As we noted in Monday’s newsletter, we are expecting 23 more opinions by early July. Compared to the past two terms, the court is actually ahead of schedule: At this point last year, there were 26 cases left to decide. And at this point in 2024, there were 27 cases awaiting a ruling.
Plus, if you’d like to attend our term-in-review event at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, which will take place on July 8 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. EDT, don’t forget to register your interest here. The event will feature a fireside chat with the ACLU’s Cecillia Wang, who argued the birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court; a discussion of the historical framework of birthright citizenship from Johns Hopkins professor Martha S. Jones; and a live taping of the Advisory Opinions podcast.
At the Court
The court has indicated that it may announce opinions on Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30.
After any opinion announcements tomorrow, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected on Monday, June 15, at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
Morning Reads
US trade judge urges Trump administration to speed up tariff refunds
Luc Cohen and Tom Hals, Reuters (paywalled)
On Tuesday, Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade “urged Trump administration officials to speed up refunds of more than $10 billion in revenue from tariffs that were collected and later deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, but stopped short of issuing a new order compelling them to do so,” according to Reuters. Eaton “said the delay in processing some claims was leading to a ‘growing inequity’ between large importers who hired customs brokers to help them navigate a government system for seeking refunds, and smaller businesses which had not.” He also “questioned whether the government truly intended to process” refunds that have been delayed “given its appeal of his March 4 order” requiring all tariff payments to be refunded. A Customs and Border Protection official who testified at Tuesday's hearing said the government "can't do it all at once.”
US appeals court raises concerns about Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas for executions
Kim Chandler, Associated Press
On Monday night, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit “reversed a judge’s May finding that” nitrogen gas execution “does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment,” according to the Associated Press. The panel did not delay Jeffery Lee’s planned execution, which was scheduled for Thursday in Alabama, but it asked U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks to revisit Lee's request to die by firing squad. The AP noted that the “Supreme Court requires a two-prong test for people challenging the constitutionality of an execution method. They must show the method provides a substantial risk of superadded pain and that a feasible alternative method is available. The appeals court said Lee met the first test but sent [his case] back to the trial court to consider the second.” On Tuesday, Marks "permanently blocked Alabama from executing" Lee with nitrogen gas, according to a follow-up story from the AP. "Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office is appealing the decision, according to a Tuesday night court filing,” and “the issue seems likely bound for the U.S. Supreme Court, which so far has never ruled a state’s execution method to be unconstitutional.”
A Haitian family waits, and prays, as the Supreme Court decides their future
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Boston Globe (paywalled)
As the Supreme Court considers the Trump administration’s effort to end Haitian and Syrian nationals’ participation in the Temporary Protected Status program, the Boston Globe profiled a Haitian family whose lives will be changed “irrevocably” by the justices’ eventual ruling. Lusenie Jean, Marckenson Gilles, and their three children “are able to lawfully reside and work in the United States” because of TPS, and the family says “losing their legal status would lead to the loss of everything they’ve worked for since 2014, when Gilles first left Haiti in hopes of escaping poverty and violence in the north of the country.” If the court sides with the administration, the family does not plan to return to Haiti due to “[a]rmed conflict and gang violence” there and may, instead, “return to Brazil, where they spent about five years before coming to the United States.”
The Supreme Court Justice Who Ended Up Behind Bars
Major Questions with Jesse Wegman
For his Major Questions newsletter, Jesse Wegman wrote about James Wilson, “a Supreme Court justice and American founder you likely haven’t heard of.” After writing “an essay that multiple historians believe inspired the preamble of the Declaration of Independence” and “the first draft of the Constitution,” Wilson was appointed “to the first Supreme Court by George Washington.” But as Wegman explores in his forthcoming book, The Lost Founder, Wilson’s legal career – and personal life – was ultimately derailed by “disastrous” financial decisions. “Wilson spent his last years buried under a mountain of debt, on the run from his creditors and the law, even while he was still a sitting justice of the Supreme Court.”
If the Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Hold Your Applause
Leah Litman, The Contrarian
In a column for The Contrarian, Leah Litman urged court watchers not to give the justices too much credit if and when they invalidate President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. “Some commentators will use such a decision to push back against claims that the Court is partisan at all,” she predicted, “while others will suggest that our constitutional system needs the Supreme Court, even if it is this one, to ensure that people like Donald Trump can’t nullify the Constitution.” But, according to Litman, the birthright citizenship battle is an “easy” case and shouldn’t excuse the court’s recent rulings on race and redistricting, which also involved the 14th Amendment. “[W]hen the Supreme Court says that the President can’t nullify a provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, keep in mind that the Supreme Court is not a reliable check against this administration’s impulse to discard the portions of the Constitution it doesn’t like. In fact, it’s a frequent partner in crime,” Litman contended.
On Site
From the SCOTUSblog Team
The Supreme Court and the right to bear arms: an explainer
In the second entry in her series explaining the Second Amendment, Alex examined what, according to the court, comprises the category of “arms” protected by the amendment. Like the question of who comprises “the people,” the answer here is surprisingly complicated.
Contributor Corner
The Supreme Court’s neutering of the First Step Act
In his Civil Rights and Wrongs column, Daniel Harawa examined Supreme Court rulings on the First Step Act, a signification piece of prison reform litigation that aimed to “reduce excessive sentences and expand the mechanisms for relief for those serving those harsh sentences.” According to Harawa, “the bulk of the court’s First Step Act jurisprudence is at war with that purpose.”
Podcasts
Advisory Opinions
Counting Down the Supreme Court Term
Sarah Isgur and David French look at what’s left on the docket from this term before diving into a little Los Angeles mayoral politics.
Ask Amy
What court traditions do you think should be left behind?
How much time do you have? There are so many, but I'll limit it to just one for today. (Although I'm glad to provide more in a future "Ask Amy" ... just ask!) I'll start with the morning coat – the most formal daytime attire for men, traditionally worn by men in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General when they argue before the court. If you haven't been to an argument to see it, think Prince William at Ascot, but without the top hat or Princess Kate alongside him. The morning coat is archaic (apparently a vestige of a time when all lawyers at the court dressed like this) and, more importantly, it's deeply gendered. Although some women in the solicitor general's office have worn the morning suit (or a feminized version of it), it dates back to an era when everyone in the office was a man. And the result is that there is an "official" uniform for men but not for women. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist once asked Maureen Mahoney, his former clerk and a Deputy Solicitor General during the George H.W. Bush administration, why she didn't wear the morning coat. She responded that, for women, the equivalent would be a wedding dress. When now-Justice Elena Kagan served as the solicitor general during the Obama administration, she opted out of the morning coat altogether, instead wearing a black pantsuit with a light-blue blouse. If a regular suit is good enough for Elena Kagan, it should be good enough for everyone, regardless of gender.
SCOTUS Quote
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “If it were – if we were not to find State immunity, would the merger be subject to the rule of reason?”
MR. WAXMAN: “I am embarrassed to say I don't know enough about Sherman Act laws –”
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “I was embarrassed to ask the question, but I was taught to ask the question. If it is – I'm going to assume that we'll both be – we'll both be corrected by our respective colleagues, soon enough.”
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “But – but if it –”
MR. WAXMAN: “Probably me sooner than you.”
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “That's likely.”
