The Supreme Court returns to the bench on Thursday to release more opinions in argued cases. With 11 days remaining in June, the justices have just over 20 decisions (depending on whether they issue one or two opinions to address some questions) remaining. Here are summaries of the as-yet-undecided cases, along with a few tea leaves about which justice may be writing which opinion:

1. United States v. Rahimi (argued Nov. 7, 2023): Whether a federal law that bans the possession of guns by individuals who are the subject of domestic-violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment, which provides that “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The question comes to the court in the case of a Texas man who was the subject of a civil protective order after he dragged his then-girlfriend back to his car when she tried to leave after an argument. When the man, Zackey Rahimi, became a suspect in a series of shootings, police searched his home, where they found a rifle and a pistol – which he was specifically barred from having under the terms of the protective order. Chief Justice John Roberts did not write an opinion in October, and he does not have an opinion for November, so – particularly when Justice Clarence Thomas has already issued a November opinion – could be the author.
2. SEC v. Jarkesy (argued Nov. 29, 2023): Whether the structure and enforcement powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission violate the Constitution. The case began as an administrative proceeding by the SEC against George Jarkesy, an investment adviser and the founder of a hedge fund. The SEC ruled that Jarkesy and his firm had committed securities fraud, and it ordered them to pay $300,000 in fines and nearly double that in repayments. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with Jarkesy and held that three different aspects of the SEC’s operations are unconstitutional. Five justices have not yet written opinions in December: Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh. Gorsuch and Roberts did not have opinions in October, so they seem the most likely candidates to tackle the three remaining December cases – Jarkesy, Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, and Moore v. United States. But there’s no way to know which cases they might tackle or which justice might write the third decision.

3. Harrington v. Purdue Pharma (argued Dec. 4, 2023): Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit was correct to approve a multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin, that would release members of the Sackler family, which owned the company but did not declare bankruptcy, from any future liability for claims against them. The justices agreed last summer to put the bankruptcy plan on hold while it reviewed the challenge, brought by (among others) the federal government, to the plan’s legality. A bankruptcy judge originally approved the plan in 2021, reasoning that although the confirmation was a “bitter result” it was also the only way to provide funding for communities to address the problems caused by opioids.
4. Moore v. United States (argued Dec. 5, 2023): Whether a provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act known as the “mandatory repatriation tax,” which required U.S. taxpayers who owned shares in foreign corporations to pay a one-time tax on their share of the corporation’s earnings, violates the Constitution. The challenge to the tax was brought by a Washington State couple that owns shares in an Indian corporation that supplies small farmers with modern tools. The contended that the mandatory repatriation tax – which would raise their tax liability for 2017 by $15,000 – violates the Constitution’s apportionment clause, which requires
5. Smith v. Arizona (argued Jan. 10, 2024): Whether the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees a defendant the right to confront the witnesses against him, allows prosecutors to use expert testimony about evidence – here, a report prepared by a different crime lab analyst who no longer worked at the lab and did not testify at trial – that was not itself admitted into evidence, on the grounds that the testifying expert was simply offering his own opinion and that the defendant could have subpoenaed the original analyst.
6. Relentless v. Department of Commerce & Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (argued Jan. 17, 2024): Whether the Supreme Court should overrule or limit its 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, in which it held that when a federal statute is ambiguous, courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of that law as long as it is reasonable. The question comes to the court in a challenge to a rule issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires the fishing industry to pay for the costs, estimated at $710 per day, of having observers on fishing boats to collect data about the boats’ catches.
7. Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (argued Feb. 20, 2024): Whether the six-year statute of limitations to challenge an action by a federal agency begins to run when the agency issues the rule or instead when the plaintiff is actually injured. The question comes to the court in a challenge to a rule issued by the Federal Reserve in 2011 that caps debit-card processing fees. Because the truck stop challenging the rule did not open for business until 2018, it contends that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until it processed its first debit-card transaction that year.
8. Ohio v. EPA (argued Feb. 21, 2024): Whether the Supreme Court should temporarily block a rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce air pollution from power plants and other industrial facilities while litigation continues. The case arises from the EPA’s interpretation of a law known as the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act, which requires “upwind” states to reduce emissions that affect the air quality in “downwind” states.
