Scribble

Live blog of orders and opinions | June 18, 2018 (with First Mondays)

We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released orders from the June 14 conference and opinions in argued cases. The justices granted certiorari in five cases: Sturgeon v. Frost, Garza v. Idaho, Lorenzo v. SEC, Timbs v. Indiana and Apple v. Pepper. The justices released their decisions in Rosales-Mireles v. United States, Chavez-Meza v. United States, Lozman v. Riviera Beach, Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone.

3rd & 7 37yd

Ok, how does this even work? Welcome!

by Dan Epps 6/18/2018 12:58:28 PM
OK, it works. Great! What opinions is everyone most excited about getting today? I'm hoping for Carpenter, but that's mostly because I teach Criminal Procedure...

by Dan Epps 6/18/2018 1:00:32 PM
If CJ Roberts rules in favor of Carpenter, I will sing:

On the day that you were born the angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold and starlight in your eyes of blue.

From:
(They Long to Be) Close to You
by Burt Bacharach & Hal David

by APD 6/18/2018 1:01:06 PM
Just wondering if you all have any thoughts on what might be happening with Bormuth v. Jackson County and Rowan County v. Lund, the two cases from the en banc Fourth and Sixth Circuits about legislative prayer. The two lower court decisions seem to be in pretty clear conflict, but both cert petitions have been repeatedly rescheduled (Lund since January; Bormuth since March). That sort of repeat rescheduling rather than relisting isn't really something I've seen before (and there doesn't seem to be any case in the pipeline that they might be waiting for), so I'd love to get your take on what might be happening. Thanks!!

by Sean 6/18/2018 1:02:21 PM
Any thoughts on if Janus will be announced today?

by Salt 6/18/2018 1:03:38 PM
What is the oldest opinion outstanding?

by No1LyleFan 6/18/2018 1:05:11 PM
Hi everyone! Glad to be joining you.

by Ian Samuel 6/18/2018 1:06:32 PM
Looking at the outstanding cases, my guess is that Thomas has NIFLA, the chief has Gill and Benisek, and Breyer/Sotomayor will pick up extra writing from April to balance the work. Concur or dissent?

by Hyphenation 6/18/2018 1:06:39 PM
Does anyone else feel like we’ll get the travel ban case on the final decision day?

by SCOTUSblog fan. 6/18/2018 1:07:52 PM
Boarding a plane at 9:50 AM. On a Monday in June. #doingitwrong

by ajk 6/18/2018 1:09:06 PM
I know the rumors about a Justice Kennedy retirement have popped up again. Any thoughts to their validity or likelihood?

by Jed Bartlet 6/18/2018 1:09:27 PM
Still awaiting something on Dalmazzi. Also curious if it will be drafted with an eye towards the arguments about Mueller's position.

by AFJAG 6/18/2018 1:10:05 PM
How do the Justices decide which opinions get released, and when? With more than 20 to go it will be a wild two weeks.

by Dick Wilson 6/18/2018 1:10:14 PM
For people asking what opinions are "likely" today… personally, I'm hoping we get one in the term's biggest blockbuster

L O Z M A N

by Ian Samuel 6/18/2018 1:10:52 PM
Carpenter and Gill are the two opinions I’m hoping for the most. I’ve done some research on them and know more about them, so I feel more invested in finding out the results.

by Jed Bartlet 6/18/2018 1:11:22 PM
Is any once else ill at the thought of getting opinions today?

by Cspandevotee 6/18/2018 1:11:51 PM
If it is, when should we expect Lozman 3? Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

by SCOTUSblog fan 6/18/2018 1:12:08 PM
This Supreme Court live-blogging would be simply awesome if it came with tea/coffee and doughnuts!!

by Jay H 6/18/2018 1:12:43 PM
How many opinions are there left, 20? Meaning there should be 7 releasing today, assuming they release them Thursday as well? Madness, complete madness!!!

by swampmonster 6/18/2018 1:13:22 PM
If the Chief has Gil (as most suspect), then we must be looking at a decision on standing, and not the merits, right? If we assume that J. Kennedy is still keeping the door open on partisan gerrymandering claims, then I don't see 5 votes for a merits decision. But, please, tell me otherwise.

