EMERGENCY DOCKET

Court declines to delay Bannon’s prison sentence

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon declined a request from Stephen Bannon, who served as an aide to former President Donald Trump, to delay the start of his four-month prison sentence while he asks the Supreme Court to review his case.

Bannon is scheduled to report to prison on Monday, July 1.

After failing to respond to a congressional subpoena, Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in November 2021. The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol – whose authority to issue subpoenas Bannon challenges – ordered Bannon to turn over information about his communications with former President Donald Trump and others in the Trump White House and campaign.

VIEW FROM THE COURT

Consider the wild gray squirrel, Kagan rebukes her colleagues as court overrules Chevron

Something on television last night seems to have stolen the attention from the Supreme Court in its end-of-term push. But today, the justices will issue three big and newsworthy decisions, taking back the spotlight, with the end of the term now in clear sight.

At the security line to enter the courtroom, I bump into Michael Dreeben, who argued Trump v. United States on behalf of Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Justice Department. He was here on Wednesday but missing yesterday. Since we will not get a decision in the presidential immunity case, Dreeben will presumably try to get here again on Monday.

In the courtroom, a colleague spots Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s mother, Martha Kavanaugh, in the guest section, but there are no spouses again today.

When the court takes the bench, Justice Neil Gorsuch has the opinion in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, about the Oregon city’s law placing criminal penalties on people experiencing homelessness sleeping in public spaces. As I mentioned in yesterday’s column, Gorsuch sometimes offers very short, abrupt opinion announcements. But today, he is not channeling Al Pacino at the Oscars and he offers a thorough summary of his opinion holding that the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property is not “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, June 28

Today is not the last day for opinions, as it has been in previous years. We do expect opinions again this morning and will be live at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Justices reject plan to shield Sacklers in Purdue opioid deal (Natalie Sherman, BBC News)
• The Supreme Court strips the SEC of a critical enforcement tool in fraud cases (Mark Sherman, The Associated Press)
• ‘Tough luck’: The Supreme Court just took a new bite out of Biden’s agencies’ powers (Alex Guillén, Politico)
• Supreme Court blocks EPA’s interstate air pollution regulation (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• Abortion bans still leave a ‘gray area’ for doctors after Idaho Supreme Court case (Elissa Nadworny & Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR)

Coming up: On Monday, July 1, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We will be live each day at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

VIEW FROM THE COURT

Two oral dissents and more opinion days to come

The court’s press room is still buzzing this morning over Bloomberg’s scoop yesterday on the brief but mistaken posting of the court’s disposition in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, about emergency abortion care.

But today, the courtroom will reclaim its rightful place as the center of the drama in the building.

Opinion season has seen some unusual occurrences this spring. On May 16, there was Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s cryptically short bench announcement in Smith v. Spizzirri, a low-profile arbitration case. “Stay means stay,” was all she said. “The opinion of the court is unanimous.”

OPINION ANALYSIS

Supreme Court blocks OxyContin bankruptcy plan

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid OxyContin, cannot move forward. By a vote of 5-4, the justices granted the federal government’s request to block the plan on the ground that it shields members of the Sackler family, which principally owns the company and controlled it until recently, from liability for opioid-related claims even though they did not declare bankruptcy.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch contended that federal bankruptcy laws do not allow the plan to release the Sacklers from liability without the consent of creditors and opioid victims. Gorsuch acknowledged the government’s argument that its decision could cause the plan to “unravel” by exposing the Sacklers to a wide range of lawsuits. But such questions, Gorsuch concluded, are best left to Congress, rather than the courts.

In a lengthy dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh contended that, without releasing the Sacklers from liability, “there is no good reason to believe that any of the victims or state or local governments will ever recover anything.”