Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our live blog, sponsored by Casetext.
We're expecting one or more opinions in argued cases today. As is almost always the case, we don't know which opinions we are getting or how many.
There is just one opinion outstanding from the October sitting (which is different from cases argued in October, because cases argued at the tail end of October would be part of the November sitting): Gundy v. United States. We would expect Justice Sotomayor to be writing in Gundy, because she is the only justice who has not yet written for the October sitting.
(For those of you who aren't regulars here, the number of boxes of opinions waiting to be distributed in the public information office is a rough proxy for the number of opinions that we might expect. More boxes generally means more opinions.)
Also, once we are finished with opinions I am going to skedaddle upstairs for oral arguments. So if I wind up ghosting you, I don't mean to be rude. Just trying to get to arguments as soon as possible.
Going in to wait for opinions now.
We have the first decision, in Sturgeon v. Frost, from Justice Kagan.
The decision of the Ninth Circuit is reversed and remanded, and it is unanimous.
Justice Sotomayor has a concurring opinion, joined by Ginsburg.
The Court holds that the Nation River is not public land for purposes of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
Justice Kagan says "Sturgeon can take his hovercraft out of storage." This was a case about an Alaska man who used his hovercraft on the river there until park service rangers told him that he couldn't. Now he can.
The court also holds that non-public lands within Alaska's national parks are exempt from the National Park Service's ordinary regulatory authority, as are navigable waters within Alaska's national parks.
There will be at least one more opinion today, but in all likelihood not from Justices Gorsuch or Kavanaugh.
We have the second and final opinion today, from Justice Alito in Republic of Sudan v. Harrison.
The Second Circuit's decision is reversed and remanded. Thomas dissents.
The court holds that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act requires that to serve a foreign country, a mailing must be sent directly to the foreign minister's office in the minister's home country.
I believe Amy has gone upstairs to the argument. We'll shut this down from this morning. We will back here tomorrow!
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