by Dave 6/18/2018 1:14:19 PM
Is there still a chance of opinions today? Do they often delay this long and still release opinions nonetheless?

by Whistler 6/18/2018 1:14:38 PM
Can somebody convince John Elwood to bring back his Term in Revue this year?

by Elwood4prez 6/18/2018 1:14:59 PM
Good Morning

by Charles Martin 6/18/2018 1:15:39 PM
Like Dan Epps, I am awaiting (with trepidation) Carpenter. Trepidation because I fear the outcome, and because I must immediately work on it for my casebook Supplement!

by Joshua Dressler 6/18/2018 1:16:38 PM
I’m honestly curious, and I know you mentioned it on the podcasts and I’ve listened and read it elsewhere, but there have been few if any grants in new cases for next years term for a while. I saw there was a CVSG. Any theories as to the slow pace of granting new cases?

by SCOTUSblog fan 6/18/2018 1:17:00 PM
Why would the Chief have given himself Sanchez-Gomez alongside Benisek when there were only 8 cases in that sitting? Seems to me much more likely that Breyer or Sotomayor has Benisek--Breyer has gotten big assignments before (e.g. Whole Woman's Health).

by Shashakiro 6/18/2018 1:17:52 PM
To all of you asking "will we get X case today"—the short answer is: we have no idea! Any case is as likely as any other, with the caveat that the most controversial cases (think the travel ban) are more likely to go until the very final day.

by Dan Epps 6/18/2018 1:18:37 PM
Will the Justices keep torturing Steve Vladeck and not release Dalmazzi again?

by lonola 6/18/2018 1:18:47 PM
When IS the final day? (Existentially and for SCOTUS.)

by Hugo 6/18/2018 1:19:23 PM
Can I go back to sleep until 10:10ish or is there a reason I should stay awake?

by Hugo 6/18/2018 1:20:10 PM
Might leaving "big" cases until the end invite protest/demonstrations outside the court? (For better or worse?)

by SCOTUSCurious 6/18/2018 1:20:31 PM
Why are the most controversial cases typically held to the end? Is it simply because they take longer to write?

by Nate 6/18/2018 1:20:59 PM
Does anyone know what the line to get into the court looks like this am?

by No1LyleFan 6/18/2018 1:21:57 PM
FYI, the current points leader on FantasySCOTUS has predicted that Janus will be affirmed by Gorsuch + liberals. That would definitely be something to see...

by Shashakiro 6/18/2018 1:22:12 PM
With 19 cases left, it is still possible to get a day with legally significant cases that no one but the most ardent SCOTUS watchers has ever heard of.

by BLB 6/18/2018 1:22:16 PM
Any thoughts on what's going on with all the relisted double jeopardy cases?

by CBK 6/18/2018 1:23:20 PM
To address some of the questions in the queue about who might be writing what, I had a post last week at my blog addressing this very topic:
Reading the tea leaves: June 15 edition
Amy HoweThe Supreme Court issued six new rulings in argued cases this week: four on Monday, and two more yesterday. The new opinions mean that 19 cases now remain undecided, but they did not shed a lot of new light on who might be writing those outstanding opinions. Here’s what we do know. There is still... Read More

by Amy Howe 6/18/2018 1:23:40 PM
When the opinions are announced, how do outsiders (ie. people not physically in the courtroom) get this info? Is it released to the scotus website or scotusblog at the same time? Are members of the media livetweeting? Are they allowed their phones in (since members of the general public aren't)? Do the interns really just run that fast?

by swampmonster 6/18/2018 1:24:13 PM
What's the rationale behind the thinking that Gorsuch will join the liberals in Janus?

by Jeremy 6/18/2018 1:24:47 PM
For Dan and Ian, what summer reading would you recommend for SCOTUS watchers?

by BLB 6/18/2018 1:25:21 PM
We are expecting orders from last week's conference in a few minutes. The big cert petition before the justices last week was, once again, Arlene's Flowers v. Washington, involving florists but otherwise a very similar fact pattern to Masterpiece Cakeshop. Also, a big antitrust case involving something near and dear to many of our hearts : Apple v. Pepper, involving the sale of apps in Apple's App Store.

