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.

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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. 

Empirical SCOTUS is a recurring series by Adam Feldman that looks at Supreme Court data, primarily in the form of opinions and oral arguments, to provide insights into the justices’ decision making and what we can expect from the court in the future.

When Daniel Webster stood before the Supreme Court in 1824 to argue Gibbons v. Ogden, over the court’s power to regulate interstate commerce, he spoke for hours across multiple days. In the landmark 1819 case of McCulloch v. Maryland, the oral arguments stretched for four days. The Dartmouth College case, which was argued a year before and delved deep into the Constitution’s contracts clause, consumed three full days of the court’s time. As former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman once  observed, “no advocate today will ever have the opportunity to perform in the arena [advocates such as] Webster commanded.”