The court has indicated that it may announce opinions this morning at 10 a.m. EDT. Our opinion day live blog begins at 9:30. Join us!
At the Court
After the possible announcement of opinions, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from today’s conference are expected on Monday at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
Also on Monday, the court will hear argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, on whether federal law requires not only that voters cast their ballots by Election Day, but also that election officials receive the ballots by then.
On Thursday, Justice Elena Kagan denied a request from a Western Apache tribe to block the government from transferring land in Arizona, including a sacred site called Oak Flat, to a mining company.
Morning Reads
More federal judges warn of an increase in violent threats
Lawrence Hurley, NBC News
During an online forum on Thursday, four sitting judges “added to the chorus of concerns raised about the rise in violent threats against members of the judiciary at a time when President Donald Trump has ramped up his criticism of the courts,” according to NBC News. They described being attacked on social media and over email as they weighed “all kinds of cases, not just those with a political tinge.” “I don’t think being a federal judge is a job for the fainthearted,” said Chief Judge Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Chief Justice John Roberts addressed threats against judges during an appearance in Houston earlier this week, saying “personal attacks against judges were dangerous and have ‘got to stop.’”
‘Embodied the American dream’: Sandra Day O’Connor remembered at Supreme Court
Zach Schonfeld, The Hill
Former clerks for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor “and top Justice Department officials gathered at the Supreme Court on Thursday to pay tribute to her as a barrier-breaking, tireless advocate for civics and those around her,” according to The Hill. “Justice O’Connor’s life embodied the American dream,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi during the event. In addition to Bondi, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, former Solicitors General Elizabeth Prelogar and Paul Clement, and eight of the nine active justices (everyone but Justice Neil Gorsuch) took part.
Trump wants the EPA to stop regulating climate pollution. Blue states have launched a high-stakes legal case against him
Ella Nilsen, CNN
On Thursday, leaders of 40 Democratic states, cities, and counties announced that they have “sued the Trump administration” over “the recent termination of a longstanding policy allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate climate pollution,” according to CNN. “The US DC Circuit Court of Appeals is the main legal battleground for the initial court fight between the Trump administration, environmental groups and blue states. If the latter groups prevail and Trump appeals, the case would likely wind up in front of the Supreme Court.”
9th Circuit upholds law barring domestic abusers from owning guns
Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that “[a]nyone who has been convicted of domestic violence can be permanently prohibited from possessing guns or ammunition under U.S. law,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge William Fletcher noted that “the United States has a long and justified tradition of prohibiting domestic abusers from possessing firearms” and that, in 2024, the Supreme Court upheld “another federal law that barred gun ownership by domestic abusers who have attacked or threatened someone in their household.” That 2024 “ruling involved civil restraining orders, not criminal prosecutions, but Fletcher said the legal basis was the same.”
A Gift From Trump to the Supreme Court
Adam Liptak, The New York Times
In his newsletter, The Docket, Adam Liptak revisited Trump’s Sunday night social media rant against the Supreme Court, contending that the president “inadvertently made the case for the court’s independence.” Trump attacked the Republican appointees who ruled against his tariffs, writing “that Republican justices ‘go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how “honest,” “independent,” and “legitimate” they are.’” “You can put [those words] in scare quotes,” Liptak wrote, “but it’s still a gift.”
The Supreme Court Should Let States Run Their Elections
Pat McCrory and Mark Schweiker, National Review
In a column for the National Review, Pat McCrory, a former governor of North Carolina, and Mark Schweiker, a former governor of Pennsylvania, urged the Supreme Court to allow states to count ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but that arrived shortly after – the practice being challenged in Watson v. Republican National Committee. “This is not an argument for lax standards or indefinite counting. States can and should set firm, transparent deadlines. The question is, who decides?,” they wrote. “Entrusting states to manage election logistics within reasonable bounds respects local conditions and strengthens public confidence in the outcome – no matter which party wins.”
On Site
Case Preview
Justices to consider the rights of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a challenge to the government’s policy of systematically turning back asylum seekers before they can reach the U.S. border with Mexico. The policy at the center of the case is no longer in place, but the Trump administration calls it a “critical tool for addressing” surges in immigrants at the border.
