Welcome to the annual roundup of U.S. Supreme Court civil rights cases from the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF). Our SCOTUS 2023 Term Roundup provides a snapshot of each case’s issues, outcome, and impact on civil rights. We hope this easy-to-digest summary will underscore the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts, to our lives and the future of the nation’s democracy.
Since its inception, LDF has served on the front lines of civil rights litigation efforts, including arguing many groundbreaking cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. During the 2023 Supreme Court term, LDF either litigated or filed/joined an amicus brief in five cases that affect civil rights: Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP; Muldrow v. City of St. Louis; FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories, LLC v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine; Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States; and Trump v. Anderson. Our SCOTUS 2023 Term Roundup reviews the aforementioned cases as well as three additional cases with important civil rights implications: City of Grants Pass v. Johnson; Trump v. United States; and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.
Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP is a racial-gerrymandering challenge to South Carolina’s current congressional and legislative redistricting maps for Congressional District 1. The case challenges the constitutionality of how South Carolina legislators handled the redistricting process after the 2020 census. The case was brought on behalf of the South Carolina State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and an individual voter, Taiwan Scott. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF), alongside the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of South Carolina, Arnold & Porter, and the General Counsel’s Office of the NAACP, represent the Plaintiffs.
The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and Scott alleged that when South Carolina’s General Assembly enacted S.865, they deliberately adopted an unconstitutional and racially gerrymandered map in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of Fourteenth Amendment. They alleged that the map intentionally discriminates against Black voters and denies Black voters’ equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice. The lawsuit, which forefronts South Carolina’s long history of racial discrimination, alleged that the new map is a racial gerrymander that intentionally “packs and cracks” Black communities. “Cracking” refers to splitting communities of color into different districts to prevent them from exercising greater political power. “Packing” refers to placing people of color into the same district, in larger numbers than necessary to elect candidates of their choice, to prevent them from exercising greater political power in surrounding districts.
On January 6, 2023, following an eight-day trial, a unanimous federal three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina ordered the legislators to redraw South Carolina’s 2021 enacted congressional map. The panel ruled that District 1, anchored in Charleston County, is a racial gerrymander designed with discriminatory purpose and that the legislators unconstitutionally set out to achieve an artificially low target Black population in the district. The panel held that the map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and ordered the legislature to submit a remedial plan. South Carolina appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Alito (with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissenting) reversed and remanded the decision of the federal three-judge panel for the District Court. The Court held that: (1) the District Court’s finding that race predominated in the design of District 1 in the enacted map was clearly erroneous, and thus the Supreme Court reversed that claim; and (2) the District Court applied the incorrect standard to the NAACP and Scott’s intentional vote dilution claim, and thus the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the District Court to continue hearing that claim. In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court rejected the historical deference given to a district court’s factual findings, an act that Justice Kagan’s dissent noted is “seriously wrong” and ignores the “mountains of evidence presented” by the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and Scott. The majority faulted the NAACP and Scott for relying on circumstantial evidence, which defies decades of precedent allowing plaintiffs to use a wide variety of evidence to demonstrate racial discrimination in voting.
In response to the decision, LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson said that the Supreme Court “greenlit racial discrimination in South Carolina’s redistricting process, denied Black voters the right to be free from the race-based sorting, and sent a message that facts, process, and precedent will not protect the Black vote.” LDF remains committed to the fight to build Black political power. LDF will continue, including on remand on the surviving claim of vote dilution from this decision, to work toward fair redistricting maps and to advocate for Black voters in South Carolina and beyond.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” §2000e–2(a)(1). In this case, Plaintiff Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow, a sergeant with the St. Louis Police Department, alleged she was discriminated against under Title VII when her supervisor transferred her to another position because he preferred that a man serve in her role. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted summary judgment for the City of St. Louis, ruling that a discriminatory transfer that does not “produce . . . a material employment disadvantage” is “not an adverse employment action” under Title VII. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling, agreeing that Muldrow had to show that the transfer caused a “materially significant disadvantage” and that she could not meet that standard because the transfer “did not result in a diminution to her title, salary, or benefits.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Kagan, vacated the Eighth Circuit’s opinion against Muldrow. The Court held that an employee challenging a job transfer under Title VII must show that the transfer brought about some harm with respect to an identifiable term or condition of employment, but that harm need not be significant. The Court explained that Title VII’s language requires a showing of some harm with respect to an identifiable term or condition of employment—and that “terms or conditions” of employment is not used “in the narrow contractual sense,” as it covers more than the “economic or tangible.” The Court made clear that the text does not require the employee to show that the harm incurred was “significant,” “[o]r serious, or substantial, or any similar adjective suggesting that the disadvantage to the employee must exceed a heightened bar.” Thus, the Eighth Circuit’s significance standard was not supported by Title VII’s text.
