Category: Supreme Court Decisions

In Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim is the proper avenue for challenging an unlawful post-arrest detention. According to the seven-member majority, such a...

In McLane v. EEOC, 581 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a district court’s decision whether to enforce or quash a subpoena issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) should be reviewed for abuse of discretion ra...

In National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, the Supreme Court limited the President’s ability to fill vacancies under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA). By a vote of 7-2, the Court held that a person can’t serve in an acting ca...

In Beckles v United States, 580 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the country’s federal sentencing guidelines. By a vote of 7-0, the Court held that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, including Section 4B1.2...

A divided U.S. Supreme Court recently held that while jury deliberations should normally be kept secret, racial or ethnic bias mandates an exception to the rule. The court decided Pena-Rodriguez v Colorado, 580 U. S. ____ (2017) by a vote of 5-3. Fa...

In Bethune-Hill v Virginia State Board of Elections, the U.S. Supreme Court considered what constitutes racial gerrymandering.   Through its holding that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard in determining that race did ...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently released its decision in Fry v Napoleon Community Schools. The justices unanimously held that exhaustion of the administrative procedures established by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is unneces...

The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Abbott v Veasey, which challenges a controversial voter identification law implemented by the State of Texas. Nonetheless, the justices did leave the door open to review the voter ID law in the future. &...

In its first decision of 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a New Mexico police officer was entitled to qualified immunity. As highlighted in the Court’s per curium opinion in White v Pauly, 580 U. S. ____ (2017), “qualified immu...

The U.S. Supreme Court considered several high-profile cases this week. Most notably, the justices grappled with how the First Amendment applies to federal trademark law.   The specific issue in Lee v. Tam is whether the federal ban on reg...