Merits Cases
Argument previews and analyses, opinion analyses, posts with links to argument transcripts and audio, and other news relating to cases granted for either the current term’s docket or next term’s docket
Featured Posts
Relist Watch – John Elwood
Ask the author: “So Long, Earl” – Andrew Hamm
Sponsored by Casetext
SCOTUStalk see all
Email Digest Sign-Up
Merits Case Pages and Archives
or
Term Snapshot
This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the May 16 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their May 23 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
(1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution. - Lamone v. Benisek
In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting. - Kisor v. Wilkie
Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation. - Rucho v. Common Cause
(1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. - The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
(1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment. - Gamble v. United States
Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
- Department of Commerce v. New York
Recent Decisions
- Apple Inc. v. Pepper Respondents, who purchased apps for their iPhones though Apple’s App Store, were direct purchasers from Apple under Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois and may sue Apple for allegedly monopolizing the retail market for the sale of iPhone apps.
- Cochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. Hunt The limitations period in 31 U.S.C. §3731(b)(2) -- which provides that a False Claims Act action must be brought within three years after the “the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances” knew or should have known the relevant facts, but not more than 10 years after the violation -- applies in a qui tam suit in which the federal government has declined to intervene; the relator in a nonintervened suit is not “the official of the United States” whose knowledge triggers §3731(b)(2)’s limitations period.
- Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt Nevada v. Hall is overruled; states retain their sovereign immunity from private suits brought in courts of other states.
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
Conference of May 16, 2019
Recent Special Features
- Symposium before the oral argument in Department of Commerce v. New York
- Symposium on what’s next in June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee
- Symposium before the oral arguments in Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek
- Symposium before the oral argument in Kisor v. Wilkie
- Symposium before the oral argument in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
- Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court
- Retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy
Statistical Snapshot
see all »Cases argued 70 Cases decided 32 Summary reversals 4 Merits cases granted to date 73 Live Blog Archives
- Orders and opinions | May 20, 2019
- Orders and opinions | May 13, 2019
- Orders and opinions | April 29, 2019
- Opinions | April 24, 2019
- Opinions | April 23, 2019
- Orders and opinions | April 1, 2019
- Opinions | March 27, 2019
- Opinions | March 26, 2019
- Opinions | March 20, 2019
- Opinions | March 19, 2019
- Orders and opinions | March 4, 2019
- Opinions | February 27, 2019 (with Casetext’s Pablo Arredondo)
- Opinions | February 26, 2019 (with Casetext’s Jake Heller)
- Opinions | February 20, 2019
- Orders and opinions | January 22, 2019
- Opinions | January 15, 2019
- Opinions | January 8, 2019
- Day five of confirmation hearing | September 27, 2018
- Day four of confirmation hearing | September 7, 2018
- Day three of confirmation hearing | September 6, 2018
- Day two of confirmation hearing | September 5, 2018
- Day one of confirmation hearing | September 4, 2018
Twitter Feed
-
Calendar: May 2019
May 2019
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 12345678101112141517181921222425262931- Orders/Opinions
- Arguments
- Conferences
- Events
- Holidays
- Multiple
Submit Event
Merits Docket OT18 (May 13, 2019)
Majority Opinions by Author
Merits Cases by Sitting
Voting Breakdown Argued Cases
Majority Lineup 5-4 Decisions
Download our App in the Apple Store
Videos see all
On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.
Awards
Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.