Further, the Court rejected the City’s argument that a significant injury requirement is needed to prevent transferred employees from “swamp[ing] courts and employers” with insubstantial lawsuits requiring “burdensome discovery and trials.” The Court wrote that “there is reason to doubt that the floodgates will open in the way feared” because of Title VII’s other requirements: that the employee show some injury, that the injury asserted concern the terms or conditions of her employment, and that the employer acted for discriminatory reasons because of a protected characteristic. In sum, the Court disregarded the Eighth Circuit’s holding and found that “courts retain multiple ways to dispose of meritless Title VII claims challenging transfer decisions.” Thus, the Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s decision and remanded for further proceedings.
LDF joined an amicus brief supporting Muldrow, arguing that the Eighth Circuit’s “materially significant disadvantage” standard is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s precedent that the central purpose of the Civil Rights Act, which includes Title VII, is to remedy dignitary harms. The brief argued that affirming the Eighth Circuit’s ruling would permit discriminatory transfers by employers if an employee could not demonstrate a materially significant disadvantage and warned that this heightened standard disregards and trivializes the serious dignitary harms that result from discriminatory treatment. Permitting employers to discriminatorily transfer employees allows them to treat people differently based on a protected characteristic, effectively resurrecting the “separate but equal” doctrine. That is antithetical to Brown v. Board of Education because allowing employees to be transferred or denied transfers based on protected characteristics enables employers to segregate their employees by race.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Muldrow is an important victory for workers across the nation, ensuring that Title VII’s protections against discrimination are fairly applied. Contrary to what some have claimed, this decision does not directly implicate programs that advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) because, unlike the discriminatory transfer at issue in Muldrow, DEIA programs generally do not rely on protected characteristics to determine the terms and conditions of employment.
In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Gorsuch (with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting), the Supreme Court upheld the ordinances of the City of Grants Pass, Oregon, that prohibit people experiencing homelessness from sleeping outside and using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes for protection. The Court held that these ordinances do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Three people who were involuntarily without shelter brought an Eighth Amendment challenge against Grants Pass for ordinances that provide for civil and criminal penalties for sleeping outdoors within the city limits. The president of the Grants Pass City Council explained that the point of the ordinances was to make sleeping in the city uncomfortable for people experiencing homelessness “so they will want to move on down the road.” People who violate the ordinances face a $295 fine for the first citation, which increases to $537.60 if left unpaid. After a second citation within a one-year period, the Grants Pass Police can issue an order banning that individual from city property. Police can then charge anyone who violates the orders with criminal trespass, which is punishable by up to thirty days in jail and a $1,250 fine.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon agreed with the people experiencing homelessness that the ordinances are unconstitutional and issued a partial injunction preventing Grants Pass from enforcing the ordinances at night and in some circumstances during the day. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed this decision, relying on an earlier Ninth Circuit case that held that criminal penalties for sitting and sleeping outside are cruel and unusual punishment for people experiencing homelessness when there is no shelter available. The earlier decision found that a city cannot punish someone for their status of being homeless, and thus it cannot punish them for conduct that is “an unavoidable consequence” of being homeless. The Ninth Circuit relied upon the 1962 Supreme Court decision Robinson v. California, which held that the Eighth Amendment forbids criminalizing the mere “status” of being a person with a drug addiction. In this case, the people experiencing homelessness argued that Robinson applies to city ordinances that punish people for their status of being homeless. The City appealed the Ninth Circuit’s decision.
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the Ninth Circuit’s decision, holding that the Grants Pass ordinances are constitutional. The Court explained that the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment tends to focus on the methods of punishment instead of on “the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place or how it may go about securing a conviction for that offense.” Thus, the Court considered the punishments associated with the ordinances and held that fines and a possible jail sentence are not cruel and unusual because they are not designed to inflict “terror, pain, or disgrace.”
