Supreme Court (6/26/19) - 3 decisions

Safiel · June 26, 2019, 2:32pm

3 decisions today.

I am going to withhold commenting on them just yet. Might take a few millennia to figure out Kisor v Wilkie.

And the Chief Justice has announced that the Supreme Court will be back tomorrow and that tomorrow will be the final day of the October 2018 term.

Holding : The Tenth Circuit’s judgment—that 18 U. S. C. §3583(k)’s last two sentences are unconstitutional and unenforceable—is vacated, and the case is remanded.

Judgment : Vacated and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch on June 26, 2019. Justice Gorsuch announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh joined.

Holding : Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co—under which deference is given to an agency’s reasonable reading of its own genuinely ambiguous regulations—are not overruled.

Judgment : Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on June 26, 2019. Justice Kagan announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–B, III–B, and IV, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts II–A and III–A, in which Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined. Chief Justice Roberts filed an opinion concurring in part. Justice Gorsuch filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Thomas joined, in which Justice Kavanaugh joined as to Parts I, II, III, IV, and V, and in which Justice Alito joined as to Parts I, II, and III. Justice Kavanaugh filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Alito joined.

Holding : Tennessee’s 2-year durational-residency requirement applicable to retail liquor store license applicants violates the Commerce Clause and is not saved by the Twenty-first Amendment.

Judgment : Affirmed, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Alito on June 26, 2019. Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Thomas joined.

Safiel · June 26, 2019, 2:48pm

As for tomorrow, we have 5 cases pending:

Issue : Whether the 1866 territorial boundaries of the Creek Nation within the former Indian Territory of eastern Oklahoma constitute an “Indian reservation” today under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a).

This case was argued in December.

Issues : In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.

This case was argued in March.

Issues : (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

This case was argued in March.

Issue : Whether a statute authorizing a blood draw from an unconscious motorist provides an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.

This case was argued in April.

Issues : (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker – including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials – without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.

This case was argued in April.