Supreme Court of the United States, 2019

Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, holding that, absent an applicable equitable doctrine, the FDCPA’s one-year limitations period begins when the alleged violation occurs, not when it is discovered. The statute’s unambiguous language forecloses importing a general discovery rule.

Justice Sotomayor concurs with the majority that the FDCPA’s one‑year limitations period begins when the violation occurs, but she emphasizes that a long‑standing fraud‑based equitable discovery rule could toll that period when the plaintiff is unaware of fraudulent conduct.

Justice Alito dissents from the Court’s denial of certiorari, arguing that the petition raises crucial First Amendment questions about defamation and the determination of factual falsity, and that the Court should grant review.

The Supreme Court granted a stay of the district court's preliminary injunction against the government’s asylum rule pending resolution of the government’s appeal and any petition for certiorari. The Court found the request extraordinary but nonetheless issued the stay, while Justice Sotomayor dissented.

Justice Sotomayor denied the petition for a writ of certiorari, finding that petitioner Billy Jack Crutsinger had not demonstrated the extraordinary circumstances required for relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6).

Justice Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari, arguing that petitioner McGee’s claim that the State withheld material exculpatory evidence warranted a certificate of appealability and appellate review.

Justice Thomas, in a concurring opinion, notes that the petition for a writ of certiorari is denied and argues that the Court’s undue‑burden standard is an “aberration of constitutional law” that improperly invalidates Alabama’s law prohibiting the dismemberment of a living unborn child.

A unanimous Court on Parts I-II held that several state respondents have Article III standing because an undercount of noncitizen households would imminently cost them federally allocated funds, and that the Enumeration Clause, informed by two centuries of open and unchallenged practice, permits Congress and the…

The Court vacated the Wisconsin Supreme Court's judgment and remanded for further proceedings concerning a warrantless blood draw from an unconscious suspected drunk driver. The judgment opinion concluded that when police have probable cause, the driver's unconsciousness or stupor prevents a reasonable opportunity for…

The Court held that a warrantless blood draw from an unconscious drunk‑driving suspect is permissible under the exigent‑circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment, and therefore vacated the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

A plurality of the Court, with Justice Breyer concurring in the judgment, held that applying 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k)'s mandatory minimum five-year prison term—triggered solely by a judge's preponderance-standard finding, without a jury, that a supervisee committed specified offenses—violated the Fifth and Sixth…

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, held that the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering immoral or scandalous trademarks violates the First Amendment because it discriminates based on viewpoint.

The Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B)'s residual clause is unconstitutionally vague because its text, context, and history compel the categorical, ordinary-case approach that Johnson and Dimaya found incompatible with due process and separation of powers; the government's newly urged case-specific…

The Court held that the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering "immoral or scandalous" trademarks is facially viewpoint‑discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The judgment of the Federal Circuit striking down the provision was affirmed.

The Supreme Court held that the Freedom of Information Act's Exemption 4 protects commercial or financial information as 'confidential' when the owner customarily keeps it private and provides it to the government under an assurance of privacy.

The Supreme Court held that in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and § 924(a)(2) the word 'knowingly' applies to both the conduct and the status elements, so the Government must prove that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and also knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from…

The Court held that a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. §922(g) and §924(a)(2) requires proof that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and knew he belonged to the prohibited category.

The Court reversed the Mississippi Supreme Court's affirmation of Flowers' conviction, finding the trial court committed clear error in rejecting a Batson challenge. The Court concluded the State's peremptory strikes of black prospective jurors were motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent based on the…

Justice Alito concurs with the majority that Curtis Flowers' capital convictions must be vacated because the Mississippi courts erred in finding no purposeful racial discrimination in jury selection. He emphasizes the case’s unique factual context and argues that the record does not support a Batson violation.

The Supreme Court held that a government violates the Takings Clause—and the owner acquires an actionable Fifth Amendment claim—the moment it takes property without paying just compensation, so the owner may sue under 42 U.S.C. §1983 immediately, without first pursuing state inverse condemnation procedures.

