In this case, the court considered this issue: May Oklahoma carry out the execution of Richard Glossip in light of the prosecutorial misconduct and other errors that affected his conviction and sentencing? The case was decided on February 25, 2025. The Supreme Court held that the prosecution’s failure to correct false testimony violated the Due Process Clause under Napue v Illinois. A conviction that relies on false evidence, knowingly allowed by the prosecution, requires reversal if there is a ...
Mar 10, 2025•2 hr 35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Is a party who obtains a preliminary injunction a “prevailing party” for purposes of being entitled to attorney’s fees under 42 U-S-C § 1988? The case was decided on February 25, 2025. The Supreme Court held that a party that receives a preliminary injunction but does not obtain a final judgment on the merits before a case becomes moot is not a "prevailing party" eligible for attorney's fees under 42 U-S-C §1988(b). Chief Justice John ...
Feb 28, 2025•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does a Section 1983 claim brought in state court require the plaintiffs to first exhaust state administrative remedies? The case was decided on February 21, 2025. The Supreme Court held that where a state court’s application of a state exhaustion requirement in effect immunizes state officials from 42 U-S-C §1983 claims challenging delays in the administrative process, state courts may not deny those claims on failure-to-exhaust grounds. Justice Bre...
Feb 27, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered these three issues: 1. Does historical commingling of assets suffice to establish that proceeds of seized property have a commercial nexus with the United States under the expropriation exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act? 2. Must a plaintiff make out a valid claim that an exception to the FSIA applies at the pleading stage, rather than merely raising a plausible inference? 3. Does a sovereign defendant bear the burden of producing evidence to aff...
Feb 26, 2025•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the unanimous decision of Wisconsin Bell, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Heath , the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the applicability of the False Claims Act (FCA) to reimbursement requests made under the E-Rate program, a federal initiative subsidizing internet and telecommunications services for schools and libraries. Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court, holding that such reimbursement requests qualify as "claims" under the FCA because the government provides a portion o...
Feb 25, 2025•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast The case was decided on January 21, 2025. Brenda Andrew was convicted by an Oklahoma jury of murdering her husband, Rob Andrew, and was sentenced to death. During her trial, the prosecution introduced extensive evidence about her sex life and personal failings, which was later conceded to be irrelevant. Andrew argued in a federal habeas petition that this evidence was so prejudicial it violated the Due Process Clause. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) upheld her conviction, finding s...
Jan 31, 2025•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, as applied to TikTok, violate the First Amendment? The case was decided on January 17, 2025. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that the challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate TikTok’s First Amendment rights. First, the Court determined that intermediate scrutiny applies because the law i...
Jan 31, 2025•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Can a plaintiff whose state-court lawsuit has been removed by the defendants to federal court seek to have the case sent back to state court by amending the complaint to omit all references to federal law? The case was decided on January 15, 2025. The Supreme Court held that when a plaintiff amends her complaint to delete the federal-law claims that enabled removal to federal court, leaving only state-law claims behind, the federal court loses suppl...
Jan 29, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Is the burden of proof that employers must satisfy to demonstrate the applicability of a Fair Labor Standards Act exemption a mere preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence? The case was decided on January 15, 2025. The Supreme Court held that the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard applies when an employer seeks to show that an employee is exempt from the minimum-wage and overtime-pay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards A...
Jan 28, 2025•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered whether federal courts have jurisdiction to review the Secretary of Homeland Security's discretionary decision to revoke an approved visa petition under 8 U-S-C §1155, based on a determination that a prior marriage was a sham. The case was decided on December 10, 2024. The Supreme Court held that Revocation of an approved visa petition based on a sham-marriage determination is the kind of discretionary decision that federal courts do not have jurisdiction t...
Jan 27, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Do Florida S.B. 7072’s content-moderation restrictions comply with the First Amendment, and do the law’s individualized-explanation requirements comply with the First Amendment? The case was decided on July 1, 2024. The Supreme Court held that The judgments are vacated, and the cases are remanded, because neither the Eleventh Circuit nor the Fifth Circuit conducted a proper analysis of the facial First Amendment challenges to the Florida and Texas l...
Jan 25, 2025•2 hr 50 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office, and if so, to what extent? The case was decided on July 1, 2024. The Supreme Court held that a former U-S President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority, at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his off...
Jan 18, 2025•2 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does a plaintiff’s claim under the Administrative Procedure Act “first accrue” under 28 U-S-C § 2401(a) when an agency issues a rule, or when the rule first causes harm to the plaintiff? The case was decided on July 1, 2024. The Supreme Court held that an Administrative Procedures Act claim does not accrue for purposes of 28 U-S-C §2401(a) until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the 6-3 majority opin...
Jan 10, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered these issues: 1. Does the Magnuson-Stevens Act authorize the National Marine Fisheries Service to promulgate a rule that would require industry to pay for at-sea monitoring programs? 2. Should the Court overrule Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council or at least clarify whether statutory silence on controversial powers creates an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency? The case was decided on June 28, 2024. The Supreme Court held that the Administrati...
