The Supreme Court on Tuesday was sympathetic to a group of faith-based pregnancy centers in their quest to challenge New Jersey’s demand for information about the group’s fundraising practices in federal court. The state contends that the group, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, must litigate its claims in state court, but after Tuesday morning’s oral argument, a majority of the justices appeared ready to side with First Choice in its bid to litigate its First Amendment claim in federal court.

The oral argument was the latest skirmish in the two-year-old legal battle that began when New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew Platkin, issued subpoenas to First Choice seeking (among other things) information about the group’s donors. Platkin and his office said they were investigating whether First Choice may have misled women about whether it provides certain reproductive-health services, such as abortions.

The arguments yesterday, Dec. 1, in Cox Communications v. Sony Entertainment confronted one of the central features of internet behavior as it has developed this century: the seemingly ineradicable interest of users in consuming copyrighted media – movies, music, and the like – without permission of the content providers. In this case, the lower courts held that Cox was liable for its customers’ infringement, to the tune of more than a billion dollars. If the arguments yesterday give a reliable hint of their views on the matter, the justices are unlikely to accept that outcome.

In Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, the Supreme Court on Monday considered whether federal courts of appeals should make their own determination on whether an asylum seeker experienced persecution, or leave it to the Board of Immigration Appeals, in a case that will clarify the circuit courts’ roles in the immigration system. 

Rights and Responsibilities is a recurring series by Richard Garnett on legal education, the role of the courts in our constitutional structure, and the law of religious freedom and free expression.

Please note that the views of outside contributors do not reflect the official opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.

Last summer, in one of the Supreme Court term’s headlining cases, Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices ruled that – sometimes, at least – parents have a constitutional right to pull their young kids from particular public-school programming. In that case, a group of parents contended that mandating certain lessons and materials relating to sexual orientation and gender identity violated their right to “direct the religious upbringing of their children.” As I have written here before, “[g]iven the relevant doctrines and precedents,” “the majority’s decision was correct.”

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, in Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi, the Supreme Court will consider whether individuals can challenge a law as unconstitutional and seek to protect themselves from its future enforcement if they’ve previously been punished for violating the law.