Now available on Oyez: February sitting oral argument audio aligned with the transcripts

Oyez has posted the aligned audio and transcripts from the November 2020 oral arguments at the Supreme Court. The court heard argument this month in:

• Florida v. Georgia
• Wilkinson v. Dai
• Lange v. California
• United States v. Arthrex Inc.
• Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee
• Carr v. Saul

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, March 5

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. To suggest a piece for us to consider, email us at roundup@scotusblog.com.

Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Supreme Court rules against immigrant who was denied chance to make his case against deportation (John Fritze, USA Today)
• Supreme Court says gap in conviction records hurts migrant (César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, Crimmigration)
• In Amy Coney Barrett’s first signed majority opinion, Supreme Court sides with government over environmentalists (Robert Barnes, The Washington Post)
• When Justice Stephen Breyer rules (on retirement), the White House might know first (Joan Biskupic, CNN)
• Biden seeks dismissal of ‘sanctuary’ funding dispute at Supreme Court (Lawrence Hurley, Reuters)

Argument Analysis

Justices dubious about imposing issue exhaustion on Social Security claimants by judicial order rather than administrative regulation

Thursday’s argument in Carr v. Saul follows on the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, which held that the process for appointing administrative law judges for the SEC violated the Constitution’s appointments clause. All agree that the decision in Lucia applies to the ALJs that resolve disputes about Social Security benefits. The case now before the court could affect hundreds of claimants who had Social Security cases handled by improperly appointed ALJs, failed to raise the appointments clause issue before the ALJs, but did raise it when their cases later came to federal court. The government persuaded the lower courts that an “issue-exhaustion” doctrine barred the courts from considering the appointments clause issue for claimants who did not present it to the ALJ.

The Supreme Court previously rejected such an issue-exhaustion requirement at the appellate stage of agency Social Security proceedings (in a case called Sims v. Apfel), permitting claimants to raise issues in court that they did not raise before the agency. The Sims court reasoned that it made no sense to impose an issue-exhaustion requirement in a proceeding that is non-adversarial, especially when the government has not given any notice of that requirement to the claimants. The question in Carr is whether Sims applies when the claimant failed to raise the issue before the ALJ.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, March 4

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. To suggest a piece for us to consider, email us at roundup@scotusblog.com.

Here’s the Thursday morning read:

• At the Supreme Court, even time is up to interpretation (Joan Biskupic, CNN)
• The Roberts Court and DIGs (Bryan Gividen, The Juris Lab)
• The Hidden Ideological Stakes of SCOTUS Patent Case (Michael Dorf, Verdict)
• Lower courts take notice: The Supreme Court is rethinking qualified immunity (Anya Bidwell & Patrick Jaicomo, USA Today)
• The Supreme Court Won’t Save Us from Qualified Immunity (Jay Schweikert, Cato Institute)

Live

Announcement of opinions for Thursday, March 4 (complete)

We live-blogged on Thursday as the court released opinions in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club and Pereida v. Wilkinson. This live blog was sponsored by Casetext: making litigation more efficient with A.I. and machine learning technology.