9. Moody v. NetChoice & NetChoice v. Paxton (argued Feb. 26, 2024): Whether laws in Florida and Texas that seek to regulate how large social media companies like Facebook and X control content posted on their sites violate the First Amendment. The two states passed the laws in 2021 in response to a belief that social media companies were censoring their users, especially those with conservative views. A federal appeals court in Atlanta blocked Florida from enforcing most of its law, while a different appeals court upheld the Texas law, although the Supreme Court put it on hold while the challenge by tech groups continued.
10. Murthy v. Missouri (argued March 18, 2024): Whether the federal government’s conduct transformed content-moderation decisions by private social media companies into government action and therefore violated the First Amendment, and whether the challengers have a legal right to bring their lawsuit. The plaintiffs in this case – two states with Republican attorneys general and several individuals whose social media posts were removed or downgraded – challenged the Biden administration’s efforts in 2021 to restrict misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine. They argued that the administration’s actions had violated social media users’ rights to free speech.
11. Diaz v. United States (argued March 19, 2024): Whether prosecutors in a drug-trafficking case can call a government witness to provide expert testimony to rebut a defendant’s contention that she did not know that she was carrying drugs. The question comes to the court in the case of a woman who was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border with 28 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in her car. She maintained that the car belonged to her boyfriend and that she didn’t know that the drugs were in it.
12. Gonzalez v. Trevino (argued March 20, 2024): What kinds of evidence must a plaintiff alleging that she was arrested in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment show to qualify for the exception outlined in Nieves v. Bartlett, which holds that although plaintiffs must generally show that police did not have probable cause to arrest them, they can also show that they were arrested when others who had not been engaged in protected speech would not have been. The question comes to the court in the case of a 76-year-old Texas woman who was arrested after she – accidentally, she claims – picked up a petition that she had initiated and placed it in her binder after a long meeting. She was charged with violating a state law that prohibits tampering with government records.
13. Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado (argued March 20, 2024): The latest chapter in a long-running water dispute over the apportionment of the waters of the Rio Grande, and in particular efforts by Texas and New Mexico to settle the dispute over the objections of the federal government.
14. Erlinger v. United States (argued March 27, 2024): For purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes an enhanced sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm if the defendant has three convictions “committed on occasions different from one another,” should a jury or a judge decide whether the crimes occurred on different occasions? The question comes to the court in the case of an Indiana man who in 1991 pleaded guilty to four counts of burglary arising from four nonresidential burglaries that were charged together and that occurred in the same city over the course of a week.
15. Snyder v. United States (argued April 15, 2024): Whether federal bribery laws make it a crime to accept payment for something a government official has already done, without any prior agreement to take those actions in exchange for payment. The question comes to the court in the case of the former mayor of Portage, Ind., who received $13,000 from a trucking company after the town of Portage bought a trash truck from the company.
16. Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon (argued April 15, 2024): Whether a claim for malicious prosecution can proceed for a baseless criminal charge, even if there was probable cause for prosecutors to bring other criminal charges. The question comes to the court in the case of Jascha Chiaverini, a jeweler who was charged with (among other things) money laundering after he bought a ring that he says he later learned was stolen. After the charges were dropped, Chiaverini filed this claim for malicious prosecution.
17. Fischer v. United States (argued April 16, 2024): Whether a federal law that makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct congressional inquiries and investigations can be used to prosecute participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. The question comes to the court in the case of a former Pennsylvania police officer who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
18. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (argued April 22, 2024): Whether an ordinance in an Oregon city that bars people who are homeless from using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes for protection from the elements while sleeping within the city limits violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
19. Department of State v. Muñoz (argued April 23, 2024): Whether the denial of a visa to the non-citizen spouse of a U.S. citizen violates a constitutionally protected right of the citizen and, if so, whether the government properly explained its decision to deny the visa. The question comes to the court in the case of Sandra Munoz, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, Luis Ernesto Asencio-Cordero, a citizen of El Salvador. Asencio-Cordero’s application for a green card was denied with only a cursory explanation; the government eventually revealed that it believed that he was a member of the gang MS-13.
20. Moyle v. United States (argued April 24, 2024): Whether a federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires emergency rooms at hospitals that participate in Medicare to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment,” can sometimes trump an Idaho law that makes it a crime to provide an abortion except in a handful of narrow circumstances, including to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. The Biden administration brought this case shortly after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022, and two lower courts barred Idaho from enforcing its law to the extent it conflicted with EMTALA. However, the Supreme Court put those orders on hold earlier this year.
21. Trump v. United States (argued April 25, 2024): Whether (and, if so, to what extent) a former president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts while in office. The question comes to the court in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.