Nuts and Bolts is a recurring series by Stephen Wermiel providing insights into the mechanics of how the Supreme Court works.

Supreme Court watchers are accustomed to poring over the words and phrases written by the justices in their many decisions. Much less attention is paid to the bottom line.

In the Supreme Court there are two steps to the bottom line: the judgment and the mandate.

A unanimous court on Friday sided with a Mississippi street preacher who sued to block future enforcement of a public demonstration ordinance that he was previously convicted of violating. A lawsuit like his, “seeking purely prospective” – that is, a forward-facing – “remedy,” is not barred by Heck v. Humphrey, a 1994 ruling limiting the challenges convicted criminals can bring against the law under which they were convicted, wrote Justice Elena Kagan in Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi.

Flowers Foods v. Brock brings the justices another in a lengthening line of cases about the exemptions from the Federal Arbitration Act. The specific question is whether “last-mile” drivers – drivers who deliver from a regional warehouse to the store – are exempt from the arbitration requirements of that statute.

The Supreme Court has decided numerous cases under the FAA in the last few decades, the great majority of them reversing lower court decisions that in the justices’ view gave inadequate breadth to the FAA’s command that courts faithfully enforce pre-dispute arbitration agreements. In recent years, though, an ancillary provision of that statute has brought the justices several cases on a different question – the breadth of the statute’s exemption for “transportation workers” who are “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” The exemption is important because those workers cannot so readily be forced into arbitration when they have disputes with their employers.

Brothers in Law is a recurring series by brothers Akhil and Vikram Amar, with special emphasis on measuring what the Supreme Court says against what the Constitution itself says. For more content from Akhil and Vikram, please see Akhil’s free weekly podcast, “Amarica’s Constitution,” Vikram’s regular columns on Justia, and Akhil’s new book, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920.

Put aside, for a moment, all the ways that President Donald Trump’s attempted redefinition of birthright citizenship in his executive order 14160 violates the plain letter and obvious spirit of the 14th Amendment. Bracket, for now, the Trump order’s incompatibility with the Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and indeed with every ruling of every notable American court ever to rule on birthright citizenship. Forget, for argument’s sake, Trump’s mercurial repudiation of what every post-Civil War president – including Trump himself, in his first term – has ever done when encountering babies born on American soil under the American flag to foreign parents who themselves are neither U.S. citizens nor green-card holders.

Focus instead, for just a few minutes, on 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), part of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which has remained on the books for nearly three quarters of a century. It states: “The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Next week’s argument in Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction involves a technical question about bankruptcy procedure – the standards for overlooking the failure of a debtor in bankruptcy to mention one of its assets to the court.

To give context, the debtor is Thomas Keathley, who with his spouse filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas in December 2019. The bankruptcy court approved a plan under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code, obligating the Keathleys to repay their creditors out of future income; the plan promised payment of 100% of their debts, albeit without interest. Later, while the Keathleys were making payments on the plan, a truck driven by an employee of Buddy Ayers Construction struck Keathley’s car, injuring him seriously. Although a lay person might regard the accident as an unfortunate incident, bankruptcy law regards the accident as a benefit to Keathley’s creditors, because it gives him a claim against Buddy Ayers that could produce money for those creditors.