Supreme Court of the United States

The Court granted the Government's application to stay the District Court's injunction pending appellate proceedings, concluding that the Government was likely to establish that the States lacked standing and that their claims were unripe.

The Court denied Jones’s petition for a writ of certiorari. Justice Sotomayor, respecting that denial, explained that although the Court did not decide the issue, lower courts should consider whether a collateral-review or appeal waiver may be enforced when a defendant challenges the constitutional validity of the…

The Court held that children born in the United States to parents who are 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.

A per curiam Court granted the detainees' application for an injunction pending further proceedings, construed it as a petition for certiorari before judgment, granted the petition, vacated the Fifth Circuit's dismissal of the detainees' interlocutory appeal as premature, and remanded.

The Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to obtain an abortion, overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and returned the authority to regulate or prohibit abortion to the people and their elected representatives.

The Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an ordinary, law-abiding citizen's right to carry a handgun publicly for self-defense. It rejected the lower courts' two-step framework employing means-end scrutiny and required the government to justify firearm regulations by demonstrating consistency…

The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch joined by seven Members, held that attempted Hobbs Act robbery is not a "crime of violence" under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A): applying the categorical approach, no element of the offense requires proof that the defendant used, attempted to use, or threatened to use…

The Supreme Court held, based on the text, structure, and history of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), that the term "mistake" in Rule 60(b)(1) includes a judge's errors of law, and it declined the Government's invitation to limit the term to "obvious" legal errors.

The Supreme Court held that Bivens does not extend to create damages causes of action for Robert Boule's Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim against Border Patrol Agent Erik Egbert or his First Amendment retaliation claim.

The Supreme Court, unanimously in an opinion by Justice Kagan, held that the Eighth Circuit erred in conditioning a waiver of the contractual right to arbitrate on a showing of prejudice.

The Supreme Court held that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review facts found as part of discretionary-relief proceedings under 8 U.S.C. §1255 and the other provisions enumerated in §1252(a)(2)(B)(i), affirming the Eleventh Circuit's en banc judgment.

The Supreme Court held that when a state court has adjudicated a state prisoner's claim on the merits, a federal habeas court must apply both Brecht's actual-prejudice test and AEDPA's 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) standard before granting relief; satisfying Brecht is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

The Supreme Court held that to satisfy the favorable-termination element of a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983, a plaintiff need only show that the criminal prosecution ended without a conviction; no affirmative indication of innocence is required.

The Supreme Court held that California's regulation granting labor organizations a 'right to take access' to agricultural employers' property for up to three hours per day, 120 days per year, constitutes a per se physical taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Supreme Court held that a criminal offense requiring only a mens rea of recklessness does not qualify as a 'violent felony' under ACCA's elements clause, reversing the enhancement of Charles Borden's felon-in-possession sentence that rested in part on a 2007 Tennessee reckless aggravated assault conviction.

The Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Tenth Circuits erred in imposing an issue-exhaustion requirement on six disability claimants' Appointments Clause challenges to their SSA administrative law judges: because no statute or regulation required issue exhaustion, and because SSA ALJ proceedings are inquisitorial…

The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh, held that for a defendant who committed a homicide while under 18, Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana require only a discretionary sentencing procedure in which the sentencer may impose a lesser punishment after considering the offender's youth; they do…

The Court held that Montana and Minnesota courts may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over Ford in products-liability suits involving vehicles that malfunctioned and injured residents in those States, even though the particular vehicles were designed, manufactured, and first sold elsewhere.

The Supreme Court held that the application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a Fourth Amendment seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued, so the officers seized Roxanne Torres at the instant their bullets struck her despite her escape.

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Thomas, held that the District Court's dismissal of King's Federal Tort Claims Act claims — by summary judgment and in the alternative under Rule 12(b)(6) — was a judgment on the merits that can trigger the FTCA's judgment bar, even though the dismissal also…

The Supreme Court, per curiam, granted certiorari and vacated the Fifth Circuit's judgment, which had affirmed summary judgment for Texas correctional officers on qualified-immunity grounds even though it recognized that six days spent in feces-covered and sewage-flooded cells violated the Eighth Amendment.

