Tag: scotus

Feds Move To Dismiss Marijuana And Gun Rights Case In Anticipation Of Landmark Ruling From Supreme Court

The Trump administration is asking a federal court to dismiss one of multiple pending cases concerning marijuana and gun rights, in large part because it expects the U.S. Supreme Court to make a precedent-setting ruling on the issue.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on Tuesday, attorneys for the Justice Department urged a judge to dismiss a case “without prejudice” that involves a man charged in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

Attorneys for the man, Jared Michael Harrison, also want the court to dismiss the case—but they take issue with DOJ’s specific request, as dismissing the case without prejudice would mean he could be prosecuted again. And they criticized the government’s arguments in support of its motion, noting that the department relied heavily on the length of the court battle that’s lasted three years. The lawyers also challenged the idea that outstanding Supreme Court cases that similarly deal with cannabis and federal firearms laws justify dismissal without prejudice.

But according to the federal government, the request would be “in the interest of justice,” while recognizing that the constitutionality of the statute in question–18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)—”remains open both in this case and in the country as a whole. ”

“There are currently seven petitions for certiorari pending before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of § 922(g)(3) under the Second Amendment, six of which involve as-applied challenges, and are a mix of petitions filed by the United States and criminal defendants,” DOJ said, adding that they expect there’s a “reasonable likelihood that the Supreme Court will grant certiorari” in at least one of the pending cases.

“Continuing to pursue this case at this time would needlessly waste judicial and prosecutorial resources,” the government’s filing said.

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SCOTUS Tees Up Potential Takedown Of Progressives’ ‘Independent Agencies’ Theory

he U.S. Supreme Court is signaling that it may be finally ready to put the kibosh on longstanding precedent used by left-wing progressives to cripple America’s separation of powers.

On Monday, the high court granted a request from the Trump administration to temporarily pause a lower court injunction by a Biden-appointed district judge. That edict attempted to block President Trump from firing Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

What was particularly notable about the Supreme Court’s order is the revelation that the justices will be considering the merits of the case, with oral arguments tentatively scheduled for December. The high court specifically instructed both parties to file briefs addressing two key questions: 1) “Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether [Humphrey’s Executor v. United States] … should be overruled,” and 2) “Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.”

While likely not as well-known as other past SCOTUS decisions, Humphrey’s Executor has had major negative implications for America’s separation of powers and the ability of presidents to fully exercise their Article II authority.

The case first came to fruition in the early 1930s after Republican President Herbert Hoover appointed William Humphrey to serve as a member of the FTC for a full seven-year term. Upon taking office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, sought Humphrey’s resignation due to the fact that the latter was a conservative.

When Humphrey declined to do so, Roosevelt fired him. According to Oyez, the FTC Act, which was passed by Congress, “only allowed a president to remove a commissioner for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’”

While Humphrey passed away shortly after his firing, his executor filed suit to challenge Humphrey’s dismissal and recover his salary. The case ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court, which aimed to address the question of whether provisions of the FTC Act unconstitutionally encroached upon the president’s Article II powers.

In its 1935 decision, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Roosevelt, arguing that Humphrey’s termination lacked justification and that the FTC Act was constitutional. As summarized by Oyez, the high court “reasoned that the Constitution had never given ‘illimitable power of removal’ to the president,” and established the precedent that so-called “independent agencies” like the FTC were different than other federal departments because Congress created them “to perform quasi-legislative and judicial functions.”

As The Heritage Foundation’s Hans van Spakovsky recently observed, the decision “was pure poppycock” given that “the FTC, with its authority to promulgate regulations that have the authority of law and its power to pursue individuals it believes have engaged in unfair or deceptive practices, is engaging in the very essence of an executive function.” Furthermore, “[i]t is the president,” he added, “who is designated in Section 3 of Article II with the responsibility to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”

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Kavanaugh Would-Be Assassin Now Identifies As a Transgender Woman

The United States Department of Justice has formally recommended a prison sentence for the man who tried to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But according to Court documents, Nicholas John Roske is now “Sophia Roske.”

Roske pleaded guilty to the crime in April of 2025, and a sentencing memo was filed on Friday in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, according to a press release from the DOJ. The U.S. government is seeking a sentence of 30 years. 

Roske claimed to suffer from severe mental illness at the time of his 2022 arrest. Now, that same instability appears to have driven him to identify as female, an episode that underscores both the growing trend of transgender-linked violence and the broader, unaddressed mental health crisis in America.

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Supreme Court rejects South Carolina’s bid to enforce transgender bathroom ban

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to take up an application from South Carolina seeking to enforce its ban on students using public school bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The brief, unsigned order represents a small setback for the state in its bid to tighten policies related to transgender people. However, a lawsuit on the matter will still proceed in the lower courts. Three Republican-appointed justices, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, would have granted South Carolina’s request.

The order from the high court comes after a federal appeals court had temporarily enjoined the state from enforcing its law while the case plays out. The state wanted the Supreme Court to lift that injunction temporarily.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had granted the injunction at the request of a ninth-grader who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom, which didn’t correspond to the student’s sex.

