In a per curiam (unauthored) opinion, which concurring Justices Alito and Thomas call “grudging,” the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to decide again whether Massachusetts’s stun gun ban is constitutional. Currently eight states and a handful of cities and counties ban stun guns. The highest state court in Massachusetts held that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect stun guns because they weren’t in common use at the time the Second Amendment was enacted, they are “unusual” as “a thoroughly modern invention,” and they aren’t readily adaptable for use in the military.
As promised, President Obama has nominated someone to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. If this wasn’t an election year Merrick Garland would be a surprising choice. He is known as a moderate, is older (63), a white male, and has been a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for almost 20 years. If it wasn’t an election year Senate Republicans would probably be racing to confirm him.
In a 2-1 decision the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it—rather than a federal district court—has jurisdiction to decide whether the Clean Water Rule, clarifying the scope of the “waters of the United States (WOTUS),” exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority.In October the Sixth Circuit assumed it had jurisdiction and issued a temporary nationwide stay of the rule. The WOTUS rule defines “waters the United States,” according to the EPA, “through increased use of bright-line boundaries” to make “the process of identifying waters protected under the Clean Water Act easier to understand, more predictable and consistent with the law and peer reviewed science, while protecting the streams and wetlands that form the foundation of our nation’s water resources.”The Sixth Circuit stayed the rule concluding it was likely that a number of the definitions were at odds with Rapanos v. United States (2006) and the distance limitations in the final rule weren’t a “logical outgrowth” of the proposed rule, in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.
So the million dollar question (other than who will fill Justice Scalia’s seat) is what will happen to undecided Supreme Court cases heard or to be heard this term. The short answer is it depends and in all instances isn’t entirely clear.
The Supreme Court may currently be on recess but that did not stop it from issuing a stay preventing the Clean Power Plan regulations from going into effect until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court if it chooses to, rules on the regulations.
The Friday before and the Tuesday after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day the Supreme Court accepted a total of nine cases, including a challenge to the President’s executive order allowing undocumented parents of children who are citizens to remain in the United States. United States v. Texas will be heard this term and decided by the end of June. Oral argument will be held next term in some of the other cases accepted mid-January. Four of the eight cases accepted, in addition to the immigration case, affect state and local governments. While I will write more about each of these cases later, for now, below is a brief synopsis of them.
In an already action packed term the Supreme Court has definitively secured this term’s place in history but agreeing to decide whether the President’s deferred action immigration program violates federal law or is unconstitutional. The Court will issue an opinion in United States v. Texas by the end of June 2016. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program allows certain undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for five years and either came here as children or already have children who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents to lawfully stay and work temporarily in the United States. About 5 million people are affected. Twenty six states sued the United States and won before the Fifth Circuit. The Court will decide four legal issues in this case.
It was a typical oral argument at the Supreme Court in a “big” case. Protesters outside with opposing messages tried to out yell each other, but everyone inside was listening to Justice Kennedy. In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association the Court will decide whether to overrule a nearly 40-year old precedent requiring public sector employees who don’t join the union to pay their “fair share” of collective bargaining costs. More than 20 States have enacted statutes authorizing fair share.
A challenge to President Obama’s immigration deferral program and (another) challenge that could harpoon the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could make it on the Supreme Court’s docket this term and be decided by the end of June. For the first time at the Supreme Court’s private conference on January 15 it will consider petitions in United States v. Texas (immigration) and Sissel v. Department of Health and Human Services (ACA).
Every year the Supreme Court refuses to hear thousands of cases. A denial of certiorari does not mean the Court agrees with the lower court decision. So most cert denials go unnoticed. That said, many eyebrows were raised for many reasons when the Court denied cert in Friedman v. City of Highland Park. The issue in the case was whether the City of Highland Park could ban assault weapons and large capacity magazines.
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