Tag: scotus

Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin To Revoke DEI-Related NIH Grants

The Supreme Court voted 5–4 on Aug. 21 to allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

The new ruling clears the way for the funding reductions while litigation over the grants continues in the lower courts.

The justices filed five separate opinions explaining their votes.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted to allow the grants to be cut.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Chief Justice John Roberts voted to deny the government’s request to rescind the funding.

The high court said it acted because the federal government faces the possibility that the grant monies, once paid out, may not be recovered.

Moreover, “the plaintiffs do not state that they will repay grant money if the Government ultimately prevails.”

The case is known as National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association.

The Department of Justice filed an emergency application with the nation’s highest court late last month, asking the justices to block a ruling by Boston-based U.S. District Judge William Young, who found the cancellation was unlawful and ordered the government to restore the funding.

NIH began taking steps in February to end the grants that conflict with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities.

The NIH is the world’s largest government funder of biomedical research.

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Supreme Court Allows Mississippi Age Verification Law to Take Effect, Advancing Online Digital ID Push

The Supreme Court’s choice to let Mississippi enforce its new age verification law is part of a growing shift toward digital ID requirements across the internet, raising urgent concerns about privacy and censorship.

By declining to block the law while legal challenges continue, the Court has effectively allowed states to begin tying online activity to users’ real-world identities, a move that could reshape how people access information and speak freely online.

We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.

Mississippi’s HB 1126 requires social media platforms to verify a user’s age before allowing them to create an account. Those under 18 must obtain parental permission. Platforms are also required to restrict access to what the state broadly labels as “harmful” content. For companies to comply, identity checks will be necessary, meaning users may soon need to provide government IDs or other personal documents just to post or view content on public platforms.

The Supreme Court has already allowed a similar Texas law to be enforced.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing separately from the Court’s unsigned order, stated that the law is “likely unconstitutional” and said NetChoice had “likely” shown that enforcement would violate the First Amendment. Still, the Court allowed the law to take effect, saying the trade group had not shown a strong enough risk of harm to justify emergency relief.

NetChoice, which includes companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, Reddit, and Discord, argues that mandatory age checks for general-purpose platforms violate free speech protections. The group had previously won a ruling to block the law, but that decision was overturned in April by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said the ruling was a delay, not a defeat. “Although we’re disappointed with the Court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment — not just in this case but across all NetChoice’s ID-for-Speech lawsuits,” he said.

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The Government Seized 7 Horses From a Georgia ‘Urban Cowboy.’ A Court Says He Can Sue.

The Constitution pledges that the government cannot take your property without “just compensation.” So if that happens, and no statute passed by the legislature applies to your specific case, can you sue?

That this is even a question may sound, at a minimum, harebrained. After all, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. But whether or not that promise—as found in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause—is effectively an empty one when it is not paired with a relevant law is a matter of active legal debate.

A federal court attempted to answer it last week in a case that hinged on, of all things, a local “urban cowboy.”

Fulton County, Georgia, seized seven horses from Brandon “Brannu” Fulton in 2017 after he was charged with animal cruelty. (The identical last name here is an unfortunate coincidence for the sake of clarity, but we will persevere.) Those charges were later dropped. But the government still declined to return the animals to Fulton—long ago dubbed Atlanta’s Urban Cowboy after his affinity for riding into town on horseback—nor would it compensate him for their value. One of those horses, he said, is worth $35,000.

Fulton (the man, not the county) sued under Section 1983, the federal statute that allows plaintiffs to bring lawsuits against state and local governments for violating their constitutional rights. But his suit was ultimately doomed by the Monell doctrine, which shields municipalities from facing liability for such claims unless a plaintiff can pinpoint an official government policy or custom that caused the alleged violation.

Fulton (the county, not the man) didn’t have an applicable policy. And for procedural reasons, the Urban Cowboy’s claims were barred under state law, as well. So he sought to rein back and redirect his complaint to sue directly under the Takings Clause itself.

In what is somewhat of a seismic opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said he could. “Our Constitution explicitly promises exactly two remedies: ‘just compensation’ if the government takes our property, and the writ of habeas corpus if it tries to take our lives or liberty,” wrote Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum for the majority. “And the Constitution delivers directly on each. It doesn’t taunt us by naming these remedies but then holding them out of reach, depending on the whims of the legislature.”

Many had hoped the Supreme Court would answer this exact question just last year. In DeVillier v. Texas, the justices heard a case brought by people whose property was damaged after the state constructed highway barriers that diverted massive amounts of floodwater onto their private land. Texas did not contest that the Takings Clause necessitates just compensation for people whose private property is taken by the government. But it promptly had the case moved to federal court, where it argued it could not be sued for damages because Congress has not passed a relevant statute ordering Texas to abide by the Takings Clause.

The 5th Circuit agreed.

