Enter June: The SCOTUS rush approaches

Thirty-one decisions remain. Update: No news from SCOTUS on Monday on the trans case petitions.

As it always does for me, May went by more quickly than I imagined possible. I got a lot done here, at and for Law Dork, but there is so much more that I am eager to get done. Some of my “project” work will continue in June — and has this weekend — and there also will be important lower court developments that I’ll cover, but a lot of my focus this month will be on the U.S. Supreme Court and the 31 decisions that remain.

The justices have yet to issue a decision in Trump v. U.S., the case where Donald Trump is seeking immunity from federal prosecution for life for virtually everything done in office. The justices don’t have the same presidential-primary deadline like they had in the Fourteenth Amendment challenge Trump brought earlier this term, but they nonetheless have shown us with that case that they can fully resolve important cases — on the merits — quickly. Every day the court holds the Trump immunity case without resolution is another day making it less and less likely that the special counsel’s January 6-related case against Trump will proceed to trial before the election and more and more likely that the prosecution will only happen at all if Trump loses the election in the fall.

Then, there’s also the other January 6-related case before the justices this term, Fischer v. U.S., which remains pending, and that outcome about the scope of a federal obstruction statute could further complicate Trump’s prosecution in the special counsel’s D.C.-based case.

Justice Sam Alito, who is a problem, will be participating in those cases, he has told us, and Chief Justice John Roberts has essentially said that’s good enough for him.

Speaking of the ethical questions surrounding Alito, the tax case that he declined to recuse himself from — Moore v. U.S. — remains outstanding as well. While the arguments didn’t go well for the Moores — whose lawyers include a man who also was the co-author of two cozy “interviews” with Alito published in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal last year — we won’t know the outcome until the justices hand it down.

We also are still awaiting — and likely will be for a couple more weeks — decisions in six other major cases: the abortion access cases relating to mifepristone and emergency care, gun cases challenging the federal law banning firearm possession by those with a domestic violence order out against them and the federal rule banning bump stocks, and a pair of administrative state cases that could upend the powers of executive agencies.

Also, though we got the National Rifle Association case decision on May 30, I’m waiting until we see what the court does in what was essentially the companion case, Murthy v. Missouri, about the Biden administration’s interaction with social media companies before writing. Additionally, decisions in the NetChoice cases — over Florida and Texas’s content moderation laws — will add more to any discussion of the court’s treatment of government actions regulating speech.

Nearly 20 other cases remain as well, many of which are important in their own right, with the first June decisions expected at 10 a.m. Thursday.

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Watch the Law Dork videos for discussions with national experts on several of the high-profile cases still pending before the Supreme Court.

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Here at Law Dork, I’ll be bringing you non-stop coverage of these decisions — and much more — so I’m keeping this short tonight.

Additionally, I’ll be starting off first thing Monday with orders out of last Friday’s private conference of the justices.

Among the petitions I’m watching closely are the trio of petitions — from challengers to the Kentucky and Tennessee bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors, as well as from the Justice Department — asking the justices to review these laws and reverse the September 2023 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holding that the bans are likely constitutional.

Thus far, the justices have just relisted these petitions each week once they started considering them in May, and it’s entirely possible we won’t hear anything on these until late June — or not at all this term — but, if there is news in the morning, I’ll be on it.

[Update, 11:50 a.m.: The Supreme Court took no action on Monday on the cases involving the Tennessee or Kentucky bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors, and the trio of petitions have been relisted for the June 6 conference.

Regarding a question that came up elsewhere: Since the cases will not be heard until the fall in the new term if granted now, there is no real difference between the court taking action now or in late June. Additionally, since the Tennessee and Kentucky laws are in effect now and have been in effect since last fall, there is not any additional harm coming from the delay in a decision on the certiorari petitions.

In other words, although it is bad the laws are in effect and have been allowed to remain so, the timing of whether a case is granted in March, April, May, June, or even July is largely irrelevant.

Finally, although not by any means a rule, the justices do tend to avoid significant cert grants in May and early June, relisting those cases and granting or rejecting them in the final, “clean-up” orders issued after the final decisions of the term.]