Chief Justice John Marshall died on this day in 1835, at age 79. He served on the court for more than 34 years and remains the longest-serving chief justice. It’s no wonder, then, that we needed two Closer Looks to tell Marshall’s life story.
On a separate note, mark your calendars for Thursday, July 16, when SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe will join Briefly’s Adam Stofsky for a LinkedIn Live event about the most consequential decisions of the 2025-26 term. The livestream will begin at noon EDT. Register here.
Morning Reads
US Supreme Court to hear gun, LGBT, voting rights cases in next term
Nate Raymond and Will Dunham, Reuters (paywalled)
As it wrapped up its “momentous” 2025-26 term, the Supreme Court added several notable cases to its argument docket for next term, which now includes issues such as “guns, voting restrictions, LGBT rights and a disputed detention policy used by President Donald Trump’s administration for certain convicted immigrants,” according to Reuters. “There also are cases due to be argued in the next term involving big corporations,” including “a bid by ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to scuttle a climate-related lawsuit by officials in Boulder, Colorado, a dispute arising from an antitrust suit by ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games against Apple and a trademark case involving PepsiCo.”
Bipartisan coalition of state AGs take on tech over age verification
Owen Dahlkamp, Politico
The court on its interim docket is considering a request from “Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, a youth advocacy organization, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a tech trade organization,” to bar Texas from enforcing its “App Store Accountability Act, which would require app stores and developers to verify the age of their users and obtain parental consent for any purchases by minors.” Last month, “[a] bipartisan group of 27 state attorneys general” filed an amicus brief in support of Texas, contending that states have a right to “prevent kids from accessing inappropriate or mature content,” according to Politico. “The brief, led by Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier, comes against the backdrop of rising public skepticism of tech companies, a flurry of litigation around child online safety and a legislative debate on Capitol Hill about how best to regulate minors’ experience online.”
Conservatives seek blue-state bans on trans athletes in wake of Supreme Court win
Laura Meckler and Lauren Lumpkin, The Washington Post (paywalled)
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court held “that states may ban trans athletes from girls and women’s teams, affirming policies in 27 states.” But the ruling did not address whether states must enact such bans, and cases that raise that question are “making their way through lower courts,” according to The Washington Post. Through their work on these cases and related policy efforts, “the Trump administration and conservative advocacy groups are pressing forward in pursuit of a coast-to-coast ban” “against transgender girls in sports.”
Breyer Details Retirement Calculus for Leaving Supreme Court
Matthew S. Schwartz, Bloomberg Law
In a podcast interview for Bloomberg Law, retired Justice Stephen Breyer reflected on what led him to retire in 2022, noting that “‘it’s possible, of course,’ that who occupies the White House plays a role in when justices opt to leave the US Supreme Court,” but adding that “‘[t]here are lots of things involved.’” “There’s your family, your children, your grandchildren, what are you going to do? There are all kinds of things involved” in the decision, he said. Breyer also commented on the country’s 250th birthday, saying that “he remains optimistic about the country’s future based on his talks with middle school students.” “They are interested. And therefore there is a reason for being optimistic, even though people in this country do not always agree with each other,” Breyer said.
Judge rejects Trump bid to delay $5.8M payment to E. Jean Carroll
Bart Jansen, USA Today
On June 29, the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear President Donald Trump’s appeal of a $5 million jury verdict entered against him in a sexual abuse and defamation case filed by E. Jean Carroll. Carroll then “asked a federal court in Manhattan on June 30 to order Trump to pay her the money,” plus around $800,000 in “interest that has been accruing while Trump pursued his appeal,” according to USA Today. Trump’s legal team asked the Manhattan court for extra time to respond to Carroll’s filing, emphasizing that a new addition to the team “needs time to learn the case,” but “U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ... denied the request in a one-sentence order July 4.” Trump’s team must now file its reply to Carroll’s request for the payment by tomorrow.
‘God commands us not to kill’: Faith leaders protest 50 years of executions
Aleja Hertzler-McCain and Chloe Landen, Religion News Service
July 2 marked 50 years since the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia “ruled capital punishment did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The decision was a dramatic reversal of the court’s 1972 ruling in Furman v. Georgia, which had halted executions nationwide,” according to Religion News Service. “[A]bout 85 protesters” raised awareness of the anniversary with an event outside the Supreme Court, “appealing to passersby and the consciences of the justices inside” to join their effort to end the death penalty. “God commands us not to kill,” said Art Laffin, an organizer of the Starvin’ for Justice protest, to RNS. “It’s not an option, it’s a command.”