The Supreme Court did not. In a unanimous opinion, the justices ruled that the plaintiffs could sue Texas—in state court. Yet while the Court agreed the property owners could invoke a state law cause of action, it did not address the broader dispute over whether a legislative cause of action is required at all. “Our precedents do not cleanly answer the question whether a plaintiff has a cause of action arising directly under the Takings Clause,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas. “But, this case does not require us to resolve that question.”

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Supreme Court Urged to Halt Mississippi’s Online Digital ID Law Over Free Speech and Privacy Concerns

NetChoice has filed an emergency application with the US Supreme Court to halt the enforcement of Mississippi’s online age verification digital ID law, House Bill 1126, after the Fifth Circuit stayed a preliminary injunction without explanation. The group is urging the Court to reinstate the district court’s ruling and protect First Amendment rights, which it argues are under immediate threat.

The Mississippi law compels every person, regardless of age, to verify their identity before creating accounts on social media platforms, and requires minors to obtain explicit parental consent.

NetChoice argues that this framework “unconstitutionally imposes content-based parental-consent, age-verification, and monitoring-and-censorship requirements for vague categories of speech on social media websites.”

The emergency filing warns of far-reaching consequences, asserting that “the Act will prevent access to that expression for some users entirely—including those unwilling or unable to verify their age and minors who cannot secure parental consent.”

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

Adults would also be subject to this regime, required to share private information in order to access constitutionally protected online spaces.

According to the brief, “the Act would require adults and minors to provide personally identifying information to access all manner of fully protected speech.”

NetChoice compares this level of state control to a dystopian system where “stationing government-mandated clerks at every bookstore and theater to check identification before citizens can access books, movies, or even join conversations” would be the norm.

The brief continues, “This Act thus presents far different issues from pornography laws… it ‘directly targets’ a staggering amount of fully protected speech.”

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Supreme Court to Take Up Ban on Gun Ownership for Marijuana Users

The Supreme Court will consider hearing a gun control case related to a federal ban on firearm possession by marijuana users.

The high court is reportedly expected to have a private discussion on whether it will take up the case of US v. Cooper on September 29. The law has been roundly criticized by gun rights advocates who argue that it is a violation of the Second Amendment.

The case centers on LaVance LeMarr Cooper, who was prosecuted for owning a firearm as a marijuana user, which made him a “prohibited person” under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), a federal criminal statute that bars certain people from owning firearms or ammunition.

This subsection targets those who unlawfully use controlled substances.

A police officer pulled Cooper over in Iowa during a traffic stop. They found a loaded Glock 20 in his vehicle. He did not have any felony convictions, but did have a misdemeanor conviction in 1996 for driving with a suspended license and marijuana possession.

Cooper later admitted to smoking marijuana on a regular basis — about three to four times per week. Prosecutors charged him with violating the federal statute. He waived his right to a jury trial and consented to a bench trial. This means he did not dispute that he owned a firearm while being a marijuana user.

The district court found him guilty on both counts and sentences him to over three years in prison  for the offenses — even though he was not intoxicated at the time of the traffic stop.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in February vacated Cooper’s convicted and remanded the case. The panel rules that the lower court failed to properly apply the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in Cooper’s case.

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Three Years Too Late, Kagan Condemns Leftist Threats Against SCOTUS

It only took three years, but Associate Justice Elena Kagan finally found it within herself to condemn leftist threats against her Republican-appointed colleagues — and it’s not hard to guess why.

Speaking at a judicial conference in California on Thursday, the Obama appointee discussed the “threats to personal safety” and an “endangerment of judges.” She specifically referenced the (leftist-led) threats and demonstrations that came about following the leak of the high court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“That’s something that my court dealt with … a few years ago when Dobbs came down. When some of my colleagues, like my colleagues on the majority side, were confronted with protests outside their houses, including houses with children in them,” Kagan said, while also mentioning the gunman arrested for attempting to assassinate Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“That is scary stuff,” she added.

It’s nice to see Kagan criticize the threats and attacks against her Republican-appointed colleagues. It would have been even nicer had she emphatically done so back when it mattered.

As not-so-subtly indicated by Kagan herself during Thursday’s conference, the real reason for her sudden outspokenness on the issue appears to be her anger with President Trump and conservatives’ verbal criticisms of left-wing activists and judges’ weaponization of the legal system to stymie the president’s policy agenda.

Speaking in general terms, Kagan acknowledged that judges are “fair game for all kinds of criticism, strong criticism, pointed criticism, but vilifying judges … is a step beyond and ought to be understood as such.” The Obama appointee subsequently encouraged judges not to allow such pressures — which she dutifully classified as “threats” — to affect their jurisprudence.

“In the face of these sorts of threats to an independent judiciary, judges just need to do what they are obligated to do, which is to do law in the best way they know how to do, make independent, reasoned judgments based on precedent, based on other law, to not be inhibited by any of these threats,” she said.

Kagan’s remarks echo comments issued by her fellow Democrat-appointed colleagues, Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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Second Court Ignores Landmark SCOTUS Ruling, Issues Nationwide Injunction

In a 6-3 ruling late last month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett minced no words when it came to so-called “universal injunctions,” lower-court rulings that extended far beyond that court’s jurisdiction.

