Course Name: Major Supreme Court Cases in 2020
Instructor: Leora Harpaz
Email: lharpaz@lharpaz.com
Day and Time: Mondays at 11 a.m.
Class Website: http://www.lharpaz.com/ContinuingEd/JASA/majorsupctcases2020.html. Material for each class will be posted on this page in advance of class.

Course Description: This new course will explore cases before the Supreme Court this year including cases that have already been decided and others that will soon be decided as the Court reaches the end of its work for the 2019-2020 Term. While it is always difficult to know whether a case will be important before it is decided, this Term's cases certainly have the potential to be politically as well as legally explosive.

Below is a list of 17 cases on the Supreme Court’s Docket for decision in 2020. Some have already been decided as stated in the case descriptions and others will be decided in the next month or so. If you are interested in discussing particular cases from this list, please let me know by sending an email to lharpaz@lharpaz.com and identifying the cases by name, number, or topic. In the first class on June 1, we’ll discuss cases 1 (Ramos v. Louisiana), 2 (Kahler v. Kansas), and 10 (June Medical Services LLC v. Russo).

Supreme Court Docket

1. Ramos v. Louisiana (Decision on April 20 by a vote of 6-3).
Decision: The Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, as applicable to the states, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense. The decision required the Court to overrule a 1972 decision rejecting this interpretation of the Sixth Amendment as applied to the states. As a result, the various opinions in Ramos spend time discussing the issue of under what circumstances the Court should overrule its own past decisions. Oral Argument was on Oct. 7.

2. Kahler v. Kansas (Decision on March 23 by a vote of 6-3).
Decision: Due process does not require Kansas to adopt an insanity test that turns on a defendant’s ability to recognize that his crime was morally wrong.
Issue: Unlike the Sixth Amendment right at issue in Ramos (above), the Bill of Rights does not specifically protect the defendant’s right to assert an insanity defense based on the inability to tell right from wrong. Therefore, the issue in the case was whether the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause imposed such a requirement on the state. Oral argument was held on Oct. 7.

3. Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia consolidated with Altitude Express v. Zarda.
Issue: Whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation. This case raises the issue of how to interpret Title VII. Oral argument was on Oct. 8.


4. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC.
Issue: Whether Title VII protects transgender employees. Like Bostock above, this case raises the issue of how to interpret Title VII. Oral argument was on Oct. 8.

5. Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California consolidated with McAleenan v. Vidal and Trump v. NAACP.
Issue: These cases raise the issue of the legality under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) of the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). DACA is the policy put in place by the Obama Administration that prevents the deportation of young adults who came to the United States illegally, typically brought by their parents, and lived for many years in the United States, often unaware that they didn’t have legal status. Oral argument was on October 12.

6. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York (Decision on April 27 by a vote of 6-3).
Decision: Case dismissed based on mootness. In his concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh suggests the Court should grant review in “one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”
Background: The Court agreed to review a Second Amendment case, the first gun rights case since 2010. The case was a challenge to the constitutionality of an aspect of NYC’s gun regulations. After the Court agreed to review the case in January, 2019, both the city and state changed their gun laws and NYC repealed and replaced the strict regulation being challenged with a more permissive law and asked the Court to dismiss the case as moot since there was no longer a current controversy about the original law. Oral argument was on December 2.

7. Maine Community Health Options v. United States consolidated with Moda Health Plan Inc. v. United States and Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. v. United States (Decision on April 27 by a vote of 8-1).
Decision: Congress lacked power to block ACA payments owed to health insurance companies.
Issue: The case involved a provision of the Affordable Care Act that provided 3 years worth of payments to health insurance companies, called Risk Corridor Payments, to encourage their participation in the ACA exchanges. When Republicans had control of both houses of Congress they blocked the payments through appropriation riders in 2014-2016. The issue in the case was whether Congress had the power to block $12 billion in payments the companies were promised in the face of ACA language authorizing the payments. Oral Argument was on December 10.
Next Term: The Court has agreed to review California v. Texas which raises the issue of whether Congress’s decision to eliminate a tax penalty that was imposed for the failure to maintain health insurance coverage as required by the individual mandate provision of the ACA renders the individual mandate unconstitutional and requires the ACA in its entirety to be invalidated.
 
8. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.
Issues: The case involves a form of student scholarship program that provides a $ for $ tax credit for taxpayer donations placed in a Student Scholarship Organization (SSO). Since Montana’s state constitution explicitly prohibits aid to religious schools, the Department of Revenue prevented the creation of SSOs to fund scholarships for private religious schools. Families who send their children to these schools have challenged their exclusion from the benefits of the SSO program as violations of the First Amendment Religion Clauses and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court of Montana invalidated the Department of Revenue’s decision and instead struck down the entire SSO program eliminating it for all students whether they attend a private religious or a secular school. The questions before the Court in Espinoza are whether the parents have standing to challenge their exclusion from the benefits of the program, whether a state violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by excluding donations to benefit religious schools from such a tax plan, and whether the constitutional violation can be cured by invalidating the SSO program in its entirety. Oral argument was on January 22.

9. Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Issue: The case is a separation of powers challenge to the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau based on the fact that, in creating the agency, Congress limited the power of the president to remove the director of the bureau so that the director could only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Oral argument was on March 3.

10. June Medical Services LLC v. Russo and Russo v. June Medical Services LLC.
Issues: This litigation challenges a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions in the state to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Among the issues raised by the case are whether the Court should change its rules on standing and prevent abortion providers from representing the interests of their patients and whether the case can be distinguished from a case decided in 2016 which struck down an almost identical Texas law. The case also raises the prospect of the Court overruling Roe v. Wade. Oral argument was on March 4.

11. Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc.
Issues: This case raises a First Amendment challenge to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 which prohibits robocalls to cell phones. The challenge is based on exemptions to the law that allow calls with particular content, particularly a 2015 exemption to allow calls to “to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.” There is also a dispute over whether the remedy for a constitutional violation is to strike down the entire law or to sever the exemption from the rest of the statute. Oral argument was on May 6.

12. Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania and Trump v. Pennsylvania.
A challenge by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the Trump administration’s decision to expand the conscience exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers provide health insurance to women employees which includes contraceptive coverage. The expanded exemption allows private employers with religious or moral objections to opt out of providing the mandated coverage without providing any notice of their decision. It is being challenged as a violation of the ACA and the Administrative Procedure Act. Oral argument was on May 6.

13. Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel.
Issue: Whether the First Amendment Religion Clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment-discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, when the employee carried out religious functions. Oral argument was on May 11.

14. Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP consolidated with Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG.
Issues: These two cases raise issues about access to President Trump’s financial records and tax returns which are being held by third parties including the president’s accounting firm and a creditor. Both cases involve access sought by committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and raise the issue of whether they have the power to issue subpoenas to seek access to these records in the exercise of their legislative powers or, as the president claims, the House is acting outside the scope of its legislative authority. On April 27th, the Supreme Court directed the parties to file additional briefs addressing the question of whether the Court should refrain from resolving the case because it raises a political question. Oral argument was on May 12.

15. Trump v. Vance.
Issue: Like the two cases listed above, Trump v. Vance also raises the issue of access to the president’s financial records and tax returns, but in a different context. It involves a criminal investigation conducted by the District Attorney of the County of New York pursuant to which a grand jury issued a subpoena seeking President Trump’s financial records in the possession of the president’s accounting firm. The president is asserting a broad claim of presidential immunity in the case. Oral argument was on May 12.   

16. Chiafalo v. Washington.
Issue: The issue in this case is whether enforcement of a state law that threatens to fine a presidential elector who casts an electoral-college ballot contrary to how state law directs it to be cast is a violation of the First Amendment Free Speech Clause. Oral argument was on May 13.

17. Colorado Department of State v. Baca.
Issue: This case was originally consolidated for argument with Chiafalo v. Washington (see above) since both cases raise issues related to whether states have any power to control the behavior of what are called “faithless electors.” However, the two cases were later separated for oral argument because Justice Sotomayor has disqualified herself from continuing to participate in Baca while still participating in Chiafalo. Baca raises the issue of whether Article II of the U.S. Constitution or the Twelfth Amendment prevent a state from requiring presidential electors to cast their electoral-college ballots based on the state’s popular vote and disqualifying and replacing electors who refuse to abide by this requirement. Oral argument was on May 13.