On Site
From the SCOTUSblog Team
The Trump term?
The Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term will likely be remembered as one of the most consequential in recent memory. This was certainly the case for President Donald Trump, who was the named party in four of the term’s biggest cases and became the first sitting president to attend an oral argument.
SCOTUS Outside Opinions
A tale of two justices and their children’s books
In a column for SCOTUSblog, Rodger Citron explored the “phenomenon of justices writing children’s books,” and then closely examined and compared two such books: Heroes of 1776, coauthored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Just Ask!, authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
A Closer Look
The “Big” Opinion Days
Over the past month, much was made of whether the Supreme Court would release its most anticipated cases last. Last week finally gave us the answer, as the justices issued decisions on executive power, mail-in ballots, and geofence warrants and the Fourth Amendment on Monday, June 29, followed by rulings on birthright citizenship, campaign finance, and transgender athletes on the last day of the term for opinions issued in argued cases, which ended up being on Tuesday, June 30.
That pattern is not unique to this term.
Last year, the court issued its final five decisions in argued cases on Friday, June 27, 2025, after releasing four opinions the day before. The June 27 release included Trump v. CASA, Mahmoud v. Taylor, and Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton. In CASA, a 6-3 majority held that federal courts lack the authority to issue “universal” injunctions. The case arose from challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, though the court did not address the constitutionality of the order itself until last week. In Mahmoud, the majority sided with a group of Maryland parents who sought to opt their children out of public-school instruction involving LGBTQ+ themed storybooks, holding that the school board’s no “opt-out” policy likely violated the parents’ right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. In Paxton, the court upheld a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages (holding that the law was subject to intermediate, rather than strict, scrutiny.)
On July 1, 2024, the last day of opinion hand downs for argued cases of the 2023-24 term, the court issued three decisions, including Trump v. United States, the presidential immunity case. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned the landmark administrative-deference doctrine from Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, was decided a few days before, on June 28.
When we look at the 2022-23 term, the major cases were similarly condensed: On June 29, 2023, the court issued Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, holding that affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. As for the final such day, which – like this term – was on June 30, the court released three decisions: 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the justices held that the First Amendment prevented Colorado from forcing a website designer to create wedding websites for same-sex couples against her religious objections; and Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown, in which the court held that the Biden administration’s plan to forgive around $430 billion in federal student loan debt exceeded the authority granted to the secretary of education.
The 2021-22 term was perhaps the most remarkable in recent memory for sheer blockbuster cases, though notably, its two biggest decisions did not fall on the term’s last days before summer recess. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which was the court’s “first significant decision on gun rights in over a decade,” holding that the Second Amendment protects a broad right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense,” was decided on June 23, 2022. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization came the very next day on June 24, 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade. The court then issued two opinions on June 29, 2022, and its final two on June 30, 2022, a week after Dobbs and more than a week after Bruen.
But why do the term’s biggest cases often come out later than their counterparts on the merits docket? In February, SCOTUSblog contributor Adam Feldman wrote that two factors, a case’s complexity and the resulting negotiations between the justices, are likely the main drivers. Looking at more than 1,700 argued cases decided between 2000 and the start of the 2025-26 term, Feldman found that close cases take longer to write, with unanimous decisions averaging just under 77 days from argument to opinion, while two-and four-vote margin cases averaged around 125 and 122 days, respectively. Feldman also found that the gap between argument and decision has generally gotten larger over the past two decades, and attributed this to case complexity, with “[d]ivided cases typically involv[ing] harder questions, more competing interests, and greater difficulty in crafting majority opinions that can hold five or more votes,” meaning the cases “naturally take longer to resolve, and their concentration at term’s end reflects this reality.”
SCOTUS Quote
“When an agency ‘executes’ a congressional mandate against private parties, it exercises executive power—no ifs, ands, or quasis about it.”
— Chief Justice John Roberts in Trump v. Slaughter (2026)