Case Preview
Justices to consider rules pardoning omissions by bankrupt debtors
Tuesday’s argument in Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction involves a question about bankruptcy procedure – the standards for overlooking the failure of a debtor in bankruptcy to mention one of its assets to the court.
Relist Watch
Uninjured class members, hindsight harmlessness, presidential cronies, and the mistaken use of deadly force
In his Relist Watch column, John Elwood dug into four new relists that will be revisited by the justices during their private conference today. “The lineup this week includes a RICO class-action that asks how many uninjured plaintiffs are too many, a capital case about whether harmless-error review can rely on evidence the jury never saw, and a qualified-immunity dispute featuring the wrong tear-gas round at the wrong time,” Elwood wrote.
Contributor Corner
Birthright citizenship: why the text, history, and structure of a landmark 1952 statute doom Trump’s executive order
In a Brothers in Law column, Akhil Amar, Vikram Amar, and Jason Mazzone analyzed the role of the text and history of 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a) – part of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that states that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a U.S. citizen at birth – in the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship case.
Podcasts
Advisory Opinions
Will Temporary Protected Status for Immigrants End?
Live at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, Sarah Isgur and David French break down the Supreme Court’s temporary protected status cases and then are joined by Judge Stephanos Bibas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
When Supreme Court Opinions are Released
As noted above, the court has indicated that it may announce opinions this morning. You may be wondering where it made that announcement and (as we are frequently asked on the live blog) if we here at SCOTUSblog know which opinion(s) to expect.
The answer to the second question is no: The Supreme Court does not announce ahead of time which cases will be decided on a particular day. Indeed, even the parties don’t know in advance when they will get a ruling in their case. The only time we have a good sense of which opinions will be issued is the very last opinion day of the term (simply by process of elimination). Based on past practice, this day typically falls at the end of June, although we can’t say for sure. (In 2024, for example, the final opinion day was in early July.)
As for opinion days, the court announces these – typically several days in advance – on the calendar on its website, where they appear as dark blue “non-argument” days (unless they overlap with a red argument day). The court also indicates in its “Today at the Court” feature that it “may” announce opinions on that particular day.
Earlier in the term, from November through April, the justices schedule opinion days as needed, almost always on previously scheduled argument days and on days, like today, when the justices were scheduled to take the bench to address other business, like Supreme Court Bar admissions. While the court can schedule an opinion day between sessions, its general practice has been not to do so. During May and June, the height of opinion season, there is usually at least one opinion day per week.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, opinions were released only on the court’s website, but now, the justices are again in the courtroom to release them (although the courtroom audio is not available live). The court posts opinions on its website as the justices announce them in the courtroom.
As stated above, the court does not announce in advance how many opinions it will release. But the method it uses to number the opinions, known as the R-number system, serves as an unofficial but reliable signal that the court has released its final opinion for the day.
Here’s how the system works: When opinions are eventually published in the U.S. Reports, the official bound version of the court’s opinions, they are published chronologically, with the opinions for a particular day published in order of the justices’ seniority. The R number, which appears to the left of the opinion date/docket number/case name on the court’s website, refers to the order in which the opinion will appear in the U.S. Reports. But because opinions are announced in order of reverse seniority, the opinions on the court’s website can’t be assigned an R number until all of the opinions have been posted. So, the posting of the R numbers on the court’s website is a sign that it has finished issuing opinions for that day.
If a case is not decided by the end of the term, it will ordinarily be reargued, although it is rare for the court to order this. Reargument usually only occurs when the justices consider a second round of argument necessary for either clarifying a legal issue raised in the case or reaching a consensus. This term, the only case to have been reargued was Louisiana v. Callais, in which the court is considering whether to curtail a major provision of the Voting Rights Act.
SCOTUS Quote
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “But, scrupulously, I – I looked at – on the naturalization form, there is a question. It’s Number 22. ‘Have you ever’ – and they’ve got ‘ever’ in bold point –”
MR. PARKER: “Uh-huh.”
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “ – ‘committed, assisted in committing, or attempted to commit a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?’ Some time ago, outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone.”
(Laughter.)
MR. PARKER: “I’m sorry to hear that.”
— Maslenjak v. United States (2017)
The post SCOTUStoday for Friday, March 20 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.