Further, the Court held that the Robinson case did not apply to this case because the Grants Pass ordinances focus on regulating the conduct of public camping rather than punishing a person for their status. Justice Gorsuch concluded, “The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to . . . dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.”
In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option.” She held that the Grants Pass ordinances punish people for being homeless, which is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. She noted that “over half a million people across the country lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence” and they “experience homelessness due to complex and interconnected issues, including crippling debt and stagnant wages; domestic and sexual abuse; physical and psychiatric disabilities; and rising housing costs coupled with declining affordable housing options.” She wrote that the majority’s opinion “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”
This case involves a challenge to the FDA’s approval of and use expansions to the drug mifepristone, one half of the two-step drug protocol used to provide medication abortions for pregnancies in their early stages. Mifepristone is a safe and effective abortion medication that has been available in the United States for over two decades. In 2022, several anti-abortion doctors and four anti-abortion medical organizations, including the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), brought an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenge against the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000. They also challenged the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes to the conditions under which the drug could be used. The 2016 and 2021 changes resulted in approvals that: expanded the drug’s use through the tenth week of pregnancy, rather than the seventh; reduced and then removed the requirement to visit a doctor in person to receive the drug; and allowed health care providers who are not physicians (like nurse practitioners) to prescribe the drug. Danco Laboratories, the drug’s manufacturer, intervened in the case to defend the FDA.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed with the AHM and the other anti-abortion groups and in effect enjoined the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, thereby ordering it off the market. The FDA and Danco Laboratories appealed and also asked the Supreme Court to intervene prior to the appellate court’s decision in order to keep the drug available until the dispute was resolved, which the Court granted. The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which held that the anti-abortion groups had standing and agreed with the Plaintiffs and the District Court about the 2016 and 2021 changes to the conditions on the use of mifepristone. However, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the anti-abortion groups’ claims about the initial approval of the drug in 2000 were time-barred.
The FDA returned to the Supreme Court in September 2023, asking the Court to weigh in on the merits of the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes to the conditions on the use of mifepristone. The AHM also asked the Court to take up their challenge to the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone in 2000—both its timeliness and the propriety of the decision itself. The Court only granted review of the FDA and Danco’s appeals (which they consolidated), but it denied the AHM’s cross-appeal, meaning that the question of mifepristone’s original approval in 2000 was not before the Court.
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, held that the anti-abortion groups did not have standing to challenge the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 actions with respect to mifepristone because they were not injured and could not prove that the FDA’s actions caused any injury. The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s decision to block the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 actions that expanded access to the drug, which means mifepristone will stay legal and broadly accessible in the states where it is not banned.
The Court reasoned that the group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations who had filed the lawsuit could not prove that they were injured in a way that allows court intervention, nor could they prove that the FDA’s approvals regarding mifepristone in 2016 and 2021 caused any injury. The Court noted that these doctors and organizations do not prescribe or use mifepristone, and the FDA is not requiring them to do anything with the drug or preventing them from refusing to prescribe the drug. Doctors and medical professionals are protected by federal conscience laws from being required to provide abortions or other treatment that violates their conscience or religious beliefs. Therefore, any expansion of access to mifepristone still does not mean that these doctors would be required to prescribe the drug. Because the Court disposed of the case based on jurisdictional standing, it did not address the merits of the claims or decide whether the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes were arbitrary and capricious.
LDF wrote an amicus brief in support of the FDA and Danco. The brief argued that the Fifth Circuit’s opinion would arbitrarily restrict access to mifepristone in states that have made a policy decision to protect abortion access. It further argued that staying the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes would further impede equitable access to health care because: (1) the FDA’s administrative record reflects that equitable access to safe and effective health care is an important public health consideration; and (2) inequities in access to abortion care further amplify existing racial disparities in access to comprehensive health care.
As LDF noted in its statement on the opinion, ensuring equitable access to high-quality health care services—including abortion care—is especially important for Black communities and has been a longstanding concern for LDF. Black people have historically faced profound inequities in accessing reproductive and abortion care, and these inequities have been exacerbated by the Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In this case, the Court correctly rejected anti-abortion organizations’ attempts to reverse the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes to the conditions on the use of mifepristone, a medication with an established record of safety and efficacy.
