Supreme Court adds to schedule

The United States Supreme Court abruptly announced yesterday evening that they were adding another non-argument day to their end-of-term schedule. At the same time an unconfirmed report on a Telegram channel stated that the Supreme Courthouse was fenced in – again.

Supreme Court will release opinions on yet another day

The United States Supreme Court quietly added another non-argument public session to its June schedule yesterday evening, according to Newsweek. In fact the Supreme Court’s home page, which displays its calendar, does show a new non-argument day on June 26. This is highly unusual for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court does not usually add more public sessions to its calendar in the second half of June. Second, this non-argument day is a Wednesday, not a Thursday or a Friday as is the Court’s usual custom.

The Supreme Court releases its opinions on docketed cases on non-argument days. During the declared COVID pandemic, the Court did not hold public sessions to release opinions, because they closed the courthouse. Instead they scheduled “opinion issuance days” on which they would post opinions to the Court website. Now that the Supreme Courthouse is open most working days, the Court has returned to its non-argument day custom.

Current cases

Several cases are now pending on the Court’s docket, and Newsweek named some of them. They include:

• Trump v. United States, asking whether former Presidents of the United States are immune from prosecution for acts in office. Furthermore the case asks what limits attach to that immunity, if it exists.
• Murthy v. Missouri, the Great On-line Censorship Case, formerly Missouri v. Biden.
• Fischer v. United States, by a “January Sixer” alleging selective prosecution of himself and others over January 6 activities.
• United States v. Rahimi, asking whether one subject to a domestic-violence protective order loses his right to carry a firearm.
• Moyle v. United States, asking whether the Emergency Medical Treatment And Labor Act (EMTALA) forbids a State to forbid abortion in its hospitals.
• Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, two cases out of Florida and Texas asking how much power social media Trust and Safety Teams have over political content on the platforms they run.

Newsweek quoted Prof. Dan Urman of Northeastern University as speculating that the Supreme Court might add more non-argument days.

The fence rumor

Reportage on whether the Supreme Court fenced itself in – or not – is unsettled. A rumor to that effect circulated on Monday (June 17). The Telegram channel The Storm Has Arrived picked it up yesterday evening. But on Tuesday (June 18), Marlon Ettinger at The Daily Dot had already discounted the rumor, saying no fences were in place.

The Supreme Court did fence in its own courthouse after the Great Leak of Justice Samuel A. Alito’s anti-abortion opinion. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That fence came down in August of 2022, but the Courthouse remained closed until the start of the 2022 Term.