Supreme Court of the United States, 2009

Justice Scalia concurs with the Court’s judgment that the city’s refusal to permit Summum’s monument does not violate the Free Speech Clause. He emphasizes that the Ten Commandments display is government speech and poses no Establishment Clause problem, drawing on the Court’s reasoning in Van Orden.

The Court held that Pleasant Grove City's selective acceptance and permanent display of donated monuments constituted government speech, so its rejection of Summum's proposed monument did not violate the Free Speech Clause.

Justice Breyer concurs with the Court, emphasizing that the government‑speech doctrine is a flexible guideline rather than a strict category. He argues that the City of Pleasant Grove’s selection of permanent monuments, while limiting Summum’s expression, does not constitute a disproportionate burden on speech and is…

Justice Souter, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer, held that Title VII’s opposition clause protects an employee who reports discrimination in response to questions during an employer’s internal investigation, even though she did not initiate the complaint.

Justice Souter, writing for a unanimous Court, held that the Commerce Department reasonably treated uranium enrichment transactions as sales of goods subject to antidumping duties, notwithstanding contracts characterizing them as sales of services.

Justice Alito concurred in the judgment, agreeing that Title VII protects an employee who testifies in an internal investigation of alleged sexual harassment. He emphasized that the decision should be limited to testimony in internal investigations and analogous active, purposive conduct, and should not resolve…

Justice Alito delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court. The Court held that Saucier v. Katz’s prescribed sequence for deciding qualified immunity claims is no longer mandatory: courts may decide whether a right was clearly established without first deciding whether a constitutional violation occurred.

The Court, per curiam, held that district courts may categorically reject the crack-cocaine Guidelines on policy grounds and substitute a different crack-to-powder ratio, even in an ordinary case without special mitigating circumstances.

Chief Justice Roberts dissents from the Court's summary reversal, arguing the issue of whether district courts may adopt categorical crack-powder ratios lacks sufficient circuit conflict to warrant immediate Supreme Court intervention. He suggests lower courts require more time to digest recent sentencing precedents.

Justice Scalia dissents, arguing that the Court’s decision improperly narrows the Apprendi rule by limiting its application to the total length of a defendant’s sentence rather than to each individual count.

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, held that the Sixth Amendment permits Oregon to require judges, rather than juries, to find facts necessary to impose consecutive sentences for multiple offenses.