Week in a Nutshell, 6/28/24

June 28, 2024

Week in a Nutshell, 6/28/24

The Supreme Court is seen on June 26, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court released a number of high-profile opinions and orders this week:

The justices preserved, for now, access to emergency abortions in Idaho, but the challenge is expected to soon return to the Court.

The Court was asked to determine whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requires Idaho hospitals to administer abortions to pregnant patients facing medical emergencies. Idaho recently enacted a near-total abortion ban.
In a brief, unsigned opinion, the justices dismissed the case, thus reinstating a lower-court ruling that froze the Idaho law. Since the Court did not rule on the merits of the claim, the case will likely work its way back up to the justices again soon.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voiced some support for the Court’s ruling, but she argued that the Court’s delays do a disservice to Americans who want clarity about the legality of emergency abortions. In her view, the Court should have struck down the Idaho law now. Jackson wrote, “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay. While this Court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. This Court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price. Because we owe them—and the Nation—an answer to the straightforward pre-emption question presented in these cases, I respectfully dissent.”
Justice Samuel Alito also dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, but for the opposite reason as Justice Jackson. Alito would have ruled in favor of Idaho, writing, “Apparently, the Court has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents. That is regrettable.”
The Court formally announced the ruling on Thursday, one day after the decision was inadvertently posted on the Court’s website, as reported by Bloomberg.

The Court has rescinded the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to use in-house tribunals to bring enforcement actions for fraud cases.

In a civil enforcement action, the SEC accused hedge fund manager George Jarkesy of misleading investors. Following a proceeding in the SEC’s in-house tribunal, an administrative law judge ruled against Jarkesy and ordered him to pay nearly $1 million in fines. Jarkesy appealed the decision and argued that the process before the administrative law judge violated his 7th Amendment right to a trial by jury in an Article III federal court.
The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc ruled in favor of Jarkesy. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator.”
The Court’s three liberal justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the “decision is a massive sea change” for federal agencies and further leads to the “dismantling of the ‘administrative state.’” Sotomayor continued, “The constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress. Rather than acknowledge the earthshattering nature of its holding, the majority has tried to disguise it.”

In a case that sought to bar the federal government from communicating with social media platforms about disinformation on their sites, the Supreme Court ruled that the challengers lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.

The case, Murthy v. Missouri, stems from the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage social media sites to restrict misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and elections. Individuals whose posts were removed, along with two states with Republican attorneys general, filed a lawsuit seeking to block government officials from communicating with social media sites about content moderation, arguing that the government violated the social media users’ free speech rights.
The Court’s liberal justices joined Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to form the 6-3 majority. In the majority opinion, Barrett explained that the challengers lacked an injury that would afford them standing to sue. Barrett wrote, “The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics. This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from ‘exercising such general legal oversight’ of the other branches of Government.”
Justice Alito wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, in which he argued for the challengers’ position. Alito wrote, “For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”

The justices also added a number of cases to the docket for next term.

In United States v. Skrmetti, the justices will consider whether a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for transgender youths violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Tennessee law at issue bans healthcare providers from administering medical procedures that “enabl[e] a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or “treat[] purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.” The prohibition also includes, but is not limited to, providing puberty blockers and hormones. Two transgender teens and their doctors filed the lawsuit challenging the law.
The justices also granted review of cases concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act, bankruptcy law, and trademark law.
The justices declined, without explanation, to consider an appeal brought by James Broadnax, a Black man who was convicted and sentenced to death for shooting and killing two white men. During jury selection, Texas prosecutors removed all seven of the potential Black jurors in the jury pool. In his petition to the Court, Broadnax argued that prosecutors violated the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which held that jurors may not be dismissed due to race. Broadnax wrote, “Review is necessary here because…a DA’s office with a long and notorious history of racially discriminatory jury selection practices continued to flout this Court’s direction. Left undisturbed, the State’s explicit discrimination will erode the Court’s authority and public confidence in our criminal justice system.” Justices Sotomayor and Jackson indicated that they would have ruled in favor of Broadnax.