Dec 20, 2024•2 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does a city’s enforcement of public camping against involuntarily homeless people violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment? The case was decided on June 28, 2024. The Supreme Court held that The enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the 6-3 majority opinion...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does 18 U-S-C § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence? The case was decided on June 28, 2024. The Supreme Court held that to prove a violation of 18 U-S-C §1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an offi...
Dec 12, 2024•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the Bankruptcy Code authorize a court to approve, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, a release that extinguishes claims held by non-debtors against non-debtor third parties, without the claimants’ consent? The case was decided on June 27, 2024. The Supreme Court held that the Bankruptcy Code does not authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, effective...
Dec 10, 2024•2 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the statutory scheme that empowers the Securities and Exchange Commission violate the Seventh Amendment, the nondelegation doctrine, or Article II of the U-S Constitution? The case was decided on June 27, 2024. The Supreme Court held that when the Securities and Exchange Commission seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the...
Dec 05, 2024•2 hr 54 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempt an Idaho law that criminalizes most abortions in that state? The case was decided on June 27, 2024. The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted and vacated its earlier stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction against Idaho’s abortion law. Justice Elena Kagan authored a concurring opinion that was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanj...
Dec 03, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: should the Court stay the EPA’s federal emissions reduction rule, the Good Neighbor Plan, and are the emissions controls imposed by the rule reasonable regardless of the number of states subject to the rule? The case was decided on June 27, 2024. The Supreme Court held that the EPA’s enforcement of the Federal Implementation Plan against the applicant States is stayed pending disposition of the applicants’ petition for review in the D-C Circuit and ...
Nov 26, 2024•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: does 18 U-S-C § 666(a)(1)(B) criminalize gratuities, i.e., payments in recognition of actions a state or local official has already taken or committed to take, without any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions? The case was decided on June 26, 2024. The Supreme Court held that Federal law, 18 U-S-C §666, proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts. Ju...
Nov 25, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Did the federal government’s request that private social media companies take steps to prevent the dissemination of purported misinformation transform those companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and thus violate users’ First Amendment rights? The case was decided on June 26, 2024. The Supreme Court held that Respondents—two States and five individual social-media users who sued Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging th...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the Constitution require a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt to find that a defendant’s prior convictions were “committed on occasions different from one another,” as is necessary to impose an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act? The case was decided on June 21, 2024. The Supreme Court held that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defen...
Nov 20, 2024•2 hr 37 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the denial of a visa to the non-citizen spouse of a U.S. citizen infringe on a constitutionally protected interest of the citizen and, if so, did the government properly justify that decision in this case? The case was decided on June 21, 2024. The Supreme Court held that a U.S. citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion of ...
Nov 15, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: May a court enter a consent decree among Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado regarding the Rio Grande Compact without the consent of the United States, who intervened in the action? The case was decided on June 21, 2024. The Supreme Court held that because the proposed consent decree would dispose of the United States’ Compact claims without its consent, the States’ motion to enter the consent decree is denied. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment permit the prosecution in a criminal trial to present testimony by a substitute expert conveying the testimonial statements of a nontestifying forensic analyst? The case was decided on June 21, 2024. The Supreme Court held that when an expert conveys an absent lab analyst’s statements in support of the expert’s opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come...
Nov 12, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: Does 18 U-S-C § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders, violate the Second Amendment? The case was decided on June 21, 2024. The Supreme Court held that when an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts authored th...
Nov 09, 2024•2 hr•Transcript available on Metacast In this case, the court considered this issue: May a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim proceed as to a baseless criminal charge so long as other charges brought alongside the baseless charge are supported by probable cause? The case was decided on June 20, 2024. The Supreme Court held that pursuant to the Fourth Amendment and traditional common-law practice, the presence of probable cause for one charge in a criminal proceeding does not categorically defeat a Fourth Amendment maliciou...
Nov 06, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Supreme Court Opinions. In this episode, you’ll hear the Court’s opinion in Diaz v United States. In this case, the court considered this issue: Under Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b), may a governmental expert witness testify that couriers know they are carrying drugs and that drug-trafficking organizations do not entrust large quantities of drugs to unknowing transporters to prove that the defendant knew she was carrying illegal drugs? The case was decided on June 20, 2024. The Supre...
Nov 05, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to Supreme Court Opinions. In this episode, you’ll hear the Court’s opinion in Garland v Cargill. In this case, the court considered this issue: Is a bump stock device a “machinegun” as defined in 26 U-S-C § 5845(b)? The case was decided on June 14, 2024. The Supreme Court held that ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies a bump stock as a “machinegun” under 26 U-S-C § 5845(b). Justice Clarence Thomas authored the 6-3 majority opinion of the Court. First, a...
Nov 04, 2024•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