by Amy Howe 6/18/2018 1:25:23 PM
So, if the standard procedure is to release controversial cases at the end, why was Masterpiece so early? Was it like Obergefell and they were tryin to jump the gun? Or was it not as controversial as I thought?

by Jed Bartlet 6/18/2018 1:26:04 PM
We'll be getting orders in a few minutes. What are orders? Actions that the court took at its most recent conference -- Amy Howe with this and other answers to frequently asked questions in this post.

FAQs: Announcements of orders and opinions - SCOTUSblog
SCOTUSblogThis post — which is an updated version of posts that we have published in earlier terms — addresses some of the questions about orders and opinion announcements that we have commonly received during our live blogs. If you have a question that you don’t see answered here, please feel free to ask it

by Andrew Hamm 6/18/2018 1:26:45 PM
My mistake for asking about specific Court decision - I thought sometimes near the time there may be talks of which decisions are being discussed. Thank you for your continued coverage.

by Charles Martin 6/18/2018 1:26:47 PM
Also a NC gerrymandering case, and a lot of capital cases still lurking on the docket.

by Amy Howe 6/18/2018 1:27:17 PM

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the January 18 conference on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. There is a possibility of opinions on Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The justices will meet next for their February 15 conference.
The calendar for the February sitting, which will begin on Tuesday, February 19, is available on the Supreme Court's website.
Recent Decisions
- New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.
- Stokeling v. United States The Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause encompasses a robbery offense that, like Florida’s law, requires the criminal to overcome the victim’s resistance.
- Culbertson v. Berryhill The Social Security Act’s fee cap of 25 percent of past-due benefits imposed on attorneys who successfully represent Title II benefit claimants in court proceedings applies only to fees for court representation and not to aggregate fees for both court and agency representation.
- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.
- City of Escondido, California v. Emmons The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit failed to conduct the analysis required by Supreme Court precedents in determining whether two Escondido police officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
- Shoop v. Hill Because Danny Hill’s intellectual disability claim must be evaluated based solely on holdings of the Supreme Court that were clearly established at the time the state-court decisions were rendered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s reliance on Moore v. Texas -- which was handed down much later -- was plainly improper.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.
- Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
More Petitions »
Major Cases
- Lamone v. Benisek
  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.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
  Whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., 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—when there is no evidence that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (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.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 43

Cases decided 9

Summary reversals 2

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Full Calendar Submit Event

Jan. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1 Holiday	2	3	4 Conference	5
6	7 Orders MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP. V. ALBRECHT (17-290) OBDUSKEY V. MCCARTHY & HOLTHUS LLP (17-1307)	8 HERRERA V. WYOMING (17-532) FOURTH ESTATE PUBLIC BENEFIT CORP. V. WALL-STREET.COM, LLC (17-571) Opinions	9 FRANCHISE TAX BOARD OF CALIFORNIA V. HYATT (17-1299)	10	11 Conference	12
13	14 Orders THACKER V. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (17-1201) RIMINI STREET INC. V. ORACLE USA INC. (17-1625)	15 HOME DEPOT U.S.A. INC. V. JACKSON (17-1471) AZAR V. ALLINA HEALTH SERVICES (17-1484) Opinions	16 KNICK V. TOWNSHIP OF SCOTT, PENNSYLVANIA (17-647) TENNESSEE WINE AND SPIRITS RETAILERS ASSOCIATION V. BLAIR (18-96)	17	18 Conference	19
20	21 Holiday	22 Orders Opinions	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
First Mondays see all
Videos see all

Justice Sotomayor at Harvard

On November 13, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Judge Susan Carney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit presided over the final round of the 2018 Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	43
Cases decided	9
Summary reversals	2
Merits cases granted to date	73

Editor's Note :

Scribble

Live blog of orders and opinions | June 18, 2018 (with First Mondays)

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Conference of January 18, 2019

Major Cases

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Jan. 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

First Mondays see all

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award