“It is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive,” Barrett wrote in the decision.

“That goes for judges, too,” Barrett added. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

That decision, by the way, did not decide the merits of the case in which the universal injunction was issued: President Donald Trump’s administration has argued that the 14th Amendment does not grant birthright citizenship because those born to citizens of other countries within U.S. borders are not among “persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

The meaning of this language, and whether children of foreign nationals are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States will eventually be decided one way or another before the high court. But the ruling itself was clear: Before that, nationwide universal injunctions were the judiciary acting in a way that exceeded its power.

So, for the second time since the decision, the judiciary has exceeded its power, because what the heck?

In a 2-1 decision handed down late Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, judges ruled that the plaintiffs — attorneys general from four Democratic-led states, Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington — could receive a nationwide injunction because that was the only way to obtain requisite relief, according to The Hill.

“States’ residents may give birth in a non-party state, and individuals subject to the Executive Order from non-party states will inevitably move to the States,” U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Gould wrote in the opinion of the court.

Both Gould and Judge Michael Hawkins, who voted to issue the universal injunctions, were Bill Clinton appointees.

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DOJ under Trump urges SCOTUS not to take up Ghislaine Maxwell’s case in filing: report

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to take up Ghislaine Maxwell’s case in a Department of Justice filing. 

Maxwell’s lawyers stated that she should not have been put on trial due to the plea deal that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein got in 2008 from prosecutors in Florida.

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ responded to Maxwell’s lawyers’ filing Monday and urged the Supreme Court not to take up her case, according to an exclusive report from the Daily Mail.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking and an array of other charges in connection with her procurement of minors for Epstein’s indulgence.

She said she was willing to testify before Congress about the Epstein files, sources told The Daily Mail. 

The Trump administration has received significant backlash from conservative influencers and journalists over his handling of the Epstein files. 

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Sotomayor Had To Explain The Law To KBJ Like She Was A 5th Grader

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was severely castigated and mocked by the 6-3 majority in the “birthright citizenship” (aka “universal injunction”) case for her Dissent which the normally staid Amy Coney Barrett (joined by five other Justices) termed “at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.” No other Justice, not even Sotomayor or Kagan, joined in KJB’s dissent, which contained numerous KBJ-isms: I’ll meet your “(wait for it)” and raise you a “full stop”.

KJB is carving out as niche among liberals as the “Great Dissenter” – but her dissents are so shallow that in the recent case in which the majority (8-1) stayed a district court order halting the mere planning for layoffs, Sotomayor had to spell out for KBJ why her solo dissent was legally unsound (emphasis added):

I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.

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Ketanji Jackson says the quiet part out loud: What matters are her feelings, not the law

Open any Supreme Court decision (here’s a good example), and you’ll see that, after a few pages of “Syllabus” (i.e., summary), you get to the meat, where the justices issue their ruling. And that ruling is invariably preceded by language identifying the justice who wrote the decision, followed by the words “delivered the opinion of the Court.”

The Supreme Court website helpfully explains at its “Opinions” page that the “most well-known opinions are those released or announced in cases in which the Court has heard oral argument.” In other words, those are the ones that analyze the Constitution, congressional statutes, pre-existing cases (precedent), and bureaucratic regulations. Other lesser-known “opinions” are a few types of quick orders. Judges may also issue concurrences or dissents in which they state their understanding of American law.

Stunningly, though, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has added a new type of opinion to this list: her own. That is, her personal, emotional reactions to the matters before the Court:

“I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,” Jackson said.

Thus saith the wannabe theater kid, who brings her personal values and emotionalism to her performance as a judge. But honestly, Jackson has done nothing more than speak the quiet part out loud.

Before becoming a political writer and editor, I spent thirty years working in litigation in the San Francisco Bay Area. At a guesstimate, the judges on the cases with which I was involved were probably 80% leftist. These leftist judges felt exactly as Jackson did: The cases weren’t about the law; they were about a judge’s opinions and feelings concerning the matter before them.

Most of these judges weren’t as blunt as Jackson, but it was the little things they said. There was the judge who, when foiled in a first attempt to cancel a defaulting borrower’s legitimate debt to a bank, announced, “Just remember that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” During the trial, he attacked the bank’s attorneys so aggressively that it was a foregone conclusion that the jurors would find that the bank was evil, which they did.

And of course, sometimes, the judges were quite open about their disdain for the law. I swear that my journey from Democrat to conservative started when I had conclusively proven to the judge that California law completely foreclosed the plaintiff’s lawsuit against my client.

The judge, however, hemmed and hawed. He then ruled against my client, saying, “I know what the law is, but I still think there’s something there.” Feelings. Opinions. He was purely Jacksonian. In fact, there was nothing there, and, $1.2 million in fees and costs later, we had a huge victory at trial, which included an award for fees and costs. That same judge later ended up on the California Court of Appeals.

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