Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

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Supreme Court of the United States episodes

  • Case: 19-71 TANZIN V. TANVIR (2020-Oct-6)
    QUESTION PRESENTED:
    1. Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. 2000bbet seq., permits suits seeking money damages against individual federal employees.
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    1 hr 1 min
  • Case: 19-309 CARNEY V. ADAMS (2020-Oct-05)
    QUESTION PRESENTED:
    1. Does the First Amendment invalidate a longstanding state constitutional provision that limits judges affiliated with any one political party to no more than a "bare majority" on the State's three highest courts, with the other seats reserved for judges affiliated with the "other major political party''?
    2. Did the Third Circuit err in holding that a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring that no more than a "bare majority" of three of the state courts may be made up of judges affiliated with any one political party is not severable from a provision that judges who are not members of the majority party on those courts must be members of the other "major political party," when the former requirement existed for more than fifty years without the latter, and the former requirement, without the latter, continues to govern appointments to two other courts?
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    1 hr 2 min
  • SIDEBAR - Supreme Court Appointment Process

    While the U.S. Constitution assigns explicit roles in the Supreme Court appointment process only to the President and the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee, throughout much of the nation's history, has also played an important, intermediary role. From 1816, when the Judiciary Committee was created, until 1868, more than two-thirds of nominations to the Supreme Court were referred to the committee, in each case by motion. In 1868, the Senate determined, as a general rule, that all nominations should automatically be referred to appropriate standing committees. Since then, all but seven Supreme Court nominations, with the most recent being in 1941, have been referred to the Judiciary Committee.

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    32 min
  • SIDEBAR - The Death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    On September 18, 2020, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, passed away at the age of eighty-seven, vacating a seat on the High Court that she had held for twenty-seven years. It is likely that Justice Ginsburg’s views in closely decided Supreme Court cases will be of most interest to Members of Congress as the Senate considers a nominee to fill her seat, as those cases may illustrate how the Court may change in her absence. 

    This Episode highlights several areas of law where Justice Ginsburg—either by authoring or joining a majority opinion or a notable dissent—proved consequential to the trajectory of Supreme Court jurisprudence.