Attorneys for the student, identified as John Doe in the lawsuit, argued to the high court that an emergency pause on the Fourth Circuit’s order was not warranted given the lawsuit centered on only one student. No other students have taken issue with John Doe using the boys’ restroom, the attorneys noted.

“Indeed, no student has ever complained about sharing boys’ restrooms with John, who has dressed and presented as a boy since he was a young child,” the attorneys wrote.

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Supreme Court Grants Trump Admin Request to Withhold Foreign Aid Funds

The Supreme Court on Sept. 9 granted a Trump administration request to temporarily withhold approximately $4 billion in foreign aid funding previously authorized by Congress.

The federal government’s emergency application in U.S. Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Global Health Council v. Trump was granted by Chief Justice John Roberts one day after it was filed with the nation’s highest court.

The court issued an administrative stay, which puts a lower court order requiring the release of the funding on hold to give the justices more time to fully consider the matter. The court did not provide reasons for its decision.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked the justices to pause a ruling by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who ordered the federal government to spend about $4 billion in previously appropriated funds.

The money is earmarked for foreign aid and United Nations peacekeeping projects.

The Supreme Court’s new order states that Ali’s orders of Sept. 3 in the two cases are “hereby partially stayed for funds that are subject to the President’s August 28, 2025 [rescission] proposal currently pending before Congress pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court.”

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Supreme Court Throws Out 90-Year-Old Precedent, Allows Trump To Fire FTC Commissioner

Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay Monday that has effectively put a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent on the brink of being overturned. The ruling, made without explanation on the court’s emergency docket, allows President Donald Trump to proceed with his firing of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, despite a lower court and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals having blocked the action just last week.

The decision has significant ramifications for the independence of federal agencies and could pave the way for President Trump to fire Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

A Battle Over Executive Power

The legal battle centers on the 1935 Supreme Court case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which held that a president can’t fire officials at independent agencies for mere policy disagreements. The precedent established that “cause” for removal must be based on “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Last week, both U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan and a majority of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Slaughter, finding that the circumstances of her firing by the Trump administration “almost identically mirror” the facts of the Humphrey’s Executor case. The D.C. Circuit majority, comprised of Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard, stated that doing anything but reinstating Slaughter “would be to defy the Supreme Court’s decisions that bind our judgments.”

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The Supreme Court Fight That Could Decide Who Gets to Stay Online

A lineup of civil liberties organizations, technology companies, and internet freedom advocates has filed briefs supporting Cox Communications in a closely watched Supreme Court case that could dramatically alter how internet service providers respond to copyright complaints.

The case, Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, asks whether ISPs must terminate internet service to users accused, but not convicted, of piracy.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision is one of the most consequential internet-related cases in years, not just for copyright law, but for the future of how people access the internet in the United States.

At stake is a fundamental question: can internet service providers be held liable and forced to cut off internet access to users simply because they’ve been accused of copyright infringement, without any judicial process or proof?

Those standing with Cox include the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla, Pinterest, and X.

Kiwi Farms founder and president of the U.S. Internet Preservation Society (USIPS), Joshua Moon, also filed a brief “in support of neither party,” but opposing internet cutoffs and arguing that contributory copyright infringement is a judge-made doctrine without a statutory basis, and it has become unworkable and unfair because courts have never clearly defined its “knowledge” standard.

This vagueness, combined with the rise of the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown regime, has chilled free speech and fair use, expanded copyright monopolies, and produced abusive practices.

Cox argues that the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, which held it liable for contributory infringement and ordered a new damages trial, created an untenable standard that would force ISPs to police user activity under threat of billion-dollar judgments.

In a joint brief, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Library Association, and others sharply criticized the Fourth Circuit’s interpretation.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Library Association, and other groups filed a joint amicus brief urging the Court to reject the liability framework adopted by the Fourth Circuit.

They argue that the ruling could lead to widespread loss of internet access based on unproven accusations, with disproportionate consequences for ordinary people.

The brief stresses the importance of online access in modern life, stating: “Internet access is essential to participation in economic, cultural, and social activity.”

The groups caution that adopting a liability standard based on mere knowledge, rather than intent or inducement, would cause serious collateral harm. The brief warns that imposing such rules on ISPs would inevitably result in users being disconnected because someone else in their household or workplace was accused of infringement.

They further argue that the Fourth Circuit’s decision improperly expands secondary copyright liability without congressional authorization, threatening to undermine constitutional protections tied to access, communication, and expression.

Even the US Department of Justice weighed in, siding with Cox on key legal questions. The DOJ told the Court that the Fourth Circuit’s approach “cannot be reconciled with this Court’s precedent” and warned against punishing providers who may simply be indifferent but not complicit.

In its brief, the DOJ stressed: “The evidence demonstrated at most that Cox was indifferent to its subscribers’ infringement, not that Cox intended to participate in that infringement or wished to bring it about.”

