SCOTUS Month Starts Quietly

June is traditionally the end of the working part of the Supreme Court term, the official new term starting on the First Monday in October. They usually have a bunch of hot button cases to decide at the end of the term and schedule three summer order days to deal with sundry matters until starting fresh around late September with a "long conference" to deal with lingering matters. This back-loading is somewhat dubious but so it goes. 

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As usual, we start with orders after the now steady Thursday (earlier in the term, it was Friday) conference. This usually would be Monday, but this time there was a holiday.  A notable non-grant was the appeal of a two billion dollar Johnson & Johnson civil lawsuit, in favor of women who claim they developed ovarian cancer from using their talc products.  As usual, there is no explanation why two members didn't take part though the linked article explains the likely reason.  

The Court granted a copyright case.  They also sent back a case that seemed to have some attention to the members involving the "community caretaking" exception allowing police to search certain places without a warrant.  And, Kavanaugh briefly noted the facts of the case involving a domestic violence, arguing that even if the recent case showed the police's actions were not justified merely by that exception that it still might be acceptable on other grounds.  As you might recall, the ruling was unanimous but four members [some I will not call "justices"] basically made it clear that they wanted to underline basically that fact.  

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The Supreme Court did not satisfy those who wanted to see big hot button cases, such as one involving a clash of GLBT rights and religion, though it will come in Pride Month eventually.  

The first opinion was a unanimous immigration law case, the third opinion this term (by one count) written by Gorsuch.  The caption of Garland v. Ming Dai might trigger some and some might have a trigger warning about the graphic nature of the crimes involved.  The opinion seems to be toned down Gorsuch, not laying on thick his style.  And, in this case it gave discretion to deny immigrants' claims, it would be appreciated if it gave similar agency discretion generally.  One doubts with this crew that quite will be the case.  After posting, a few typos were found. 

[I later saw a law professor on Twitter arguing that the lower court ruling was perfectly reasonable.  I won't pretend to know who is right, but -- see also the ruling on Thursday -- this just goes to show that there is clear discretion in these case.  The job of judges ultimately is to make judgment calls.]

The other opinion was a short unanimous Native American case written by Breyer with a paragraph concurrence by Alito make it clear he joined because it handled a narrow situation.  It will not get as much attention as some of the other cases, but is described by the SCOTUSblog summary as the "first major opinion on the scope of American Indian tribes’ sovereign powers in decades."  Gorsuch so far has been supportive of Native American rights, though even he did not join the liberals that did not want to stay a state ruling in their favor. A unanimous pro case is notable.

In the process, while noting the restrictive nature of such powers, including Congress' plenary powers, the opinion provided a limited protective gloss.  As the summary notes: "tribal governments — and thus their police officers — have the power to search and temporarily detain non-Indians suspected of breaking federal or state laws within reservation."  Past cases have in my view given too little power to Native Americans over their own territory as applied to non-members.  So, this is appreciated, even if the result was pro-governmental in a search and seizure case.  

There will be another opinion day on Thursday [edited].