Tag: scotus

Supreme Court Rejects Challenges to COVID-19 Shot Mandates

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected appeals to two COVID shot mandate-related cases brought by Children’s Health Defense (CHD). In one case, CHD appealed a lower court ruling that the non-profit group lacked standing to sue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its authorization of the COVID-19 shots for young children. In the other case, CHD challenged the COVID shot mandate for students at Rutgers University in New Jersey.1

The Supreme Court did not issue an explanatory statement along with their denial of these appeals.2 By refusing to hear the cases, the Supreme Court has allowed the opinions of the lower court to stand.3

Appellate Court Dismissed CHD’s Claims Against the FDA

CHD, together with five sets of parents, sued the FDA over its emergency use authorization COVID shots for minors. The District Court dismissed the case finding that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to sue and the 5th Circuit Appellate Court affirmed that ruling. Plaintiffs alleged that when the FDA granted pharmaceutical companies an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to distribute the experimental biologicals, it did not adhere to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) reasoned decision-making requirements. Plaintiffs sought an injunction forbidding the marketing or promotion of the shots.4

A Plaintiff will have standing to sue when it has been demonstrated that the Plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact that is, “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent;” the defendant caused the injury; and the injury would likely be redressed by the court.5 The injury must also be concrete, which has been defined as “whether the alleged injury to the Plaintiff has a ‘close relationship’ to a harm ‘traditionally’ recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts.”6

The Appellate Court agreed with the District Court that the Plaintiffs did not satisfy their burden of showing that their injury was concrete, particularized or imminent, rather than merely speculative.

The Appellate Court wrote:

To begin, it is insufficient that Plaintiff allege that some hypothetical third party might, at some hypothetical point in the future and through some hypothetical means, will vaccinate their children against their wishes.7

The Appellate Court added that CHD also lacked standing because the organization has not “diverted significant resources to counteract” the EUA granted to the COVID shots by the FDA. The Appellate Court ruling went on to state that the Plaintiff also has not shown that the FDA’s authorization, “concretely and ‘perceptibly impaired’” its ability to fulfill their mission. The courts dismissed the action due to lack of standing.8

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Supreme Court Ruling Alters January 6 Charges: From Insurrection to Trespassing

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. U.S. has struck down one of the most common charges against January 6 defendants: “obstruction of an official proceeding.” This ruling has profound implications for the numerous cases that relied on this charge, rendering many of these convictions invalid.

For years, the narrative around January 6 has centered on the idea of an “insurrection.” Politicians and pundits alike have used this term to describe the events of that day, often framing it as an organized attempt to overthrow the government. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling signals a significant shift in how these actions are legally interpreted. The events of January 6 are now increasingly seen as a case of mass trespass and unlawful entry rather than an insurrection.

The Justice Department’s decision to use the obstruction charge, which stems from a law enacted post-Enron to criminalize the destruction of evidence, has now been called into question. The broad interpretation of this law allowed it to be applied to hundreds of January 6 cases. At least a quarter of the prosecutions included this charge. The ruling will result in resentencing for many, and pending cases will proceed without the obstruction claim.Former President Donald Trump is also affected by this decision. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump in Washington, D.C., includes obstruction charges. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, half of this indictment could be dropped, necessitating a potential superseding indictment. This development could derail Smith’s efforts to bring Trump to trial before the election, a goal that has been prioritized by both Smith and Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The ruling challenges the long-held belief that January 6 was an insurrection. Polls show that a majority of citizens view the events as a protest that escalated into a riot, not an attempt to overthrow the government. This perspective is reinforced by the Supreme Court’s decision, which suggests that the legal framework used to prosecute many of the January 6 defendants was flawed.

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The Supreme Court Just Opened the Door to a New Orwellian Censorship Regime

The Supreme Court’s decision in a recent case challenging the Biden administration’s censorship efforts unleashed renewed threats to Americans’ ability to speak and listen freely online while effectively putting a legal remedy out of reach ahead of the 2024 election, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Last year on Independence Day, U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the initial injunction blocking a range of government agencies from communicating with social media companies to suppress speech, calling the government’s actions “Orwellian.” But one year later, with the Fifth Circuit’s narrower injunction now lifted by the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri, officials have free rein to again employ the same tactics.

“It’s basically a roadmap for government actors, not just the federal government, but also state and local government actors, to reach out to social media companies and pressure them into censoring this disfavored speech,” Center for American Liberty associate counsel Eric Sell told the DCNF.

The Supreme Court held that plaintiffs in the case, who included two states and five individuals, did not have standing to seek an injunction against the government.