In this case, the Supreme Court declined to determine whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) pre-empts Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which prohibits abortions except when necessary to save the life of a pregnant person. Following the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs, Idaho enacted one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suits against the state of Idaho, Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives Mike Moyle, and others, challenging the Idaho abortion ban. The suits were eventually consolidated on appeal. The DOJ argued that Idaho’s abortion ban conflicts with EMTALA, a federal law that requires Medicare-funded hospitals nationwide to provide life-stabilizing care in emergency situations, including emergency abortion care.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho blocked Idaho’s abortion ban from being enforced in cases of medical emergency. Idaho appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s decision and allowed Idaho to enforce the abortion ban even when there is a medical emergency. After the DOJ asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider, the Ninth Circuit temporarily blocked Idaho from enforcing the ban for pregnant people experiencing medical emergencies and agreed to hear the case. Idaho then filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, which allowed Idaho to enforce the law while the case was pending and the Court decided whether to review the case on the merits.
In March 2024, LDF joined the National Women’s Law Center’s amicus brief, which addressed the merits of the case and explained that EMTALA protects access to all emergency medical treatment, including emergency abortion care. The brief stated that the Court’s decision to stay the District Court’s injunction against Idaho’s abortion law while it considered the case was devastating to pregnant people across Idaho because it resulted in the denial of emergency abortion care for pregnant people in critical condition and also resulted in pregnant people needing to be airlifted out of Idaho to access care. More broadly, bans like Idaho’s have led to obstetricians and gynecologists leaving their home state, forcing the closure of labor and delivery wards and limiting access to maternal health care services. These barriers to health care significantly impact pregnant people, especially Black women and those with low incomes.
The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the consolidated cases, finding that certiorari was improvidently granted, and vacated its stay of the District Court’s preliminary injunction against Idaho’s abortion law—meaning that the Court determined that it was improper to decide the merits of the case because it felt that it had intervened in the case too early. Instead, the Court sent the case back down to the lower courts. As a result, pregnant people in Idaho will experience temporary relief because the strict abortion law will not be in effect while the District Court’s injunction is in place. But unfortunately, that relief does not apply in other states. For example, pregnant people in Texas remain without the protections of EMTALA because the Fifth Circuit has blocked the enforcement of that statute for pregnant people who need emergency care.
In total, the justices wrote four opinions: two concurring opinions, one opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, and one dissenting opinion. Justice Kagan wrote the first concurrence, which Justice Sotomayor joined in its entirety and Justice Jackson joined as to the second part. In part one, Justice Kagan agreed that the Court had intervened too early and that there was insufficient support on Idaho’s part for a stay of the injunction at the time. In part two, she wrote that EMTALA unambiguously requires medically necessary care to stabilize a patient, which in some situations would mean abortion care.
Justice Barrett’s concurrence, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, agreed that the lower courts should continue the case because the facts had shifted dramatically, Idaho’s law had changed since the case was filed, and the parties’ positions had rendered the scope of the dispute unclear. She also noted that there is a question regarding whether the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution can require recipients of federal funds to violate state criminal law, which was not addressed in the parties’ stay applications or in the lower courts’ decisions.
Justice Jackson concurred in Justice Kagan’s analysis of EMTALA and the Court’s decision to lift the stay, but she did not join the decision to send the case back down to the lower courts. She wrote that there is a clear need to decide the preemption issues because other states have enacted legislation similar to Idaho’s, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had decided a similar case affirming a preliminary injunction with respect to stabilizing care prohibited by a Texas law. She wrote, “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay. While this Court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”
Finally, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, dissented, writing that the Court should have decided the merits and ruled that Idaho is not preempted. Justice Alito wrote that EMTALA “conclusively shows that it does not require hospitals to perform abortions.”
In sum, the risk to pregnant people’s ability to access abortions in emergency situations is not over, as the case will continue in the lower courts and the Supreme Court will likely hear the merits of the case at a later date. As LDF noted in its statement, “The Supreme Court had the opportunity [to] affirm that EMTALA includes emergency abortion care for pregnant people, and which would have ensured that people could access the critical care they need everywhere. Instead, the Court punted this decision for another day and harmed pregnant patients in Idaho for months in the process leading up to this decision. The case demonstrates the irreparable harm caused by the Dobbs decision just two years ago.”
In this case, the Colorado Supreme Court held that former President Donald Trump’s involvement in the January 6, 2021, insurrection prohibited him under Colorado’s Election Code from being on the state’s presidential primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court also held that he is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and thus he is not permitted to appear on the ballot per Colorado’s Election Code. Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, often referred to as the Insurrection Clause, in part provides that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,” if that person had previously sworn, “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States” to support the U.S. Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the federal government.
