Good morning, and welcome to the court’s fourth opinion day in less than two weeks. We will be live blogging beginning at 9:30 a.m. EST.
At the Court
On Tuesday, the court heard argument in Hunter v. United States, on whether a federal appeals court properly dismissed a Texas man’s appeal of a mandatory-medication condition when he had signed an appellate waiver as part of his plea agreement but the judge who imposed the condition told him that he had a right to appeal.
Also on Tuesday, the court denied a request for a stay of execution from Billy Leon Kearse, who was executed in Florida hours later.
As noted above, the court has indicated that it may announce opinions this morning at 10 a.m. EST. We will be live blogging beginning at 9:30 a.m.
After the possible announcement of opinions, the court will hear argument in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, on whether freight brokers can be held liable for negligent hiring.
Morning Reads
How Trump's bid to reshape House maps stalled after pushback from Democrats, courts
Joseph Ax, Reuters
About eight months ago, “President Donald Trump convinced Texas Republicans … to redraw the state’s congressional map,” sparking an unusual mid-decade redistricting push in several Republican-led states that was expected to net the GOP “as many as a dozen new House seats in November,” according to Reuters. But that redistricting effort has not played out as expected because “Trump’s push stalled in several Republican states, while Democrats’ own aggressive moves in states like California, and favorable court rulings, have allowed them to claw their way to a near-draw.” That said, the redistricting battle may not be over; a few Republican-led states could adopt new maps ahead of this year’s elections based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in its Voting Rights Act case.
Trump threatens to cut off trade with Spain after it disallowed US use of joint bases in Iran war
Fatima Hussein and Suman Naishadham, Associated Press
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump “threatened to end trade with Spain, citing a lack of support over the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and the European nation’s resistance to increasing its NATO spending,” according to the Associated Press. However, it was not immediately clear how Trump would carry out that threat, since Spain is part of the European Union and “[t]he EU negotiates trade deals on behalf of all 27 member countries.” The AP noted that Trump’s comments on Spain were “just the latest instance of the president wielding the threat of tariffs or trade embargoes as a punishment.” After the Supreme Court struck down his signature tariffs, Trump claimed “that the court allows him to instead impose full-scale embargoes on other nations of his choosing.”
Trump Administration, in Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms
Michael S. Schmidt, Jonah E. Bromwich, and Devlin Barrett, The New York Times
In an abrupt about-face, the Trump administration on Tuesday told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms,” which aim to force cooperation between the firms and the government, according to The New York Times. On Monday, the administration had requested “to abandon the fight” against four law firms that challenged the orders, but it has now asked to withdraw that request. Shira A. Scheindlin, a former federal district judge in Manhattan, told the Times that she expects the administration to “lose at the appeals court level,” but added that the executive orders “might have some faint hope at the Supreme Court.”
Mirabelli Offers a Beautiful Vision of the Emergency Docket
Josh Blackman, The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason
In a post for Reason’s Volokh Conspiracy blog, Josh Blackman reflected on the court’s Monday order in Mirabelli v. Bonta, an interim docket case concerning California policies on transgender students. The court’s ruling in favor of parents seeking to be notified if their children change the names or pronouns they’re using at school “represents an important installment in the Supreme Court’s developing emergency docket jurisprudence,” Blackman contended. “At this point … six Justices seem to agree when and why emergency relief is proper.”
What the Founders’ Drinking Habits Have to Do with Gun Rights
Charles C.W. Cooke, National Review
In a column for the National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke revisited Monday’s argument in United States v. Hemani, on the Second Amendment rights of users of illegal drugs, noting that “Justice Neil Gorsuch posed a question that has not typically been debated in detail at the Supreme Court: whether the Founding Fathers of the United States were ‘all habitual drunkards.’” That question may seem “peculiar” or even “rude,” Cooke wrote, but it was actually a “brilliant” way for Gorsuch to challenge the government’s contention that founding-era laws on habitual drunkards justify modern restrictions on drug users’ Second Amendment rights. By pointing out that the Founding Fathers were “a bunch of hearty libertarian sponges,” Gorsuch made it clear that habitual drunkard laws applied more narrowly than the government made it seem, according to Cooke.