On the issue of willful infringement, the DOJ added that “willfulness in the civil context generally requires knowledge or reckless disregard of the fact that one’s own conduct is unlawful,” not just knowledge of someone else’s actions.

A coalition of major tech companies, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Pinterest, also submitted a unified brief opposing the lower court’s interpretation of contributory liability. They argue that the DMCA already outlines specific safe harbor rules, and the Fourth Circuit’s ruling improperly weaponizes the absence of safe harbor protection.

“The Fourth Circuit’s ruling erroneously turns Congress’s DMCA safe harbors into a liability-creating mechanism,” the companies stated.

They argued that liability should only attach to those engaged in “conscious, culpable conduct substantially assisting the primary wrongdoer.”

The brief makes clear that a finding of willfulness demands more than simple awareness: “Willfulness turns on the defendant’s mental state regarding its own conduct.”

USIPS criticized the legal foundation of the lower court’s ruling as illegitimate and warned that fear of liability is driving ISPs toward censorship.

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Obama Judge Says to Hell with Supreme Court, Blocks Trump Admin From Canceling Protected Status For 1.1 Million Venezuelans and Haitians

A San Francisco-based federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump Administration from canceling Protected Status for 1.1 million Venezuelans and Haitians.

US District Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee, acknowledged the Supreme Court’s ruling but claimed the high court did not bar him from adjudicating the case on the merits.

Earlier this year Judge Chen temporarily paused Trump’s plans to end Biden’s TPS program.

The DOJ argued that the parole programs were discretionary and it is up to the government to decide when it can cut the program.

In May, the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision lifted Judge Chen’s block on Trump’s order to revoke protected status for hundreds of thousands of migrants while the policy was challenged in court.

Judge Chen said the Supreme Court didn’t bar him from issuing an order.

The Associated Press reported:

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States.

Chen said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s actions in terminating and vacating three extensions granted by the previous administration exceeded her statutory authority and were arbitrary and capricious.

CBP data found that over 1 million illegal aliens have been allowed into the US through what the Biden Regime defined as “legal” means.” The Biden-Kamala admin used the CBP One App and the CHNV program to allow illegals entry into the US.

These numbers are not included in the millions of illegals that have entered the US under Joe Biden’s watch.

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Amy Coney Barrett Fires Shot Across the Bow at Activist Judges: ‘Not Kings’

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett threw a shot across the bow at fellow activist judges, warning them that they are “not kings,” but simply referees who decide whether people have played by the rules that are already established.

In an article for The Free Press written by Barrett, the SCOTUS justice reflected on her jurisprudence, making it clear that her personal views have no place dictating what happens when she’s sitting in the highest court of the land, nor do any other justices.

The Free Press headline read, “Amy Coney Barrett Speaks: People think the Supreme Court is about promoting justice. It’s really about judging what the law requires.”

“On the restraint judges must exercise, Justice Amy Coney Barrett writes, ‘We judges don’t dispense justice solely as we see it; instead, we’re constrained by law adopted through the democratic process,'” one post on X read about the article.

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Justice Jackson Writes Opinions For Her Media Fanbase, Not Everyday Americans

In roughly three years, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has established herself as one of the most recognized members of the Supreme Court — and not in a good way.

Despite being the most junior justice on the high court, Jackson has regularly gone out of her way to thumb her nose at her colleagues for upholding America’s constitutional framework. Whether it be through public comments or poorly written opinions, the Biden appointee has shown little respect for the longstanding traditions and collegiality that have defined SCOTUS for generations.

The latest example of this came on Thursday, when the Supreme Court temporarily stayed (in part) a lower court block on the National Institutes of Health’s bid to terminate DEI-related contracts. The court’s ruling was 5-4, with Jackson joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in siding against the Trump administration.

In addition to signing onto Roberts’ opinion, Jackson penned a 21-page screed — which is longer than all the other justices’ opinions combined — denouncing the majority’s decision to partially grant the Trump administration’s request to pause the lower court’s order. Employing the writing style of a left-wing activist, the Biden appointee claimed that her colleagues’ decision is the “newest iteration” of the high court’s “lawmaking on the emergency docket.”

“Stated simply: With potentially life-saving scientific advancements on the line, the Court turns a nearly century-old statute aimed at remedying unreasoned agency decisionmaking into a gauntlet rather than a refuge,” Jackson wrote.

While it’s not uncommon for justices to explain their disagreements and problems with the opposing side’s legal rationale in their opinions, Jackson’s dissent (and this isn’t the first time) takes on another level of snide that’s unbecoming of a junior justice. She went on to effectively accuse her colleagues in the majority of abandoning all semblance of proper jurisprudence and respect for the law in order to bend over backwards for the Trump administration.

“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,” Jackson wrote. “Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”

It’s pretty telling that none of the other justices in the dissent signed onto Jackson’s tirade. While they may share ideological similarities, even Sotomayor and Kagan recognize the importance of respecting and getting along with their conservative-leaning colleagues — especially given that these are lifetime appointments.

But for Jackson, that seemingly matters very little.

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