When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, LDF wrote an amicus brief in favor of neither party that highlighted the importance of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the continuing existence of the nation’s constitutional democracy. The brief urged the Court to ensure that Section Three is fully enforced. LDF argued that the text and history of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment prove that it is unquestionably self-executing, which means that no further action from Congress is required for courts to enforce Section Three. Thus, Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment unequivocally bars insurrectionists from holding federal office without the need for any further Congressional action.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, holding that Colorado is not allowed to disqualify Trump from its presidential primary ballot under Section Three, the Insurrection Clause. Though the per curiam opinion was technically unanimous in that all nine justices agreed on reversing the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, the Court was deeply fractured. Only five justices (Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) joined the majority reasoning that held that the only way to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists serving as federal officeholders is for Congress to enact specific legislation—a sweeping decision that sharply limits the scope of Section Three. Justice Barrett wrote separately, explaining that the dispute could be decided more narrowly. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson concurred only with the judgment, co-authoring a separate opinion sharply criticizing the majority’s opinion as overreaching. They wrote that “the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office.”
LDF wrote in its statement on the ruling that the Supreme Court’s decision reached far beyond the narrow and specific issue before it. In doing so, the Court disregarded a basic principle of the role of the courts in the nation’s constitutional structure. As LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson said, it is “well-settled law [that] the Fourteenth Amendment is self-executing on its face and does not require further legislation from Congress to be enforced.” The Court’s opinion effectively provides constitutional immunity to insurrectionists, absent legislation from Congress. This continues a disturbing and dangerous pattern of judicial overreach and activism. At a time of mounting threats to the rule of law and to the preservation of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy—as well as declining public confidence in the judiciary—it is critical that courts adhere to their role in deciding cases and controversies, which the Supreme Court failed to do in this case.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts (with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting), held that presidents have absolute immunity against criminal prosecution for official acts that are in the president’s exclusive constitutional authority and also have, at minimum, the presumption of presidential immunity for any other official acts. However, there is no immunity for unofficial or private acts. Further, the Court held that former presidents cannot be criminally indicted for conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. The Court went on to hold that evidence of conduct that is shielded by immunity is not admissible in courts. The Court’s decision signifies a large expansion of presidential immunity against criminal prosecution.
In August 2023, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump on four counts of conspiracy for spreading falsehoods and engaging in other conduct connected with attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. Trump allegedly tried to overthrow the election in five ways: (1) using false claims of election fraud in an effort to get states to change their electoral votes; (2) organizing fraudulent slates of electors and attempting to get Vice President Mike Pence to count their votes; (3) attempting to use the DOJ to conduct sham election crime investigations and send letters to states falsely claiming that the DOJ had identified concerns that impacted their elections; (4) trying to persuade Pence to alter the election results; and (5) exploiting the disruption caused by the crowd on January 6, 2021, to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Congress to delay certification. Trump argued that he should be entitled to presidential immunity for all claims.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had originally set the trial for March 2024, but the trial was placed on hold until the question of immunity was settled. The District Court denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges against him due to alleged immunity, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. Both courts held that presidents do not possess absolute immunity. Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene and decide the question of immunity.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court noted that this case is the first criminal prosecution of a former president for actions taken during his presidency. The Court held that a former president has absolute immunity for “exercise of his core constitutional powers.” The Court reasoned that Congress has no authority to criminalize a president’s actions when the president is acting within his exclusive constitutional authority. For the remaining official actions, the Court wrote that it need not decide during the current stage of proceedings whether the immunity is absolute or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient, but it wrote that at least a presumption of immunity is needed to prevent the fear of prosecution from potentially chilling presidential actions. Finally, the Court held that there is no immunity for unofficial or private acts. The Court acknowledged that the distinction between official acts and unofficial acts is difficult to determine, but it held that courts may not inquire into a president’s motives when determining whether an act is official or unofficial.