On Site
The UK Supreme Court
For the debut entry in a new series on different supreme courts around the world, Zachary Shemtob spoke with Mark Elliott, a professor of public law at the University of Cambridge and fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, about the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Déjà vu all over again
In his latest Relist Watch column, John Elwood analyzed the one new relist set to be considered at this Friday’s conference, which raises a familiar question about whether restrictions on gun ownership for past felons violate the Second Amendment and a more novel one about sentencing guidelines for offenses involving a firearm capable of accepting a large capacity magazine.
Birthright citizenship: A note on foundlings and comments on four complementary amicus briefs
In their Brothers in Law column, Akhil and Vikram Amar explored four amicus briefs filed in the birthright citizenship case that address foundlings, or babies born of unknown parentage. “Together, these four briefs show that the foundling issue alone … is a sufficient basis on which to reject the Trump administration’s outlandish claim that, with small exceptions, a birthright citizen must be able to point to a citizen parent or a permanent-resident parent,” they contended.
The justices’ troubling message to lower courts
In his Civil Rights and Wrongs column, Daniel Harawa reflected on two recent decisions in which the court summarily reversed grants of habeas relief to state petitioners. “That the Supreme Court reversed in two habeas cases may not come as much of a surprise,” Harawa wrote. “But the repeated summary reversal … sends a more troubling message: that federal habeas relief should largely be understood as beyond reach.”
Podcasts
Trump Bypasses Congress on Iran
Sarah Isgur and David French debate whether President Donald Trump’s military action against Iran requires congressional authorization, explore the constitutional limits of presidential power, and argue over which version of James Madison deserves our respect.
The Alito Retirement Rumors
Since it was first announced in early August, Justice Samuel Alito’s new book – So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country – has created some … well, disorder.
Given its scheduled Oct. 6, 2026, release date, the book has prompted a news cycle (or three) of speculation that the “most consistently conservative” justice (at least according to one analysis) is set to retire before the next term commences.
One of the initial pieces on this was a Feb. 6 column by Elie Mystal, cheekily titled “Is Samuel Alito Preparing to Disrobe?” “The justices are busy in October. Arguably too busy to sell a book,” wrote Mystal. “The publication date of the book makes me think that Alito is planning to retire at the end of the Supreme Court’s current term, in July.”
Mystal added that Alito’s retirement would also be timely given the unpredictability of the 2026 midterms: If Alito retires in July, President Donald Trump and Republicans would still have time to appoint and confirm his replacement. “I think he’s leaving while Republicans still have the political power to replace him with another Sam Alito who is 30 years younger,” Mystal wrote.
Other Alito-retirement-rumor enthusiasts have pointed to the following: the associate justice’s age and tenure on the court (Alito “joined the high court 20 years ago,” a “very good milestone on which to retire”); his supposed political inclinations (“by retiring well in advance of the midterms, Justice Alito can ensure that his seat goes to a sympatico but much younger version of himself”); and his wife (“there’s also evidence that Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, would like him to step down from the bench so that both of them can openly express their political opinions”)
But not everyone agrees. David Lat titled his recent article, “Justice Samuel Alito Won’t Hang Up His Robes Anytime Soon.” Alito, according to Lat, “remains energetic and engaged as a justice” and is “still years away from the ages that SCOTUS members have retired at in recent years.” Lat also noted that Alito’s book may gain more readers if he stays on the bench, rather than leaving for a book tour (as the works of retired justices may not do quite so well).
With this speculation, of course, comes discussion of just who Alito’s successor would be. Some popular names (so far) include, in alphabetical order: Judges Patrick Bumatay (9th Cir.), Aileen Cannon (District Court for the Southern District of Florida), James Ho (5th Cir.), Andrew Oldham (5th Cir.), Neomi Rao (D.C. Circuit), and Amul Thapar (6th Cir.). But, given any such announcement would still be months away, this list is likely far from complete.
SCOTUS Quote
“The Framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.”
— Justice William Douglas in Beauharnais v. Illinois
The post SCOTUStoday for Wednesday, March 4 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.