WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Wednesday, June 26

We’ll be live this morning at 9:30 a.m. EDT as the court releases opinions in one or more cases from the current term. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read:

• From Trump’s immunity to abortion, the Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions this term are about to drop (Josh Gerstein & Samantha Latson, Politico)
• Supreme Court Ruling Leaves Door Cracked for Future Wealth Tax (Farid Khosravi & Jennifer Lindy, Bloomberg Law)
• Texas prepares to execute man as attorneys ask supreme court for stay (The Guardian)
• How Supreme Court’s Florida ruling will impact U.S. betting (Doug Greenberg, ESPN)
• On Guns, the Supreme Court Steps Back From the Edge (Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times)

Coming up: On June 27 and 28, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We will be live each day at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Tuesday, June 25

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read:

• Early divisions signal bitter internal conflicts as Supreme Court turns toward final decisions (John Fritze, CNN)
• Supreme Court to hear major Tennessee transgender case (Anthony Zurcher, BBC)
• Supreme Court rejects appeal from ex-reality star Josh Duggar (Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press)
• Why Is the Supreme Court Ignoring Its Own Rules? (Kimberly Wehle, Politico)
• The Supreme Court’s Dubious Use of History in Department of State v. Munoz (Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy)

Coming up: On June 26, 27, and 28, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We will be live each day at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, June 24

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Supreme Court to weigh state restrictions on gender-affirming care for youths (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• U.S. Supreme Court blocks the state’s Rio Grande water deal with New Mexico (Alejandra Martinez & Berenice Garcia, The Texas Tribune)
• Is Trump shielded from criminal charges as an ex-president? A nation awaits word from Supreme Court (Mark Sherman, The Associated Press)
• In Abortion Cases, Legions of ‘Friends’ Seek to Persuade Supreme Court (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Sonia Sotomayor knocks Supreme Court immigration decision, says it could ‘burden’ same-sex couples (Maureen Groppe & Marina Pitofsky, USA Today)

Coming up: On Wednesday, June 26, the court again expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. 

SCOTUS NEWS

Court adds seven cases to next term’s docket

The Supreme Court on Monday added seven new cases to its merits docket for the 2024-25 term, including a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. (That case is covered in a separate story.) In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference on June 20, the court agreed to take up a wide variety of issues, ranging from the interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to compensation for civilians called up for active-duty military service.

Just a few weeks after the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the Supreme Court agreed to take up a case by survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust seeking compensation for the seizure of their property by the Hungarian government.

The issue at the center of Republic of Hungary v. Simon is the interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally bars lawsuits against foreign governments in U.S. courts but carves out an exception – known as the “expropriation exception” – when (among other things) the lawsuit involves property taken in violation of international law and there is a commercial connection between that property and the United States.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices send expert witness question back to state court

The Supreme Court on Friday sent the case of an Arizona man convicted of drug possession back to the state courts. Jason Smith argued that when an expert witness testified for the prosecution about drug analysis performed by another forensic scientist, it violated his right under the Sixth Amendment “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court agreed with Smith that the requirements of the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause normally apply to a scenario like the one presented by his case – that is, when an expert appears before a jury to relay the statements of an absent analyst in support of her opinion, and the analyst’s statements only provide that support if they are true. But the justices sent the case back to the state courts for them to determine whether the absent analyst’s statements qualified as “testimony” – another criteria for the confrontation clause to apply.

The case came to the court after police officers executing a search warrant found methamphetamine and marijuana in a shed on a property owned by Smith’s father. Greggory Longoni, a forensic scientist from the state’s Department of Public Safety, testified at Smith’s trial that the substances that the officers found were indeed illegal drugs. Longoni relied on testing conducted by Elizabeth Rast, another DPS scientist who no longer worked for the state and did not testify. Smith was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.