Announcement of opinions for Wednesday, March 25

Professors Akhil and Vikram Amar have responded to my recent post arguing that the 14th Amendment does not grant automatic citizenship to the children of temporary visitors to the United States. As a practicing attorney, I am accustomed to having the opportunity to file a reply brief, and I thank the editors of SCOTUSblog for allowing me to briefly respond to the Amars’ arguments.

Controlling Opinions is a recurring series by Richard Re that explores the interaction of law, ideology, and discretion at the Supreme Court.

On the surface, Justice Antonin Scalia’s legacy has never been more distinguished. He is regularly invoked by all sitting justices, as well as by advocates before the Supreme Court. Legal culture remains transformed by the legal movement he helped spearhead, as evidenced by the prevalence of textualism and originalism. And his most celebrated dissent, from Morrison v. Olson, is on the verge of being vindicated in Trump v. Slaughter, which may give the president the power to fire the heads of certain independent agencies. Many of Scalia’s followers and admirers justifiably celebrate his memory and influence.

In a list of orders released on Monday morning, the Supreme Court reversed a ruling by a federal appeals court, holding that a Vermont police officer is entitled to qualified immunity from a lawsuit brought by a nonviolent protester who was injured during a sit-in at the state’s capitol. The justices also denied review in the case of a Texas man on death row seeking DNA testing that he says could prove his innocence. The court’s three Democratic appointees dissented in both cases. One of those justices, Sonia Sotomayor, also dissented from the denial of review in the case of a Texas journalist who was arrested, Sotomayor wrote, “for doing something journalists do every day: posing questions to a public official.”

 The justices did not act on several high-profile petitions for review that they have repeatedly considered at their private conferences, including petitions challenging state bans on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines, a Fourth Amendment case involving a police officer’s justification to stop a car, and the FBI’s efforts to invoke the state-secrets privilege.

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared ready to overturn a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by, and then received within five business days of, Election Day. After just over two hours of oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a majority of justices seemed to agree with the challengers – which included the Republican Party of Mississippi and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi – that the Mississippi law conflicts with federal laws that set the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the “election day.”

Because more than a dozen states have similar laws, the court’s ruling – which is expected by late June or early July – could have significant implications for federal elections, beginning as soon as November.

Nuts and Bolts is a recurring series by Stephen Wermiel providing insights into the mechanics of how the Supreme Court works.

Supreme Court watchers are accustomed to poring over the words and phrases written by the justices in their many decisions. Much less attention is paid to the bottom line.

In the Supreme Court there are two steps to the bottom line: the judgment and the mandate.