Supreme Court Decision Syllabus (SCOTUS Podcast)

Send us Fan Mail  The National Firearms Act of 1934 defines a “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” 26 U. S. C. §5845(b). With a machinegun, a shooter can fire multiple times, or even continuously, by engaging the trigger only once. This c...

Send us Fan Mail FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug application for mifepristone tablets marketed under the brand name Mifeprex for use in terminating pregnancies up to seven weeks. To help ensure that Mifeprex would be used safely and effectively, FDA placed additional restrictions on the drug’s use and distribution, for example...

Send us Fan Mail   After several Starbucks employees announced plans to unionize, they invited a news crew from a local television station to visit the store after hours to promote their unionizing effort. Starbucks fired multiple employees involved with the media event for violating company policy. The National Labor Relations Board filed an administrative complaint against Starbucks alleging tha...

Send us Fan Mail  Drawing on a 2016 Presidential primary debate exchange between thencandidate Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio, respondent Steve Elster sought to federally register the trademark “Trump too small” to use on shirts and hats. An examiner from the Patent and Trademark Office refused registration based on the “names clause,” a Lanham Act prohibition on the registration of a mark t...

Send us Fan Mail  Petitioner Truck Insurance Exchange is the primary insurer for companies that manufactured and sold products containing asbestos. Two of those companies, Kaiser Gypsum Co. and Hanson Permanente Cement (Debtors), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after facing thousands of asbestos-related lawsuits. As part of the bankruptcy process, the Debtors filed a proposed reorganization plan (...

Send us Fan Mail  The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 25 U. S. C. §5301 et seq., enables an Indian tribe to enter into a “self-determination contract” with the Indian Health Service to assume responsibility for administering the healthcare programs that IHS would otherwise operate for the tribe. §5321(a)(1). When IHS administers such programs itself, it funds its operations...

Send us Fan Mail Connelly v. United States Michael and Thomas Connelly were the sole shareholders in Crown C Supply, a small building supply corporation. The brothers entered into an agreement to ensure that Crown would stay in the family if either brother died. Under that agreement, the surviving brother would have the option to purchase the deceased brother’s shares. If he declined, Crown itself...

Send us Fan Mail In  Cantero v. Bank of America , the Supreme Court reviewed a Second Circuit decision that struck down a New York bank regulation, finding that the State's authority was preempted by federal law.  The Court held that Dodd-Frank requires a nuanced analysis -- rather than a bright line test -- on the issue of federal preemption.  Justice Kavanaugh, writing for a unanimous Court...

Send us Fan Mail  Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) sued respondent Maria Vullo—former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS)—alleging that Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated parties to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy. The Second Circuit held that Vullo’s alleged actions constituted permissible government speech...

Send us Fan Mail Thornell v. Jones Respondent Danny Lee Jones was convicted of the premeditated firstdegree murders of Robert and Tisha Weaver and the attempted premeditated murder of Robert’s grandmother Katherine Gumina. Arizona law at the time required the trial court to “impose a sentence of death” if it found “one or more” statutorily enumerated “aggravating circumstances” and “no mitigating...

Send us Fan Mail Coinbase v. Suski The dispute here involves a conflict between two contracts executed by petitioner Coinbase, Inc., operator of a cryptocurrency exchange platform, and respondents, who use Coinbase. The first contract—the Coinbase User Agreement that respondents agreed to when they created their accounts—contains an arbitration provision with a delegation clause. Per this provisio...

Send us Fan Mail  These cases concern the application of the Armed Career Criminal Act to state drug convictions that occurred before recent technical amendments to the federal drug schedules. ACCA imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence on defendants who are convicted for the illegal possession of a firearm and who have a criminal history thought to demonstrate a propensity for violence. As...

Send us Fan Mail  Alexander v. NAACP The Constitution entrusts state legislatures with the primary responsibility for drawing congressional districts, and legislative redistricting is an inescapably political enterprise. Claims that a map is unconstitutional because it was drawn to achieve a partisan end are not justiciable in federal court. By contrast, if a legislature gives race a predominant r...

