Category: Supreme Court Decisions

While the U.S. Supreme Court has not issued a ground breaking gun rights case since District of Columbia v. Heller, it continues to refine the scope of Second Amendment protection. The Court’s October 2013 session was no exception. In Abramski v. U...

In McCullen v. Coakley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Massachusetts law establishing “buffer zones” around reproductive health care facilities violates the First Amendment. The justices concluded that even though the restriction is content ...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued an important decision regarding the free speech rights of public employees. The unanimous First Amendment decision clarifies that employees are protected when providing court testimony about matters outside the ...

A divided Supreme Court has withdrawn some of the discretion it gave to the states to determine when an individual convicted of murder is too intellectually incapacitated to be executed. The five to four majority held that states cannot use a fixed I...

The Supreme Court recently decided the case of Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (MGM), involving the question of how to decide if a copyright case is brought in a timely manner. The Copyright Act sets forth a three-year statute of limitations, y...

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an EPA regulation that will delegate the duty to stop or at least reduce polluted air from blowing from one state into another. The 6-2 decision in Environmental Protection Agency v. EME Homer City Generation was a clear...

The long-awaited ruling in Town of Greece v. Galloway has finally arrived after seven years of litigation and six months after oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. A 5 – 4 divided Court upheld the offering of prayer to open government meet...

Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie - Is a Warrant Required to Search Cellphone The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in two cases, Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, both of which involve challenges to...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently announced its 6-2 ruling affirming Michigan’s ban on affirmative action in public colleges in the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. The case involved a challenge to an amendment to the Mi...

The Supreme Court is expected to soon decide whether an amendment to a state constitution that bans the use of affirmative action at public universities is unconstitutional. The case is Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and oral argu...