SCOTUS Audio

Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual" with respect to "compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment" on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l). The Eighth Circuit below followed binding...

The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to lay "taxes on incomes ... without apportionment among the several States." Beginning with Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), this Court's decisions have uniformly held "income," for Sixteenth Amendment purposes, to require realization by the taxpayer. In the decision below, however, the Ninth Circuit approved taxation of a married couple on earn...

Whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to approve, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, a release that extinguishes claims held by nondebtors against nondebtor third parties, without the claimants’ consent.

1. Whether statutory provisions that empower the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to initiate and adjudicate administrative enforcement proceedings seeking civil penalties violate the Seventh Amendment. 2. Whether statutory provisions that authorize the SEC to choose to enforce the securities laws through an agency adjudication instead of filing a district court action violate the nondeleg...

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney General has discretion to cancel removal of non-permanent residents who satisfy four eligibility criteria, including "that removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to the applicant's immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(l)(D). Congress stripped courts of jur...

The Georgia Supreme Court held that a jury's verdict of acquittal on one criminal charge and its verdict of guilty on a different criminal charge arising from the same facts were logically and legally impossible to reconcile. It called the verdicts "repugnant," vacated both of them, and subsequently held that the defendant could be prosecuted a second time on both charges. Does the Double Jeopardy...

The Armed Career Criminal Act provides that felons who possess a firearm are normally subject to a maximum 10-year sentence. But if the felon already has at least three "serious drug offense" convictions, then the minimum sentence is fifteen years. Courts decide whether a prior state conviction counts as a serious drug offense using the categorical approach. That requires determining whether the e...

Whether a veteran who has served two separate and distinct periods of qualifying service under the Montgomery GI Bill, 38 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq., and under the Post- 9/11 GI Bill, 38 U.S.C. § 3301 et seq., is entitled to receive a total of 48 months of education benefits as between both programs, without first exhausting the Montgomery benefit in order to obtain the more generous Post-9/11 benefit.

Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders, violates the Second Amendment on its face.

Whether the civil-liability provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., unequivocally and unambiguously waive the sovereign immunity of the United States.

Section 1052(c) of Title 15 provides in pertinent part that a trademark shall be refused registration if it "[c]onsists of or comprises a name * * * identifying a particular living individual except by his written consent." 15 U.S.C. 1052(c). The question presented is as follows: Whether the refusal to register a mark under Section 1052(c) violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment whe...

Courts have increasingly been called upon to determine whether a public official who selectively blocks access to his or her social media account has engaged in state action subject to constitutional scrutiny. To answer that question, most circuits consider a broad range of factors, including the account's appearance and purpose. But in the decision below, the court of appeals rejected the relevan...

Whether a public official engages in state action subject to the First Amendment by blocking an individual from the official's personal social-media account, when the official uses the account to feature their job and communicate about job-related matters with the public, but does not do so pursuant to any governmental authority or duty.

In determining whether the Due Process Clause requires a state or local government to provide a post seizure probable cause hearing prior to a statutory judicial forfeiture proceeding and, if so, when such a hearing must take place, should district courts apply the "speedy trial" test employed in United States v. $8,850, 461 U.S. 555 (1983) and Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), as held by the...

The questions presented are: 1. Under federal admiralty law, what is the standard for judging the enforcement of a choice of law clause in a maritime contract? 2. Under federal admiralty law, can a choice of law clause in a maritime contract be rendered unenforceable if enforcement is contrary to the "strong public policy" of the state whose law is displaced? GRANTED LIMITED TO QUESTION 2 PRESENTE...

The three-judge district court never mentioned the presumption of the South Carolina General Assembly's good faith, analyzed Congressional District 1 as a whole, or examined the intent of the General Assembly as a whole. It also disregarded the publicly available election data used to draw District 1 and legislator testimony demonstrating that politics and traditional districting principles better...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 protects whistleblowers who report financial wrongdoing at publicly traded companies. 18 U.S.C. § 1514A. When a whistleblower invokes the Act and claims he was fired because of his report, his claim is "governed by the legal burdens of proof set forth in section 42121(b) of title 49, United States Code." 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(b)(2)(C). Under that incorporated framework,...

Does a self-appointed Americans with Disabilities Act "tester" have Article III standing to challenge a place of public accommodation's failure to provide disability accessibility information on its website, even if she lacks any intention of visiting that place of public accommodation?

Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that the statute providing funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), 12 U.S.C. 5497, violates the Appropriations Clause, U.S. Const. Art. I,§ 9, Cl. 7, and in vacating a regulation promulgated at a time when the CFPB was receiving such funding.

The "safety valve" provision of the federal sentencing statute requires a district court to ignore any statutory mandatory minimum and instead follow the Sentencing Guidelines if a defendant was convicted of certain nonviolent drug crimes and can meet five sets of criteria. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1)-(5). Congress amended the first set of criteria, in§ 3553(f)(1), in the First Step Act of 2018, Pu...

Hennepin County confiscated 93-year-old Geraldine Tyler's former home as payment for approximately $15,000 in property taxes, penalties, interest, and costs. The County sold the home for $40,000, and, consistent with a Minnesota forfeiture statute, kept all proceeds, including the $25,000 that exceeded Tyler's debt as a windfall for the public. In all states, municipalities may take real property...

In RJR Nabisco, this Court, applying the presumption against extraterritoriality, held that a civil RICO plaintiff states a cognizable claim under RICO's private right of action only if it alleges a "domestic"-not foreign-injury. 579 U.S. 325, 354 (2016). The Court left unresolved, however, what legal test determines whether an injury is foreign or domestic. Id. ("[D]isputes may arise as to whethe...

Whether the Bankruptcy Code expresses unequivocally Congress's intent to abrogate the sovereign immunity of Indian tribes.

This case presents a clear, recognized, and intractable conflict regarding an important issue related to the preservation of legal claims for appeal. Parties may appeal only from "final decisions of the district courts." 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Thus the general rule is that "[a]n appeal from the final judgment brings up all antecedent issues," In re Kilgus, 811 F.2d 1112, 1115 (7th Cir. 1987), and that...