Under this framework, the Court addressed the various charges against Trump and provided guidance to the lower courts on how to proceed.. Regarding the charges against Trump for his alleged attempts to leverage the DOJ to convince certain states to replace their legitimate electors with a fraudulent slate of electors and for his threats to replace the Acting Attorney General, the Court held that these charges are in the absolute immunity category because discussions with the DOJ and removal power fall under the president’s exclusive authority. The Court also held that the charges against Trump for allegedly trying to make Pence fraudulently alter election results involve official acts with shared authority—since the vice president presides over Congress—and thus receive the presumption of immunity. Therefore, the Court sent these charges back to the District Court to assess whether prosecuting Trump for these charges would intrude on the authority and functions of the executive branch. If the District Court finds that the charges do intrude, then Trump would receive immunity. For the charges related to Trump’s interactions with people outside the executive branch (including his attempts to convince state officials to alter their state processes and flip electoral votes), the District Court must decide if those acts were official or unofficial. Finally, regarding charges related to Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, which mostly involve his communication on social media and his public address, the District Court will need to determine if these communications constitute an official or unofficial act.
In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that this decision “to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.” Further, she wrote that the opinion means that “a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution.” She concluded, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” Justice Jackson wrote a separate dissent, stating that the majority opinion alters “the paradigm of accountability for Presidents of the United States.” She wrote that the majority’s theory of immunity equates to the idea that “the King can do no wrong,” a notion that the framers of the Constitution squarely rejected. Further, the majority’s decision “undermines the constraints of the law as a deterrent for future Presidents who might otherwise abuse their power.”
In sum, this opinion significantly impacts the prosecution of charges against Trump and further delays proceedings in this case, as the lower courts now must address how the Supreme Court’s holding affects each part of the indictment.
In this consolidated case, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts (with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson[1] dissenting) overruled its 1984 precedent decision Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The Court’s decision deeply undercuts the power of federal agencies to interpret federal laws they implement. The Chevron doctrine is the judicial deference courts give to a federal agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute, as long as the agency’s interpretation is reasonable. The doctrine was created to enable agencies to enforce broad federal statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The underlying premise is that federal agencies have the technical expertise and flexibility to respond to new facts and circumstances that occur in the years after a law’s passage. Since the Chevron decision, federal courts have applied the Chevron doctrine in approximately 18,000 cases covering topics like environmental regulation, education, immigration, food and drug safety, consumer protection, health care, housing, and more.
This consolidated case involves a challenge by herring fishermen to a regulation from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Marine Fisheries Service that requires the herring industry to bear the costs of observers on fishing boats. The fishermen did not want to help pay for federal monitoring. Applying the Chevron doctrine, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Loper Bright and the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Relentless upheld the rule, finding it to be a reasonable interpretation of federal law. The fishermen petitioned the Supreme Court for review, asking it to overrule Chevron.
Six justices granted the fishermen’s petition to overrule Chevron. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts said the Chevron doctrine was “unworkable” and fundamentally “misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.” Further, the Court held that Chevron is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which directs courts to “decide legal questions by applying their own judgment” and therefore “makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes—like agency interpretations of the Constitution—are not entitled to deference.” Thus, the Court held that under the APA, it “remains the responsibility of the court to decide whether the law means what the agency says.”
In her dissent, Justice Kagan wrote that overturning Chevron is a “jolt to the legal system.” Further, she explained that the Supreme Court has “long understood Chevron deference to reflect what Congress would want” since “Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write perfectly complete regulatory statutes,” and thus agencies need flexibility to interpret them. She emphasized that agencies, not courts, have the technical expertise to execute broad language in statutes. She rebuked the majority for ignoring stare decisis, a legal doctrine holding that courts defer to existing precedent from prior cases, and wrote that the majority “disdains restraint, and grasps for power.”
As civil rights leaders explained in a statement that LDF joined, this decision dramatically impacts the administrative state and shifts power to courts to limit executive and agency actions. Agencies will no longer have the flexibility that the Chevron doctrine afforded and instead will be subject to courts’ interpretation of statutes, despite courts not having the technical expertise of federal agencies.
This decision continues a major recent trend of the Court curtailing the power of federal agencies. The Court has also ruled against agencies in several other cases this term about the scope of agency power. It ruled against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, holding that it can no longer use in-house enforcement proceedings to impose fines in securities fraud cases. The Court also blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s “good neighbor” rule that restricts upwind states’ ozone emissions, preventing the rule from going into effect as the case continues in lower courts. Additionally, the Court curbed the National Labor Relations Board’s authority to order employers to reinstate fired workers when a company is accused of illegally suppressing labor organizing.
[1] Justice Jackson did not participate in the consideration or decision of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, but she joined the dissent as it applies to Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.
