SCOTUS Audio

Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual" with respect to "compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment" on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l). The Eighth Circuit below followed binding circuit precedent to hold that discriminatory job transfers (and denials of requested transfers) are lawful under Title VII when they do not impose "materially significant disadvantages" on employees.

The question presented is:

Does Title VII prohibit discrimination as to all "terms, conditions, or privileges of employment," or is its reach limited to discriminatory employer conduct that courts determine causes materially significant disadvantages for employees?

THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI IS GRANTED LIMITED TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: DOES TITLE VII PROHIBIT DISCRIMINATION IN TRANSFER DECISIONS ABSENT A SEPARATE COURT DETERMINATION THAT THE TRANSFER DECISION CAUSED A SIGNIFICANT DISADVANTAGE?

The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to lay "taxes on incomes ... without apportionment among the several States." Beginning with Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), this Court's decisions have uniformly held "income," for Sixteenth Amendment purposes, to require realization by the taxpayer. In the decision below, however, the Ninth Circuit approved taxation of a married couple on earnings that they undisputedly did not realize but were instead retained and reinvested by a corporation in which they are minority shareholders. It held that "realization of income is not a constitutional requirement" for Congress to lay an "income" tax exempt from apportionment. App.12. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit became "the first court in the country to state that an 'income tax' doesn't require that a 'taxpayer has realized income."' App.38 (Bumatay, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

The question presented is:

Whether the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to tax unrealized sums without apportionment among the states.

Whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to approve, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, a release that extinguishes claims held by nondebtors against nondebtor third parties, without the claimants’ consent.

1. Whether statutory provisions that empower the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to initiate and adjudicate administrative enforcement proceedings seeking civil penalties violate the Seventh Amendment.

2. Whether statutory provisions that authorize the SEC to choose to enforce the securities laws through an agency adjudication instead of filing a district court action violate the nondelegation doctrine.

3. Whether Congress violated Article II by granting for-cause removal protection to administrative law judges in agencies whose heads enjoy for-cause removal protection.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney General has discretion to cancel removal of non-permanent residents who satisfy four eligibility criteria, including "that removal would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to the applicant's immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(l)(D).

Congress stripped courts of jurisdiction to review cancellation-of-removal determinations, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), but expressly preserved their jurisdiction to review "questions of law." Id. § 1252(a)(2)(D). And as this Court has already held, this "statutory phrase 'questions of law' includes the application of a legal standard to undisputed or established facts"—that is, a "mixed question of law and fact." Guerrero- Lasprilla u. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1062, 1068-69 (2020).

The question presented is whether an agency determination that a given set of established facts does not rise to the statutory standard of "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" is a mixed question of law and fact reviewable under § 1252(a)(2)(D), as three circuits have held, or whether this determination is a discretionary judgment call unreviewable under § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i), as the court below and two other circuits have concluded.

The Georgia Supreme Court held that a jury's verdict of acquittal on one criminal charge and its verdict of guilty on a different criminal charge arising from the same facts were logically and legally impossible to reconcile. It called the verdicts "repugnant," vacated both of them, and subsequently held that the defendant could be prosecuted a second time on both charges. Does the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibit a second prosecution for a crime of which a defendant was previously acquitted?

The Armed Career Criminal Act provides that felons who possess a firearm are normally subject to a maximum 10-year sentence. But if the felon already has at least three "serious drug offense" convictions, then the minimum sentence is fifteen years.

Courts decide whether a prior state conviction counts as a serious drug offense using the categorical approach. That requires determining whether the elements of a state drug offense are the same as, or narrower than those of its federal counterpart. If so, the state conviction qualifies as an ACCA predicate.

But federal drug law often changes-as here, where Congress decriminalized hemp, narrowing the federal definition of marijuana. If state law doesn't follow suit, sentencing courts face a categorical conundrum. Under an earlier version of federal law, the state and federal offenses match-and the state offense is an ACCA predicate. Under the amended version, the offenses do not match-and the state offense is not an ACCA predicate. So the version of federal law that the court chooses to consult dictates the difference between serving a 10-year maximum or a 15-year minimum.

The question presented is:

Which version of federal law should a sentencing court consult under ACCA's categorical approach? The Armed Career Criminal Act mandates fifteen years in prison for federal firearm offenses where the defendant has three prior "violent felonies" or "serious drug offenses." The ACCA defines a "serious drug offense" as "an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)), for which a maximum term of imprisonment often years or more is prescribed by law." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) (emphasis added).

Four circuits have unanimously held that § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) incorporates the federal drug schedules in effect at the time of the federal firearm offense to which the ACCA applies. In the decision below, however, the Eleventh Circuit accepted the government's express invitation to reject those circuit decisions. In doing so, the Eleventh Circuit held that § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) instead incorporates the federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the defendant's prior state drug offense.

The question presented is:

Whether the "serious drug offense" definition in the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii), incorporates the federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the federal firearm offense (as the Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits have held), or the federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the prior state drug offense (as the Eleventh Circuit held below).1

1 A related question is presented in Altman, et al. v. United States (No. 22-5877) (response requested Nov. 16, 2022) and Brown v. United States (No. 22-6389) (docketed Dec. 23, 2022).

Whether a veteran who has served two separate and distinct periods of qualifying service under the Montgomery GI Bill, 38 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq., and under the Post- 9/11 GI Bill, 38 U.S.C. § 3301 et seq., is entitled to receive a total of 48 months of education benefits as between both programs, without first exhausting the Montgomery benefit in order to obtain the more generous Post-9/11 benefit.

Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders, violates the Second Amendment on its face.