So Ordered
AI-narrated readings of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions.
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AI-narrated readings of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions.
Reading the feed…
The Court holds that restitution imposed under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 is criminal punishment for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause. The statute's text and structure — it labels restitution a penalty for an offense, is codified in the criminal code, and is imposed at sentencing alongside imprisonment and fines — make that conclusion plain, even though Congress also intended restitution to compensate victims. CASE: Ellingburg v. United States AUTHOR: Kavanaugh, J. DECIDED: 2026-01-20 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r09_4fb4.pdf AI DISCLOSURE:
The Court holds that the federal election-day statutes do not require absentee ballots to reach election officials by election day. Because an "election" is the electorate's choice of candidate, and that choice is complete when voting ends rather than when ballots arrive, Mississippi may count absentee ballots that are postmarked by election day and received up to five business days later. CASE: Watson v. Republican National Committee AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-29 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1260_g3cn.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-ge
The Court holds that Rule 60(c)(1)'s requirement that a motion be made within a reasonable time applies to a Rule 60(b)(4) motion alleging that a judgment is void. A motion for relief from an allegedly void judgment is a "motion under Rule 60(b)," so the Rule's default time limit reaches it — resolving a split in which the Sixth Circuit stood alone against every other circuit. CASE: Coney Island Auto Parts Unlimited, Inc. v. Burton AUTHOR: Alito, J. DECIDED: 2026-01-20 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r08_f2q3.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-gener
The Court holds that the Federal Election Campaign Act's limits on how much a political party may spend in coordination with its own candidates violate the First Amendment. The base limits on contributions to candidates, the earmarking rules, and the disclosure requirements already serve the Government's interest in preventing circumvention, so the coordinated-expenditure caps are disproportionate and are not necessary and narrowly tailored. Colorado II, which had upheld those caps in 2001, is overruled. CASE: National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n AUTHOR: Kavanaug
The Court holds that an Internet service provider is not contributorily liable for its subscribers' copyright infringement merely because it knew certain accounts were being used to infringe and kept serving them. Contributory liability requires that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement, which can be shown only by inducement or by a service tailored to infringement — and Cox did neither. CASE: Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment AUTHOR: Thomas, J. DECIDED: 2026-03-25 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-171_new_3dq3.pdf AI DISCLOSURE
The Court holds that Congress did not clearly authorize convictions under both 18 U. S. C. §§ 924(c)(1)(A)(i) and (j) for a single act that violates both provisions. Because the two subsections define the same offense under Blockburger, and Congress never wrote into §924 the Blockburger-surmounting language it used elsewhere, one act may spawn only one conviction: subsection (j) is an alternative to subsection (c)(1)(A)(i), not a supplement to it. CASE: Barrett v. United States AUTHOR: Jackson, J. DECIDED: 2026-01-14 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r07_7647.pdf AI DI
The Court holds that, under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, schools may maintain separate women's and girls' sports teams for biological females and may determine eligibility for those teams based on biological sex. Title IX permits schools to provide sex-separated teams defined by biological sex, and limiting girls' and women's teams to biological females does not violate equal protection because the sex-based classification is substantially related to the important interests of safety and competitive fairness. CASE: West Virginia v. B. P. J. AUTHOR: Kava
The Court holds that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person's Google Location History data, because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information. That expectation is not defeated by the short, two-hour span of data the government obtained or by the fact that the records were held by a third-party company. The Court leaves for the Fourth Circuit the further question whether this particular geofence warrant made the search reasonable. CASE: Chatrie v. United States AUTHOR: Kagan, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-29 OPINION: https://w
The Court holds that the FTC's statutory provision limiting the President's ability to remove Commissioners only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office violates the separation of powers. Because the FTC exercises quintessentially executive power — rulemaking, enforcement, and civil litigation — its Commissioners must be removable by the President at will, and Humphrey's Executor v. United States is overruled to the extent it holds otherwise. CASE: Trump v. Slaughter AUTHOR: Roberts, C. J. DECIDED: 2026-06-29 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.