The Court affirmed the North Carolina Supreme Court, holding that a state may not tax trust income solely because the trust’s beneficiaries reside in the state when those beneficiaries have no right to receive income and lack control, possession, or enjoyment of the trust assets, as such a tax violates the Due Process…

The Supreme Court held that the statute of limitations on a 42 U.S.C. §1983 claim alleging that a special district attorney fabricated evidence and used it to pursue criminal charges does not begin to run until the criminal proceedings terminate in the plaintiff's favor—here, McDonough's December 21, 2012…

The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), a private nonprofit designated by New York City to operate the public access channels on Time Warner's Manhattan cable system, is not a state actor and therefore is not subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion.

Justice Thomas concurs with the majority that the dual‑sovereignty doctrine does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, emphasizing that the doctrine is not demonstrably erroneous and therefore need not be overruled under stare decisis.

Justice Ginsburg dissents from the Court’s affirmation of the dual‑sovereign doctrine, arguing that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars successive state and federal prosecutions for the same conduct.

The Court held that under the Armed Career Criminal Act, a "remaining‑in" burglary occurs when the defendant forms the intent to commit a crime at any time while unlawfully remaining in a building or structure, and that Michigan’s third‑degree home‑invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than the…

Justice Sotomayor delivered the Court's opinion holding that a federal agency is not a “person” entitled to petition for inter partes review, post-grant review, or covered-business-method review under the America Invents Act.

The Court held that under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, state law is adopted as federal law on the OCS only when federal law does not address the issue; if federal law covers the matter, state law is inapplicable.

Justice Thomas concurs in the Court’s judgment and argues that the categorical approach applied to the ACCA’s enumerated‑offenses clause is not required by the statute and may raise Sixth Amendment concerns. He notes that the approach is difficult to apply and that any error would be harmless in this case.

The Court held that for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, "remaining‑in burglary" occurs when a defendant forms the intent to commit a crime at any time while unlawfully remaining in a building or structure, and that Michigan’s home‑invasion statute substantially corresponds to that generic definition, so the…

The Court held that pretrial detention for a new offense tolls the supervised release term under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) if a later sentence credits that detention as time served. The Court reasoned that the statutory text allows for retrospective tolling calculations.

The Supreme Court held that a court may hold a creditor in civil contempt for attempting to collect a debt barred by a bankruptcy discharge order only where there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor's conduct — that is, no objectively reasonable basis for concluding the creditor's…

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, held that Title VII's EEOC charge-filing requirement is a mandatory claim-processing rule, not a jurisdictional limitation. Because Congress did not clearly make the requirement jurisdictional, an employer must timely assert noncompliance or risk forfeiting the objection.

The Supreme Court denied Christopher Lee Price's petition for a stay of execution, allowing the state to proceed with lethal injection. Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, dissented, arguing that the Eighth Amendment claim of severe pain merits a stay and that the state had not shown…

The Supreme Court held that when the SSA's Appeals Council dismisses a claimant's request for review as untimely after the claimant has received an ALJ hearing on the merits, that dismissal is a 'final decision ... made after a hearing' subject to judicial review under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).

The Court held that a plaintiff bringing a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must plead and prove the absence of probable cause for the arrest, extending Hartman's retaliatory-prosecution rule to arrests because both claims present a tenuous causal connection between the officer's animus…

The Court held that probable cause does not per se defeat a §1983 First Amendment retaliatory‑arrest claim, but plaintiffs must show that similarly situated individuals who engaged in different speech were not arrested—a new comparison‑based evidentiary requirement.

The Supreme Court held that neither the general removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a), nor the Class Action Fairness Act removal provision, § 1453(b), allows a third-party counterclaim defendant—a party first brought into a lawsuit through a counterclaim filed by the original defendant—to remove the claims asserted…

Justice Sotomayor dissents, arguing that probable cause does not automatically defeat a §1983 First Amendment retaliatory‑arrest claim and that the Court should apply the established Mt. Healthy framework rather than the majority’s new comparator‑evidence rule.