Supreme Court Decision Syllabus (SCOTUS Podcast)

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 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. 

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 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. 

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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 Court; Kavanaugh concurred in part and dissented in part, while Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch each dissented.

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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 the First Amendment. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C.J., and Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Kagan, J. Fil...

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 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.

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 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. 

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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 power, a principle confirmed by the First Congress's "Decision of 1789" and by Myers v. United States (1926). It concluded that Humphrey's rested on an outdated and unworkable view of the FTC as m...

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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—resolving the case on this narrow ground—that the President failed to give Cook the notice and opportunity to respond that the statute requires before removal. The Court also held that equity permits cour...

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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.

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The TPS statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims.

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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 was paroled rather than admitted because of the pending charge; after he pleaded guilty, the Government initiated removal proceedings charging him as inadmissible. The Second Circuit vacated the removal...

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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 number of asylum seekers allowed to enter and be processed each day; asylum seekers and the group Al Otro Lado challenged...

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 The Helms-Burton Act itself abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities 

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Hawaii's rules about not allowing people to concealed carry on private property unless the owner posts consent is unconstitutional.

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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.

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 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.

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 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 the Constitution expressly assigns Congress the job of defining offenses against the law of nations—the Court concluded that ATS suits always implicate foreign policy in ways that supply a sou...

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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 Miranda warning may be tainted by an earlier unwarned confession. Because the judge instead answered the jury’s question with a simple “no,” the Second Circuit...

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We speak today to say...nothing has changed...

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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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The Supreme Court held that the government's prosecution of Ali Hemani under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3)'s prohibition on firearm possession by unlawful users of controlled substances violated the Second Amendment as applied to him. Justice Gorsuch, writing for seven Justices, concluded that the government failed to identify a historical tradition of firearm regulation analogous to its interpretation of §922(g)(3), which automatically disarms anyone who regularly uses a controlled substance regardless of whether the person is dangerous, intoxicated, or incapable of managing his affairs. The Court rejected the government's reliance on historical laws re...

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In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court held that Section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act does not create an implied private right of action allowing investors or other private parties to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the Act. The case arose when activist investor Saba Capital challenged voting-right restrictions adopted by several closed-end mutual funds and sought rescission under Section 47(b). Writing for the Court, Justice Barrett explained that Congress, not the courts, determines who may enforce federal statutes, and Section 47(b)’s language is directed at courts’ remedial authority once p...

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In a unanimous opinion by Justice Jackson, the Supreme Court vacated a Fifth Circuit decision that had barred Thomas Keathley’s personal-injury lawsuit under the doctrine of judicial estoppel after he failed to disclose the claim during his ongoing Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The Court held that when determining whether a debtor’s omission of a legal claim was inadvertent or mistaken, courts must consider the totality of the circumstances rather than applying the Fifth Circuit’s rigid rule that focused almost exclusively on whether the debtor knew of the claim and had a potential motive...

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In a unanimous opinion by Justice Kagan, the Supreme Court held that a prosecution for falsifying a document in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1519 must be brought in the district where the falsification occurred, not where the federal investigation that the defendant intended to obstruct was located. Ahmad Abouammo, while in Seattle, created and emailed a fake invoice to FBI agents conducting an investigation based in San Francisco, and was subsequently tried and convicted in the Northern District of California. The Court reversed, explaining that constitutional venue rules focus on the location of t...

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In a unanimous opinion by Justice Jackson, the Supreme Court held that Amarin failed to plausibly allege that Hikma actively induced infringement of Amarin’s patented cardiovascular-use methods for Vascepa. Although Hikma marketed a generic version of the drug using an FDA-approved “skinny label” that omitted the patented cardiovascular indication, Amarin argued that various statements in Hikma’s labeling, website, patient materials, and press releases nevertheless encouraged doctors to prescribe the drug for the patented use. The Court rejected that theory, emphasizing that inducement under 35 U.S.C. §271(b) requires affirmative, purposeful steps designed...

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The Supreme Court held that the FCC’s procedure for assessing monetary forfeitures against regulated entities does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the agency’s forfeiture orders do not themselves impose a legally enforceable obligation to pay and do not conclusively determine the facts underlying liability. Although the FCC may investigate alleged violations and issue forfeiture orders under 47 U.S.C. §503, payment can only be compelled through a separate enforcement action brought by the Department of Justice under §504, where the defendant is entitled to a de novo trial and a jury may make t...

