7-2, with Jackson dissenting, joined by Sotomayor
This case was a dispute about where the North Carolina-based company can challenge the FDA’s denial of its application to market e-cigarettes. North Carolina is part of the 4th Circuit. But the company, RJR Vapor, filed a petition for review of that decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and it argued that it could do so because its petition was joined by a business and a trade association from Texas and Mississippi, both of which are located in the 5th Circuit.
The FDA wanted to move the case to the District of Columbia Circuit. It pointed to a 2009 law, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which provides that a request to review the denial of a marketing application can be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or in the circuit where the applicant lives or has its principal place of business. The 5th Circuit rejected the FDA’s request, based on the presence of the Texas business and Mississippi trade association in the case.
The court upholds the Fifth Circuit’s decision.
Court holds:
The Tobacco Control Act authorizes “any party adversely affected” by the denial order to petition for judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Court holds that retailers who would sell a new tobacco product if not for the FDA’s denial order have the right to seek judicial review.
This case was from the January sitting.
Just a note, there are two opinions left from February — Gutierrez v. Saenz, Esteras v. US — and three justices — Sotomayor, Gorsuch, and Barrett — who do not yet have opinions from that month’s sitting.
Barrett is still reading her opinion from the bench. We will have a second opinion from her today.
Which she just finished.
Next up from Barrett is Esteras v. United States, also (more or less) 7-2.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-7483_6k4c.pdf
Justice Alito has a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Gorsuch.
Justice Sotomayor has an opinion concurring in part and in the judgment, joined by Jackson. Jackson also has her own concurring in part and in the judgment.
This is a case about the interpretation of federal sentencing laws. At issue is whether in considering whether to revoke an individual’s supervised release and impose a prison sentence, a court may consider factors from the law governing sentencing that the supervised release law does not mention.
The defendant in the case is Edgardo Esteras, who was on supervised release after serving as 12-month sentence for conspiring to distribute and possess heroin with the intent to distribute it.
Three years after beginning his six-year term of supervised release, his probation officer told the district court that he had violated the terms of release by (among other things) possessing a firearm.
The district judge imposed a 24-month jail sentence, which Esteras challenged on the ground that she should not have considered factors identified in the federal sentencing law – for example, to reflect the seriousness of the offense and promote respect for the law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld his sentence, and today the Supreme Court rejected that decision.
“Congress’s decision,” Barrett writes, “to enumerate most of the sentencing factors while omitting” the provision that directs the district court to consider those factors, “raises a strong inference that courts may not consider that factor when deciding whether to revoke a term of supervised release. This inference is consistent with both the statutory structure and the role that supervised release plays in the sentencing process.”
The court vacates the Sixth Circuit’s ruling and sends the case back for another look.
So, at least we will not hear from Jackson at all today. And, no more from Barrett.
Next up Justice Kavanaugh with two opinions. First up is McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1226_1a72.pdf
The vote is 6-3
Kagan dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.
The Hobbs Act limits courts’ review of final orders by the FCC to the federal courts of appeals. The lawsuit was filed by as a would-be class action by a small medical practice that received junk faxes from McKesson, alleging that McKesson had violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
The lower courts ruled for McKesson. They concluded that they were required to accept the FCC’s interpretation of the TCPA, which had concluded that the law’s ban on unsolicited faxes only applied to “traditional analog fax machines” and not to online fax services.
Today the Supreme Court reverses.
It rules that in civil enforcement proceedings under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, district courts are NOT bound by the FCC’s interpretation of the act.
And the second one from Kavanaugh is Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA. The vote is 7-2, with Sotomayor and Jackson both dissenting.
(Do Sotomayor and Jackson ever consider it’s possible that they can’t properly interpret the law or the Constitution?)
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-7_8m58.pdf
This is a case about whether fuel producers have a legal right to bring a suit against the EPA to challenge its approval of California’s regulations requiring automakers to alter their fleets of new vehicles (requiring them to make more electric vehicles and fewer gas-powered cars.).
The court’s answer is yes.
The court reverses the D.C. Circuit’s ruling to the contrary and sends the case back for the D.C. Circuit to consider the merits of the fuel producers’ legal claims.
This is an interesting preview of what is to come since the Trump admin just passed a law to overturn the California rule.
At least one more opinion is coming. It could be from Gorsuch or any other more senior justice.
The first case is from Justice Barrett. It is FDA v. RJR Vapor.
Based on my reading above, this case had nothing to do with ECigs. It is a jusrsdictional dispute between circuit courts.
We have our next Opinion.
Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida.
It is by Justice Gorsuch, and the vote appears to be 7-2.
Justice Jackson dissents, joined mostly by Sotomayor.
This was the case of a retired firefighter who sued her former employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act to challenge the termination of her health insurance after she was forced to retire because of Parkinson’s disease. The question was whether Karyn Stanley’s lawsuit could go forward. A federal appeals court ruled that it could not, because Stanley was not working for the city when her retirement benefits were terminated.
The Supreme Court today upholds the ruling by the 11th Circuit in favor of the city and against Stanley.
Side note: Kagan sure seems to be joining the conservative justices quite a lot lately.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-997_6579.pdf
This brings two points to my mind.
One, many case before the Sup Court are about side issues such as this, but get reported as wins/losses for each side.
Two, why should it matter which distict/circuit court is deciding this case? Should they all not be working with the same framework of judical review?
“Based on my reading above, this case had nothing to do with ECigs. It is a jusrsdictional dispute between circuit courts”
I believe you are correct. Sometimes the issue is not really the issue. Really!
The final opinion of today is from the Chief Justice. It is Fuld v. PLO
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-20_f2bh.pdf
It is more or less unanimous.
Thomas has an opinion concurring in the judgment, which Gorsuch joins. Everyone else joins the court’s opinion.
This is a case about whether a provision of a 2019 law that deems the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority to have consented to personal jurisdiction in civil suits brought in the United States under the Antiterrorism Act if they engage in specified conduct.
The question before the court was whether this personal jurisdiction violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.
The court holds that it does not
Interesting
So that was six Opinions for today leaving 10 for next week. As I posted earlier there is already an Opinion day scheduled for next Thursday. I suspect there will be another opinion day added to the calendar for either Mon, Wed or Friday.
We will soon know.
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