The Supreme Court held that the land reserved for the Creek Nation since the nineteenth century remains Indian country for purposes of the Major Crimes Act: only Congress can disestablish a reservation, and no Act of Congress clearly expressing that intent exists, so allotment-era legislation, Oklahoma's historical…

The Supreme Court held that the CFPB's leadership by a single Director insulated from at-will removal violates the separation of powers, because the Director unilaterally wields significant executive power without accountability to the elected President; the Court declined to extend Humphrey's Executor or Morrison to…

The Court held that 8 U.S.C. §1252(e)(2)'s limits on habeas review of expedited removal orders are constitutional as applied to Thuraissigiam, a Sri Lankan national apprehended 25 yards inside the border after entering without inspection: the Suspension Clause protects at minimum only the writ as it existed in 1789…

The Supreme Court held that an employer who fires an individual merely for being homosexual or transgender violates Title VII's prohibition on discrimination 'because of sex,' reading the statute's terms according to their ordinary public meaning at enactment: 'because of' imports but-for causation, 'discriminate…

The Supreme Court held that under the Prison Litigation Reform Act's three-strikes provision, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a prisoner accrues a strike whenever a prior federal civil action was dismissed for failure to state a claim, regardless of whether the dismissal was entered with or without prejudice.

The Supreme Court held that 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(a)(2)(C) and (D), which bar judicial review of factual challenges to final orders of removal for noncitizens convicted of specified crimes, do not bar judicial review of factual challenges to Convention Against Torture (CAT) orders.

The Supreme Court affirmed the Eighth Circuit's dismissal of retired U.S. Bank defined-benefit plan participants' ERISA fiduciary-mismanagement suit, holding that James Thole and Sherry Smith lack Article III standing because they have received all vested monthly benefits and will continue receiving identical payments…

The Supreme Court held that a timely Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion to alter or amend a federal habeas court's judgment is not a 'second or successive' habeas application under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), but is instead part and parcel of the prisoner's first habeas proceeding.

The Court held that the Ninth Circuit abused its discretion by abandoning the parties’ presentation of the appeal and independently injecting a facial overbreadth challenge that the respondent had not raised.

The Supreme Court held that the Ninth Circuit appeals panel abused its discretion by commandeering Evelyn Sineneng-Smith's appeal: it named three amici to brief and argue panel-framed questions—including whether 8 U.S.C.

The Supreme Court overruled Apodaca v. Oregon and held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, requires unanimity to convict a criminal defendant, reversing Evangelisto Ramos's Louisiana felony conviction by a 10-2 jury; the Court's opinion for the…

The Supreme Court held that a plaintiff suing under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 must plead and ultimately prove that race was a but-for cause of its injury, rejecting Entertainment Studios Network's invitations to import Title VII's 'motivating factor' test and to accept a reduced showing at the pleading stage.

The Court held that a defendant preserves an appellate challenge to the substantive reasonableness of a sentence by advocating in the trial court for a shorter specific sentence, without separately objecting after the sentence is imposed or using the word "reasonableness." Because the defendant sought no additional…

The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Alito, held that Bivens does not supply a damages remedy for a cross-border shooting: the claim arises in a new context, and multiple special factors—the incident's foreign-relations implications, its national-security dimensions, and Congress's consistent refusal to…

A unanimous Court on Parts I-II held that several state respondents have Article III standing because an undercount of noncitizen households would imminently cost them federally allocated funds, and that the Enumeration Clause, informed by two centuries of open and unchallenged practice, permits Congress and the…

A plurality of the Court, with Justice Breyer concurring in the judgment, held that applying 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k)'s mandatory minimum five-year prison term—triggered solely by a judge's preponderance-standard finding, without a jury, that a supervisee committed specified offenses—violated the Fifth and Sixth…

The Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B)'s residual clause is unconstitutionally vague because its text, context, and history compel the categorical, ordinary-case approach that Johnson and Dimaya found incompatible with due process and separation of powers; the government's newly urged case-specific…

The Supreme Court held that a government violates the Takings Clause—and the owner acquires an actionable Fifth Amendment claim—the moment it takes property without paying just compensation, so the owner may sue under 42 U.S.C. §1983 immediately, without first pursuing state inverse condemnation procedures.

The Supreme Court held that in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and § 924(a)(2) the word 'knowingly' applies to both the conduct and the status elements, so the Government must prove that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and also knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from…