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    34 min
  • SIDEBAR - Supreme Court Rules CFPB Structure Unconstitutional: Implications for Congress
    On June 29, 2020, in the case Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that the statutory provision limiting the President’s authority to remove the director of the CFPB violated the Constitution by infringing on the President’s powers to execute the laws. The opinion provides guidance on Congress’s authority to insulate agencies from presidential influence by explaining that, under current precedent, Congress may shield executive branch officials from removal by the President only in two limited circumstances:
    (1) when so-called inferior officers have limited duties and no policymaking or administrative authority, and
    (2) when a multi- member body of experts does not wield substantial executive power. In the view of the majority, the CFPB’s leadership structure, which included a sole director wielding substantial power, did not fit within either exception and was therefore unconstitutional.
    Despite this determination, the Court held that the restriction limiting the President’s ability to remove the CFPB Director is severable from the rest of the statute, which means the agency may otherwise continue to exercise the powers assigned by Congress with a Director who is removable at the President’s discretion.
    This Sidebar explains the Court’s holding in Seila Law, summarizes two partially concurring and dissenting opinions, and previews considerations for Congress.
    22 min
  • SIDEBAR - Supreme Court: DACA Rescission Violated the APA
    On June 18, 2020, in the case Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, the Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that the reasoning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered in support of its decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative was inadequate and therefore violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The Supreme Court’s decision means that, at least for the time being, the DACA initiative will remain in place, offering the prospect of continued relief from removal and work authorization to the approximately 650,000 current DACA recipients and apparently also to eligible childhood arrivals who have not previously enrolled in the program. The decision, however, is limited in particular respects. It does not prevent the Trump Administration from taking new action to rescind DACA—indeed, the decision reaffirms that the Administration has power to do so, so long as it supplies adequate justification under the APA. The decision also does not address whether DACA itself is legal; instead, it goes no further than to hold that, in rescinding DACA, DHS failed to think through important issues about the available policy options and the interests of current DACA recipients.
    19 min
  • SIDEBAR - Supreme Court Rules Title VII Bars Discrimination Against Gay and Transgender Employees: Potential Implications
    On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court issued a decision in a series of cases brought by gay and transgender workers alleging that their employers violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) by discriminating against them “because of . . . sex.” The Court held 6-3 in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia that Title VII forbids employers from firing an individual for being gay or transgender. The Court’s decision in Bostock was consolidated with two other cases, Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. EEOC. (An earlier Sidebar addresses lower court decisions in these cases and provides further background on Title VII.)
    This Sidebar explains the Court’s holding in Bostock and highlights some potential implications of the decision for other areas of the law, including the “bona fide occupational qualification” (BFOQ) exception in Title VII; constitutional exceptions and religious-based exemptions to Title VII; various aspects of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX); and statutes that incorporate Title IX’s requirements, such as the Affordable Care Act.
    19 min
  • SIDEBAR - Supreme Court Permits Retroactive Punitive Damages Against Sudan in Terrorism Cases
    More than two decades after the U.S. embassies bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, some plaintiffs who alleged that Sudanese support of Al Qaeda contributed to the attacks have won the opportunity to obtain punitive damages against the government of Sudan. The Supreme Court decided 8-0 (with no participation by Justice Kavanaugh) in Opati v. Republic of Sudan that Congress intended to make punitive damages available on a retroactive basis when it updated the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in 2008. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) had decided otherwise, invalidating $4.3 billion in punitive damages and halving the Opati plaintiffs’ award for the embassy bombings. Under Opati, the D.C. Circuit is to reinstate some or all of those punitive damages.
    10 min
  • SIDEBAR - No Judicial Review of Certain Patent Office Decisions, Supreme Court Holds
    In 2011, Congress enacted major patent reform in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The AIA, among other things, created inter partes review (IPR), an adversarial procedure during which the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s (PTO’s) Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) reviews the validity of issued patents. In particular, IPR allows any person, other than the patentee, to petition the PTAB for review of a patent.
    After receiving a petition, the PTAB may institute an IPR if it determines that “there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail.” However, 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) (the so-called “time-bar”) provides that the PTAB may not institute an IPR if the petition “is filed more than 1 year after the date on which the petitioner . . . is served with a complaint alleging infringement of the patent.” Under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) (the so-called “no-appeal provision”), moreover, the PTAB’s determination to institute an IPR “under this section shall be final and nonappealable.”
    In Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP, decided on April 20, 2020, the Supreme Court interpreted the no-appeal provision broadly by holding that the PTAB’s determination that an IPR is not time-barred falls within § 314(d) and therefore may not be appealed. (The case was previewed before argument in this CRS sidebar.) The decision in Click-to-Call may have considerable implications for the breadth of the PTAB’s authority moving forward.
    14 min
  • SIDEBAR - High Court Tosses Bridgegate Convictions
    On May 7, 2020, a unanimous Supreme Court threw out the federal fraud convictions of two former New Jersey officials whose politically motivated scheme redirected access to toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York leading to gridlock. The federal fraud statutes at issue condemn schemes to obtain money or property. The High Court concluded that the “property” envisioned does not include a governmental entity’s interest in the regulatory allocation of its resources, such as access to lanes on its toll bridges; nor does it include the value of the services of public employees whose efforts are incidental to implementing such a regulatory choice. As the Supreme Court reasoned, “[t]o rule otherwise would undercut [the] Court’s oft-repeated instruction: Federal prosecutors may not use property fraud statutes to set[] standards of disclosure and good government for local and state officials.”
    15 min

About Supreme Court of the United States

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Supreme Court Season episodes will include all arguments that occur from October 01st to April/May.