In her majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the plaintiffs failed “to link their past social-media restrictions to the defendants’ communications with the platforms.” She also noted that platforms had “independent incentives to moderate content,” making it difficult for the plaintiffs to establish they were harmed directly as a result of the government’s requests.

Justice Samuel Alito worried in his dissent that the Supreme Court’s ruling, though it did not reach the merits of the issue, would send the message that coercive government campaigns against certain speech can run unchecked if “carried out with enough sophistication.”

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Supreme Court Throws Out Pro-Gun Group’s “Assault Weapons” And Magazine Ban Case

On July 2, 2024, the United States Supreme Court rejected certiorari in National Association for Gun Rights v. Naperville. The case is currently going through the discovery, trial, and summary judgment phases at the district court.

“Today’s decision tells the lower courts they’re more than welcome to trample Bruen to their hearts’ content – at least for the time being. The question all along has been whether the Supreme Court was okay with the lower courts’ outright and unanimous defiance of the plain holdings of Bruen. Today we got our answer: for now at least, the Second Amendment IS a second-class right, and it will remain so until the Supreme Court decides to stop ducking the issue,” declared Hannah Hill Executive Director for the National Foundation for Gun Rights. 

The US District Court rejected a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the law, which plaintiffs subsequently appealed to the 7th Circuit. The 7th Circuit issued a ruling upholding the district court’s denial of preliminary injunction, determining that AR-15s are not firearms under the Second Amendment in complete defiance to multiple precedents established by the Supreme Court.

The National Association for Gun Rights appealed to the Supreme Court, calling on the high court to overturn the 7th Circuit’s ruling and establish a nationwide precedent definitively throwing out gun prohibitions. 

Justice Clarence Thomas published a statement describing the 7th Circuit’s ruling “nonsensical” and declared “It is difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment.” Thomas added that when the case returns to the Court in a final judgment posture, the Supreme Court “can – and should” review the 7th Circuit’s decision if it maintains it preliminary injunction reasoning.

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Americans Are Already Sticking It To The Permanent Bureaucracy Just Days After Landmark Supreme Court Ruling

Just days after the Supreme Court struck down the precedent of automatically deferring to bureaucrats, it is now ordering lower courts to reconsider some cases where federal agencies have interfered with the activities of Americans.

On June 28, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a case that set a precedent requiring courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of a given law when the language used in the law was ambiguous. Now, the Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to review Foster v. U.S. Department of Agriculture and KC Transport v. Secretary of Labor, two cases where judges limited the commercial activities of Americans due to the precedent of deference set under Chevron.

“Our clients may now make their case in court without judges putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the government,” said Paige Gilliard, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, the right-of-center legal nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in both cases. “The Supreme Court’s decision to end Chevron deference is a move to restore fairness in federal courts. Our clients Arlen Foster and KC Transport are among the first beneficiaries.”

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Sotomayor Is Right: The Supreme Court Should Reevaluate Absolute Immunity for Prosecutors

Consider the following hypothetical: You are jailed for two years as you await trial for murder. You are facing the death penalty. You have cancer, which relapsed during your incarceration without access to adequate treatment. And it turns out you were charged based on a false witness confession, which the local prosecutor allegedly destroyed evidence to obscure.

Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse, because such government employees are entitled to absolute immunity.

This is the backdrop for Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion Tuesday arguing that the Supreme Court may need to reevaluate the confines of that legal doctrine—absolute prosecutorial immunity—which prevents victims of alleged prosecutorial misconduct from getting recourse in the vast majority of circumstances.

The case at issue centers around Nickie Miller, a Kentucky man whom a woman named Natasha Martin implicated in a bizarre murder plot after the government offered her a deal to avoid prison time. The primary issue: She almost immediately sought to recant that confession. Law enforcement wouldn’t accept that. So she testified before a grand jury, and then tried to recant again, writing in jailhouse letters to another man she implicated that her statement came in response to “coercive interrogation techniques, threats, and undisclosed promises of consideration.”

When Miller’s defense team heard about those letters, it tried to obtain them. Martin reportedly asked Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Keith Craycraft how she should comply with the order, to which he allegedly responded that she should destroy the correspondence. She obliged.

The state eventually dropped the charges against Miller. The two years in jail, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said that his cancer was in remission but recurred after the state locked him up, as he could not access his medication.

After his release, he sued Craycraft; the district court concluded he was entitled to absolute immunity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit subsequently noted that Craycraft’s alleged misconduct was “difficult to justify and seemingly unbecoming of an official entrusted with enforcing the criminal law.” And then that court, too, confirmed the grant of absolute immunity, a testament to the sort of behavior the doctrine greenlights with its sweeping inoculation.

Miller has since died, and his estate is continuing the litigation on his behalf.

