Supreme Court Decision Syllabus (SCOTUS Podcast)
Following what the Supreme Court is actually doing can be daunting. Reporting on the subject is often only done within the context of political narratives of the day -- and following the Court's decisions and reading every new case can be a non-starter. The purpose of this Podcast is to make it as easy as possible for members of the public to source information about what is happening at the Supreme Court. For that reason, we read every Opinion Syllabus without any commentary whatsoever. Further, there are no advertisements or sponsors. We call it "information sourcing," and we hope that the podcast is a useful resource for members of the public who want to understand the legal issues of the day, prospective law students who want to get to know legal language and understand good legal writing, and attorneys who can use the podcast to be better advocates for their clients. *Note this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
Episodes
1. Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.
In Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court held that children born in the U.S. to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment, striking down Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The Court relied on the common law rule of jus soli and its precedent in Wong Kim Ark, rejecting the Government's domicile-based theory. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the C...
In NRSC v. FEC the Supreme Court granted Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to answer the question of whether the limits imposed by the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) on how much political parties can spend in direct coordination with their federal candidates violate the First Amendment.
Held: FECA’s political party coordinated expenditure limits violate t...
Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information.
The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day.
In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court held that the FTC's for-cause removal protection for its Commissioners violates the separation of powers, overruling Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) to the extent it survived. The Court reasoned that the Constitution vests executive power solely in the President, who must be able to remove at will any officer—like an FTC Commissioner—who exercises that...
In Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court denied the Government's application to stay an injunction reinstating Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whom President Trump had fired over alleged mortgage fraud predating her appointment. The Court held that the Federal Reserve Act's "for cause" removal standard is judicially reviewable, that "cause" requires a substantial showing reflecting the Fed's unique independence, and&...
In Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, the Supreme Court held that FIFRA expressly preempts a state-law failure-to-warn claim demanding a cancer warning on Roundup's label, since the EPA had approved the label without one and federal law requires using the approved label. The Court (per Justice Kavanaugh) reversed a $1 million Missouri verdict; Justice Thomas concurred; Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Gorsuch, dissented.
In Blanche v. Lau, the Supreme Court held that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not require a border officer to have clear and convincing evidence that a lawful permanent resident has committed a crime involving moral turpitude before treating that resident as an applicant for admission. Lau, a lawful permanent resident, was charged with trademark counterfeiting, briefly traveled abroad, and on his return wa...
In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the Supreme Court held that an alien standing in Mexico does not "arrive in the United States" within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act by attempting and failing to set foot in the country; arrival occurs only when the alien crosses the border. The case arose from the Government's 2016 "metering" policy, under which border officials stood on the U.S. side and limited the n...
The Helms-Burton Act itself abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities
Hawaii's rules about not allowing people to concealed carry on private property unless the owner posts consent is unconstitutional.
The proper baseline for measuring “just compensation” following a tax sale is the auction sale price, not the property’s hypothetical fair market value, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of the country’s history of tax sales. Pp. 4–11.
Individuals may not be held liable in their personal capacities under a Spending Clause statute unless those individuals have voluntarily and knowingly consented to answer lawsuits under the statute; because the individual defendants in this case did not voluntarily and knowingly consent to face RLUIPA liability in an agreement with the federal government, Mr. Landor’s case cannot proceed against them.
The Supreme Court held that federal courts may no longer create new causes of action for violations of international law under the Alien Tort Statute, effectively closing the narrow door that Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain had left open in 2004. Reasoning that judicial authority under Sosa's framework was narrow from the start and that the power to create causes of action belongs to Congress—particularly where ...
In a per curiam decision, the Supreme Court summarily reversed the Second Circuit’s grant of federal habeas relief to Pedro Hernandez, who was convicted of kidnapping and felony murder in the 1979 disappearance and death of Etan Patz. The Second Circuit had concluded that the state trial judge should have told the jury about the rule from Missouri v. Seibert governing when a confession obtained after a delayed...
Because a criminal law appeal waiver must be both knowingly and voluntary a waiver of ineffective assistance of counsel is not really possible.
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