Announcement of opinions for Friday, April 17

Just over one week after lobbing pointed personal criticism at Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his concurring opinion in a decision by the Supreme Court that lifted restrictions on immigration stops that the challenger said are based on racial profiling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called her remarks “inappropriate” and indicated that she had apologized to Kavanaugh.

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

Since our last post, the Supreme Court has done a bit of spring cleaning of the relist rolls. In its last order list, the justices granted review in Johnson v. United States Congress, a veterans-benefits case asking whether the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act stripped district courts of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to acts of Congress affecting veterans’ benefits. Both petitioner Floyd (“the Barber”) Johnson and the solicitor general supported review, so not much of a surprise there.

Next week’s argument in Sripetch v SEC presents yet another chapter in the court’s sustained examination of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of certain remedies in its enforcement of the securities laws. The specific question here is whether the SEC can use “disgorgement” to force a wrongdoer to turn over its profits to the government without showing directly that the wrongdoer’s activities harmed its customers.

The justices on Monday will hear argument in T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System Corporation about the circumstances in which lower federal courts may review state-court judgments. The case highlights persistent confusion over lower court jurisdiction, which the justices tried – apparently unsuccessfully – to resolve just over two decades ago.

ScotusCrim is a recurring series by Rory Little focusing on intersections between the Supreme Court and criminal law.

It’s always a wonder to me how some of the most important cases of the Supreme Court’s term receive the shortest amount of time to decide. But that is undoubtedly the impact of the court’s schedule – a schedule imposed by tradition not by law – of hearing arguments in huge cases in late April and then pushing out final opinions by the end of June, just a few weeks later.

The next two weeks will see – well, hear, because the court still does not allow video or even photos – oral arguments in two important immigration cases as well as one of the biggest Fourth Amendment cases in years. I’ll take a quick look at each below. I’ll then conclude with my thoughts (“out of my lane”) on the pending “election day” case that could disrupt settled expectations about mail-in voting for more than a third of the states this November.