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U.S. Supreme Court Sends Marijuana And Gun Case Back To Lower Court, Emboldening DOJ’s Defense Of Firearm Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has sent a case concerning gun rights for marijuana consumers back down to a lower court after issuing a potentially relevant ruling in a separate Second Amendment case, and the Justice Department is now reiterating its position that cannabis use warrants a ban on firearm ownership.

The high court has remanded several gun cases to their respective lower courts in light of the ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which affirmed the government’s right to restrict gun rights for a man with restraining orders for domestic violence. The cases heading back to lower levels include at least one related to the cannabis ban, and DOJ is now arguing that the SCOTUS decision “undermines” a federal court’s ruling that deemed the prohibition for marijuana consumers to be unconstitutional last year.

In a supplemental letter brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where the United States vs. Daniels case was remanded by SCOTUS, the Justice Department said history “supports the government’s authority to disarm categories of persons whose firearm possession would endanger themselves or others.”

“Consistent with that principle, Congress may temporarily disarm unlawful users of controlled substances during periods of active drug use, when they present a special danger of firearm misuse,” it said. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Rahimi also is in tension with this Court’s opinion in United States v. Daniels, which made some of the very methodological errors that Rahimi corrected to find Section 922(g)(3) unconstitutional as applied to a marijuana user. The district court’s judgment should be reversed.”

DOJ has argued in multiple federal cases over the couple year that the statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.

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Supreme Court Demands Deeper Look at Social Media Anti-Censorship Laws

The US Supreme Court has unanimously remanded two crucial cases involving social media regulation laws from Florida and Texas back to lower courts. This move concerns cases relating to both Florida and Texas, where the primary question was whether laws that restrict certain websites from making editorial censorship decisions violate the First Amendment.

On May 24, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law SB 7072, which aims to regulate social media platforms by prohibiting the deplatforming of political candidates and requiring platforms to provide explanations when censoring content, among other stipulations.  SB 7072 places several specific restrictions and requirements on social media platforms, including:

  • Prohibiting the willful deplatforming of political candidates,
  • Banning the censorship or deplatforming of journalistic enterprises based on content,
  • Imposing hefty fines on social media platforms that deplatform candidates for political office—up to $250,000 per day for statewide candidates and $25,000 per day for other candidates,
  • Requiring platforms to notify users and provide explanations before taking actions like censoring or deplatforming,
  • Granting Floridians the right to sue platforms for violations and seek monetary damages,
  • Empowering the Florida Attorney General to sue technology companies under the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act,

That same year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 20, a law regulating social media platforms by prohibiting them from censoring content based on viewpoint and imposing several obligations related to content moderation processes.

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SCOTUS Ruling On Presidential Immunity Delivers Trump Victory, Blow To Crooked Jack Smith

The United States Supreme Court on Monday issued a 6-3 ruling that former presidents have total immunity from prosecution for any official presidential acts, but do not have immunity for any unofficial acts.

The court stated:

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

The justices also ordered lower courts to now apply their decision to the Donald Trump immunity case being led by special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Conservatives are calling the decision a victory, but some leftist legal analysts appear to believe there is still room for the lower courts to rule against the former president.

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Free Speech Legislation Gains Attention Following Supreme Court Siding with Biden in Social Media Censorship Case

US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has reacted to Wednesday’s ruling by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in the Murthy v. Missouri case, to call for new legislation that would, going forward, reinforce the rules, already contained in the First Amendment, meant to protect citizens from government-orchestrated censorship.

Jordan, whose Committee is probing alleged government-Big Tech collusion in violation of the First Amendment through the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, noted that the US Constitution’s First Amendment is “first for a reason.”

According to the Republican congressman, free speech that this amendment protects (from government intervention) should extend to any government infringement – be it in Congress, or online.

Jordan said that while respectfully disagreeing with the SCOTUS ruling the Committee’s own oversight “has shown the need for legislative reforms.”

“While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, our investigation has shown the need for legislative reforms, such as the Censorship Accountability Act, to better protect Americans harmed by the unconstitutional censorship-industrial complex,” Jordan wrote in a statement.

In other words, the increasingly pressing issue of how the government “interacts” with social platforms (because of their massive reach and therefore influence among the electorate) should be put into the hands of courts and their interpretations based on new and clear legislation to guide those decisions.

The Judiciary Committee chairman mentioned the Censorship Accountability Act – a bill that would let citizens launch legal action against federal employees suspected of colluding to suppress free speech.

Regardless of the SCOTUS decision, Jordan pledged that the Committee’s “important work will continue” – stating that the Subcommittee’s thus far “uncovered how and the extent to which the Biden Administration engaged in a censorship campaign in violation of the First Amendment.”

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