Send us Fan Mail In  Harrow v. Department of Defense , Stuart Harrow appealed an adverse administrative decision after the 60-day deadline -- claiming that he was unaware of the deadline.  He filed this appeal to the Federal Circuit.  Because the Federal Circuit saw the mandatory "shall" language in the statute (that is, it shall be filed within 60 days), the Court denied his request, re...

Send us Fan Mail Smith v. Spizzirri The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) sets forth procedures for enforcing arbitration agreements in federal court. Section 3 of the FAA, entitled “Stay of proceedings where issue therein referable to arbitration,” provides that when a dispute is subject to arbitration, the court “shall on application of one of the parties stay the trial of the action until such arbi...

Send us Fan Mail CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU ET AL. v. COMMUNITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, LTD., ET AL. The Constitution gives Congress control over the public fisc subject to the command that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Art. I, §9, cl. 7. For most federal agencies, Congress provides funding through annu...

Send us Fan Mail Culley v. Marshall Petitioner Halima Culley loaned her car to her son, who was later pulled over by Alabama police officers and arrested for possession of marijuana. Petitioner Lena Sutton loaned her car to a friend, who was stopped by Alabama police and arrested for trafficking methamphetamine. In both cases, petitioners’ cars were seized under an Alabama civil forfeiture law tha...

Send us Fan Mail Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy Under the Copyright Act, a plaintiff must file suit “within three years after the claim accrued.” 17 U. S. C. §507(b). On one understanding of that limitations provision, a copyright claim “accrue[s]” when “an infringing act occurs.” Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U. S. 663, 670. But under an alternative view, the so-called discovery rule...

Send us Fan Mail Muldrow v. City of St. Louis Sergeant Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow maintains that her employer, the St. Louis Police Department, transferred her from one job to another because she is a woman. From 2008 through 2017, Muldrow worked as a plainclothes officer in the Department’s specialized Intelligence Division. In 2017, the new Intelligence Division commander asked to transfer Muldrow...

Send us Fan Mail McIntosh v. United States Petitioner Louis McIntosh was indicted on multiple counts of Hobbs Act robbery and firearm offenses. The indictment set forth the demand that McIntosh “shall forfeit . . . all property . . . derived from proceeds traceable to the commission of the [Hobbs Act] offenses.” The Government also later provided McIntosh with a pretrial bill of particulars that i...

Send us Fan Mail  Petitioner James Rudisill enlisted in the United States Army in 2000 and served a total of eight years over three separate periods of military service. He became entitled to Montgomery Bill benefits as a result of his first period of service. Rudisill earned an undergraduate degree and used 25 months and 14 days of Montgomery benefits to finance his education. Through his subsequ...

Send us Fan Mail DEVILLIER v. TEXAS CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Argued Jan. 16, 2024—Decided Apr. 16, 2024  Richard DeVillier and more than 120 other petitioners own property north of U. S. Interstate Highway 10 between Houston and Beaumont, Texas. The dispute here arose after the State of Texas took action to use portions of I–10 as a flood evacuation ro...

Send us Fan Mail George Sheetz was required by the County of El Dorado to pay $23,420 George Sheetz tried to get a residential building permit from El Dorado County.  To do so, the County made him pay a $23,420 "traffic impact fee."  The fee was part of the County's "General Plan" -- this plan was intended to address the impact that development has on public services.  Thi...

Send us Fan Mail Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation owns a subsidiary that operates terminals to store bulk liquid commodities, including No. 6 fuel oil, which has almost 3% sulfer. The UN adopted IMO in 2016, which set in in 2020. This regulation capped the sulfur content on fuel oil used in shipping to 0.5%. Macquarie did not discuss this IMO in its public documents, but in February 2018, its...

Send us Fan Mail Flowers makes baked goods that are then distributed across the country.  Bissonnette owned the distribution rights in a certain part of the country.  Their contract subjected them to the F.A.A..  After Bissonnette sued under Labor (wage) laws, Flowers moved to compel arbitration.  Bissonnette said they're exempt because the F.A.A. exempts “contracts of employment of seamen, r...