U.S. Politics
Supreme Court to Decide Controversial Cases in 2024-25 Term
By Mary Alice Miller
The Supreme Court has opened its 2024-25 term with 15 cases, an unusually light caseload. It is speculated the High Court has given itself time in its calendar to hear cases related to the upcoming November General Election. The Court may decide to take more cases later in the term.
The chosen cases will be consequential, decided by the 6-3 conservative majority that overturned abortion, granted far-reaching presidential immunity, struck down affirmative action, and challenged the powers of administrative agencies.
The Supreme Court has chosen to take a case involving a $10 billion lawsuit filed in Mexico against major U.S. gun manufacturers that supply 70% of weapons trafficked in Mexico. SCOTUS will decide whether an appeals court ruling allowing the lawsuit to go forward should stand. The U.S. firearms industry has broad legal protections, but Mexico claims the weapons are used by cartels, causing mass bloodshed, including against elected officials and journalists.
In 2022, the Biden administration implemented a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rule blocking teenagers and people who cannot pass a background check from purchasing ghost gun kits. Ghost guns are obtained from kits that can be assembled within 30 minutes and have no serial numbers, making them impossible to trace. 20,000 ghost guns were found at crime scenes in 2021, up from 4,000 in 2018, due in large part to the Biden regulation.
The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the ghost gun rule. SCOTUS has previously rejected a ban on bump stocks, a Trump administration rule. Bump stocks are gun accessories that allow semiautomatic weapons to rapidly fire bullets, similar to the rate of machine guns. Bump stocks were used in the Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 58 and injured more than 800 people.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments regarding a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of their users.
An Oklahoma death penalty case involving a man who was sentenced to death for his role in the death of an Oklahoma City motel will be heard by the High Court. Another man confessed to the killing, stating that the convicted man paid for the murder. In exchange for his testimony, prosecutors promised the second man that he would not face the death penalty. That man was later found to have given false testimony regarding his mental health issues.
A case related to fees payable to civil rights attorneys for plaintiffs was heard by SCOTUS. Virginia does not want to award attorney’s fees because a federal court temporarily barred the state from enforcing a state motor vehicle law.
The High Court will hear a case to decide whether the president’s authority to remove commissioners of the Consumer Product Safety Commission violates the separation of powers.
The Court will hear a case regarding race-neutral admission criteria at Massachusetts selective schools that could reduce the percentage of Asian-American students admitted.
The justices will hear a pair of cases related to uncompensated takings. In New York City, the justices will consider whether a rent stabilization scheme is effectively an uncompensated taking of private property. On Long Island, property owners challenge the taking of their property to create a park to prevent the owners from opening a hardware store.
The Supreme Court will decide if Planned Parenthood was appropriately disqualified as a Medicaid provider by South Carolina because it provides abortions.
During a recent book tour interview, Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson reflected on the Supreme Court.
“I would encourage people to continue to be engaged in your government,” said Justice Jackson. “The idea of the Supreme Court standing beyond and above public criticism and critique, I think, is not a sound one. We are a branch of government just like the other branches of government. The thing that distinguishes us is that we need public legitimacy. It is the way our opinions are enforced. We don’t have an army. We don’t have the power of the purse. What we have is people who believe in the rule of law and who trust this institution to safeguard it.”
Justice Jackson asked the public to “continue to engage. Read our opinions. Form your own opinions about what it is the Court is doing. I am doing what I can as a justice to try to explain to the public that law and politics are two different things. And to do what I know justices do and are supposed to do in our government. I encourage anyone who really cares about government to get involved in some way whether it be as a voter or as a person who decides they want to enter into institutions.”