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 A showing of pecuniary loss to investors is not required before the SEC may obtain a disgorgement award.  

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If anyone thinks I am pronouncing Giglio incorrectly, please see: https://documents.law.yale.edu/pronouncing-dictionary

In a brief per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court vacated an Eleventh Circuit decision denying federal habeas relief to Florida death-row inmate Gary Whitton. Whitton argued that prosecutors violated Giglio v. United States by allowing jailhouse informant Jake Ozio to falsely testify that he had no prior criminal history, despite the State possessing juvenile records showing prior assault, threats, and burglary charges. The Eleventh Circuit agreed that Ozio’s testimony was false and that prosecutors kne...

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In a brief per curiam order, the Supreme Court stayed a federal district court injunction that would have prevented Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map in the 2026 elections. The Court held that Alabama was likely to succeed on appeal because the district court failed to apply the standards the Supreme Court recently announced in Louisiana v. Callais. Under Callais, plaintiffs challenging a map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must show that their proposed alternative map satisfies all of the State’s legitimate districting objectives just as well as the State’s map...

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Held: When Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive—as with the change to §924(c)—the resulting sentencing disparity cannot serve as an “extraordinary and compelling” reason that warrants a sentence reduction under 18 U. S. C. §3582(c)(1)(A)(i).  Pp. 8–17.

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Held: A prisoner who collaterally attacks the validity of his conviction must proceed through 28 U. S. C. §2255, not 18 U. S. C. §3582; the supposed invalidity of a conviction is not among the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that justify compassionate release.  Pp. 5–17. (a) Section 2255 governs collateral attacks on federal convictions and imposes tight procedural constraints, including: a 1-year statute of limitations, §2255(f); a general rule that prisoners get only one shot at collateral relief with narrow exceptions, §§2255(h)(1)–(2); a bar on relitigating claims already raised and rejected on direct review, see Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217, 227...

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In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably rejected death-row inmate Terry Pitchford’s claim under Batson v. Kentucky that prosecutors improperly excluded Black jurors during his capital murder trial. The Court concluded that the trial judge failed to complete Batson’s required third step by denying Pitchford’s counsel a meaningful opportunity to argue that the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations were pretextual and by never determining whether the strikes were motivated by racial discrimination. Because defense counsel repeatedly attempted to pursue the objection and was assured by the trial...

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The Supreme Court in Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges reversed the Fourth Circuit for violating the principle of party presentation. The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) challenged a policy about immigration judge's public speaking in federal district court on First and Fifth Amendment grounds, but both the district court and the parties agreed that most employment-related claims are generally governed by the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), which channels disputes through the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). NAIJ argued only that its specific claims were not covered by the CSRA...

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Actuaries should probably use the best/most recent predictions about future stuff, and we should not try to tell them not to.

Also lets keep track of how many times The Court says: "Stuff that's not in here is not in here for a reason, BONUS POINTS: when the excluded (or desired) terminology is in the same Congressional Act.

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A claim that one company negligently hired another to transport goods is not preempted by the FAAAA because States retain authority 

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 Held: The cruise lines’ use of the docks is sufficient to establish that they used “property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government”; Ha vana Docks is not required to establish that the cruise lines trafficked in Havana Dock’s property interest. Pp. 8–16. (a) Title III generally makes any person who “traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government . . . liable to any United States national who owns the claim to such property.” §6082(a)(1)(A). This dispute turns on whether the relevant “property which was confiscated” must be Havana Docks’ property interest in the docks (the conc...

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 A federal court that has previously stayed claims in a pending ac tion under §3 of the FAA has jurisdiction to confirm or vacate a result ing arbitral award on those claims as prescribed in §9 and §10 of the FAA; nothing in the FAA precludes the normal operation of federal jurisdiction regarding live claims pending before a federal court. 

LokiEsq.Law

Rev. RJ Dieken, Esq

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 First Choice has established a present injury to its First Amend ment associational rights sufficient to confer Article III standing. 

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In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court held that Louisiana’s congressional map (SB8), which created an additional majority-Black district, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because race predominated in its design without a sufficient justification. The Court clarified that while compliance with §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 can qualify as a compelling interest under strict scrutiny, §2 properly interpreted only requires proof of intentional discrimination—not mere disparate impact—and thus did not require Louisiana to add another majority-minority district. The Court revised the Thornburg v. Gingles framework to align with that int...