The Supreme Court announced today that its next day to release opinions will be Monday, July 6. With seven (or eight, depending on how you count them) decisions left to release, it seems entirely possible that Monday may not be the last day of the term. As law professor Stephen Vladeck noted, this year is the first since 1986 that the justices have released decisions on the merits after July 4. Here is a list of the remaining cases. With only two of the 10 cases argued in May decided, it is difficult to make predictions about who may be writing the decisions. We know that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have already written opinions for May, so they are less likely to be writing any of the remaining cases. But predictions should be taken with a grain of salt in any event: For example, the conventional wisdom was that Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Justice Brett Kavanaugh would write the opinion in the Title VII cases, because none of those justices had written opinions for the court’s October session yet. But in the end it was Justice Neil Gorsuch – who had already written an opinion for October – who wrote last week’s historic decision, leaving Gorsuch with two opinions for the October sessions and his three colleagues without any.
Little Sisters of the Poor Sts. Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania (consolidated with Trump v. Pennsylvania) (argued May 6, 2020): Whether the expansion of the conscience exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate violated the ACA and the laws governing federal administrative agencies.
Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (argued May 6, 2020): Whether an exception for government-debt collection to a federal law that bars robocalls to cellphones is unconstitutional.
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (consolidated with St. James School v. Biel) (argued May 11, 2020): Whether courts can hear employment discrimination claims brought by teachers at Catholic elementary schools.
McGirt v. Oklahoma (argued May 11, 2020): Whether land set up in the 19th century in eastern Oklahoma for the Creek Nation remains a reservation for purposes of a federal law that requires some major crimes committed on a reservation by or against Indians to be prosecuted as federal crimes.
Trump v. Mazars USA (consolidated with Trump v. Deutsche Bank) (argued May 12, 2020): Whether congressional committees have the authority to issue subpoenas to the president’s accountant and creditors for financial records belonging to the president and his business entities.
Trump v. Vance (argued May 12, 2020): Whether the Manhattan district attorney can obtain the president’s tax returns as part of a state grand-jury investigation.
Chiafalo v. Washington and Colorado Department of State v. Baca (argued May 13, 2020): Whether state “faithless elector” laws, which require presidential electors to vote the way that state law directs, are constitutional. Although both cases involve the same issue, they were argued separately because Justice Sonia Sotomayor is recused from the Colorado case. It is possible that the court could release one “main” opinion that addresses all of the issues in the disputes and then issue a short decision that disposes of the second case, based on the first opinion, without a lengthy analysis.