The Court holds that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are nonetheless "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and so are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause. The Clause incorporates the common law rule of jus soli — citizenship by birth on the soil — subject only to the narrow exceptions recognized at common law, such as the children of foreign ministers. President Trump's Executive Order denying birthright citizenship to such children is therefore inconsistent with the Constitution. CASE: Trum
The Court denies the Government's request to stay a District Court injunction that bars President Trump from removing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. On a narrow ground, the Court holds that the President failed to give Cook the notice and opportunity to respond that the Federal Reserve Act requires before a Governor may be removed for cause, so Cook remains in office while the litigation continues. CASE: Trump v. Cook AUTHOR: Roberts, C. J. DECIDED: 2026-06-29 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a312_5468.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcas
The Court holds that an alien standing in Mexico does not "arrive in the United States" by attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country — an alien arrives only when he crosses the border. As a result, the Immigration and Nationality Act neither entitles an alien stopped on the Mexican side of the border to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him. CASE: Mullin v. Al Otro Lado AUTHOR: Alito, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-25 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-5_86qd.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is prod
The Court holds that a Hawaii law barring licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public unless the owner gives express authorization violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. By flipping the common-law default — under which anyone has an implied license to enter property held open to the public unless the owner withdraws consent — the law imposes a severe new burden on the right to carry arms for self-defense, and the State's historical analogues, mostly old anti-poaching hunting laws, are too far afield to justify it. CASE: Wolford
The Court holds that the Temporary Protected Status statute's judicial-review bar forecloses respondents' non-constitutional challenges to the termination of TPS for Syria and Haiti, reaching not only the Secretary's ultimate decision but also the subsidiary steps leading to it. It further holds that the Haitian challengers' equal protection claim — that Haiti's designation was ended because of race — is unlikely to succeed, since the cited statements were not overtly racial and expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. The District Courts' grants of interim relief
The Court holds that individuals may not be held personally liable under a Spending Clause statute unless they have voluntarily and knowingly consented to answer lawsuits under it. Because the individual prison officers sued here never entered any agreement with the federal government to face liability under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the suit against them in their personal capacities cannot proceed. CASE: Landor v. Louisiana Dept of Corrections and Public Safety AUTHOR: Gorsuch, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-23 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/23-1197_
The Court holds that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not require a border officer to have clear and convincing evidence that a lawful permanent resident has committed a crime involving moral turpitude before treating that resident as an applicant for admission. Commission of the crime is enough to regard the resident as seeking admission; the clear-and-convincing-evidence burden the Board of Immigration Appeals applies arises only at the later removal hearing, not at the border. CASE: Blanche v. Lau AUTHOR: Thomas, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-23 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/
The Court holds that a defendant's agreement not to appeal his sentence is unenforceable when enforcing it would result in a miscarriage of justice — that is, when it would leave in place the kind of egregious, obvious error that would bring the judicial system into disrepute. This is a high bar that ordinary mistakes in applying sentencing law cannot meet. The Court remands for the Fifth Circuit to decide whether Hunter's challenge clears it. CASE: Hunter v. United States AUTHOR: Kagan, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-18 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1063new_l5gm.pdf AI DISCLOSU
The Court holds that a district court's erroneous dismissal of a nondiverse party does not cure a diversity-jurisdiction defect that existed at the time a case was removed to federal court. Because the defect therefore lingered through judgment uncured, the Fifth Circuit correctly vacated the District Court's judgment in Hain's favor — a district court cannot manufacture jurisdiction through its own mistake. CASE: Hain Celestial Group, Inc. v. Palmquist AUTHOR: Sotomayor, J. DECIDED: 2026-02-24 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us2r14_1a72.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in
The Court holds that the objective-reasonableness standard it set in Brigham City v. Stuart governs warrantless home entries to render emergency aid, and that it applies without any further gloss. Officers need not have probable cause to believe an emergency is occurring; they may enter when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury — a standard the officers here satisfied. CASE: Case v. Montana AUTHOR: Kagan, J. DECIDED: 2026-01-14 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r06_19m1.p
The Court holds that the government's prosecution of Ali Hemani under Section 922(g)(3)'s unlawful user provision — which automatically disarms anyone who is an unlawful user of a controlled substance — is inconsistent with the Second Amendment as applied to him. The habitual drunkard laws the government offered as a historical analogue targeted different people, for different reasons, and worked in different ways, so the government failed to show that disarming a regular marijuana user fits the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. CASE: United States v. Hemani AUTHOR: Gorsuch,
The Court holds that two AEDPA provisions governing successive habeas filings by state prisoners do not reach federal prisoners. Section 2244(b)(3)(E)'s bar on certiorari does not strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over a federal prisoner's request to file a second or successive motion under Section 2255, and Section 2244(b)(1)'s old-claim bar — which forbids relitigating a claim raised in a prior application — applies only to state-prisoner applications under Section 2254, not to federal-prisoner motions under Section 2255. CASE: Bowe v. United States AUTHOR: Sotomayor, J. DECIDED: 2026-
The Court holds that whether a debtor's failure to disclose a claim in bankruptcy was "inadvertent or mistaken" — the showing that can excuse applying judicial estoppel to bar a later lawsuit on that claim — must be judged from the totality of the circumstances surrounding the omission. The Fifth Circuit erred by confining that inquiry to just two factors: whether the debtor knew the facts underlying the claim and whether he had a potential motive to conceal it. CASE: Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc. AUTHOR: Jackson, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-11 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinio
The Court holds that a defendant charged under 18 U. S. C. § 1519 — which makes it a crime to knowingly falsify a document with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation — must be tried in the district where the falsification occurred, not in a district where the investigation was located. Because falsifying a document is the only conduct the statute proscribes, that act fixes venue; the statute's intent requirement is a mens rea element and does not move the trial to wherever the contemplated obstruction might be felt. CASE: Abouammo v. United States AUTHOR: Kagan, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-11
The Court holds that Section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act does not give private parties an implied right to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the Act. The provision is a mandate telling courts how to exercise their remedial power once parties are before them — not a grant of a right to sue — and Congress entrusted enforcement of the Act primarily to the Securities and Exchange Commission. CASE: FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-11 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-345_i42k.pdf A
The Court holds that a political candidate has Article III standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election. Congressman Michael Bost may therefore pursue his suit against Illinois's practice of counting mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day — without having to show that the rule risks costing him the election, a significant vote threshold, or money. CASE: Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections AUTHOR: Roberts, C. J. DECIDED: 2026-01-14 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r05_e2q3.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this pod
