Five Major SCOTUS Decisions Expected This Summer

Following the March oral arguments in this case, a majority of the justices reportedly appeared poised to side with the Biden administration. This could empower the White House to embark on a similar censorship campaign in conjunction with social media companies in the months leading up to the presidential election.

In response to the oral arguments in this case, Heritage Foundation scholar Daniel Cochrane noted that “Big Tech’s vast unchecked power over what we see and say online must be addressed.” He continued: “As the 2024 election approaches, courts and policymakers must act to prevent both Big Tech and big government from undermining differing political voices and ideas.”

3. City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson

In April, the Court heard arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, in which the justices will decide whether a city can ban homeless people from sleeping in public.

In 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the act of fining someone who does not have access to shelter for sleeping on public property violates the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Eighth Amendment. But following the Court’s April 22 oral arguments, the justices seem prepared to reverse the lower court ruling.

According to The Daily Signal, Theane Evangelis, who argued on behalf of the City of Grand Pass, contended that “the 9th Circuit had ‘constitutionalized’ the responses of local governments that were trying to deal with a thorny public policy issue, adding that the appeals court had ‘tied the city’s hand.’”

Several of the justices—including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh—appeared sympathetic to Evangelis’s argument, with Kavanaugh expressing his desire to “avoid the need for having to constitutionalize an area and have a federal judge superintend this rather than the local community.”

As American communities continue to deal with homeless encampments and their corresponding threats to public health and safety, the Court’s ruling could empower cities all across the nation to crack down on the homelessness crisis and restore the rule of law in America’s cities and suburbs.

4. FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Moyle v. United States, and Idaho v. United States

Two years after the High Court handed down Dobbs v. Jackson—the landmark case that overruled Roe v. Wade and empowered states to make their own laws regulating abortion—the justices once again stand on the precipice of handing down several major abortion decisions.

In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Court heard arguments pertaining to access to mifepristone, a common abortion-inducing drug. According to SCOTUSblog, “a majority of the justices appeared ready to throw out the dispute over the FDA’s expansion of access to the drug in 2016 and 2021 because the challengers in the case—several individual doctors and groups of doctors who are opposed to abortion on religious or moral grounds—do not have a legal right to sue, known as standing.” In other words, if the Court rules as expected, the drug will likely remain available for the time being.

In Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, the Court will decide whether a federal law requiring hospitals to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment” in emergency situations can be used to preempt state-level pro-life laws, and thereby mandate abortions in hospitals nationwide. Though the Court appeared relatively split during oral arguments, legal commentators have assessed that the Court seems as though it is prepared to side with Idaho, thereby allowing the Gem State—as well as other states—to enforce democratically enacted pro-life legislation.

5. Trump v. United States

Perhaps no Court case this term has commanded as much media attention, attracted as much political controversy, and raised more groundbreaking implications for constitutional law than Trump v. United States, in which the Supreme Court will decide whether presidents are legally immune from criminal charges based on official acts they took in office.

At the heart of this case is Jack Smith’s politically motivated indictment against Trump, which—without any basis in the law—seeks to criminally charge Trump for the events of January 6, 2021.

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, told the Court that the “presidency as we know it” would change forever in the absence of presidential immunity—and would allow the president’s political rivals to criminally charge future Commanders-in-Chief for engaging in official presidential duties. Sauer raised, for instance, the possibility that Joe Biden could be charged with fomenting the border crisis, or that Barack Obama could be charged with launching drone strikes resulting in the death of American citizens.

Based on initial observations, Court watchers agree that the justices are likely to side with Trump on at least some aspects of presidential immunity—further raising the prospect that Trump’s Washington, D.C.-based trial could be postponed until after the November election, which would serve as both a massive tactical victory for the former president and a major institutional victory for the office of the presidency.

As Americans prepare for the end of the High Court’s term and await yet another summer of major decisions, a handful of significant legal, political, and electoral questions are at stake—and voters of every political stripe will be watching closely.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.