The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term features important cases on controversial issues — religion, immigration and guns — with rulings due before the end of June 2027.
Justices were denied much of a summer break as they ruled on cases on the court’s emergency or “shadow” docket, a new normal during the second Trump administration, which has sought speedy rulings on Trump’s White House ballroom project, mail-in voting and congressional maps.
So far, 30 cases are scheduled for full hearings in the new term, but the justices could agree to hear additional cases (Texas has asked for a ruling on its law requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms). Ands it’s likely the term will see new emergency docket requests, including disputes over the results of the upcoming midterm elections.
Critics of the court contend too many important decisions are being made without full hearings and without public explanations via the shadow docket.
Here’s an overview of what’s slated on the court’s regular agenda thus far:
Climate change opener
It took years, but courts held tobacco and pharmaceutical companies responsible for the harms of smoking and opioid abuse. Will courts hold energy companies responsible for the harms of climate change?
That’s the key question in an environmental case that could have major consequences for energy companies. Arguments on the case opened the court’s new term on Oct. 5. Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County will decide if a lawsuit that officials in Boulder, Colo., filed against energy companies can go forward.
Justice Samuel Alito recused himself. If the remaining justices tie 4-4, a lower court ruling will stand, allowing Boulder officials to pursue their case requiring energy companies to pay the state back for costs of dealing with climate change.
Religion cases
Four cases scheduled for this term involve religion, and Baptist leaders have weighed in on most of them.
St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy
Arguments on this important case are scheduled for Nov. 3 but may be drowned out by that day’s midterm elections.
Colorado’s “universal preschool” program offers free prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds. About 2,000 public and private, including Christian, schools, participate in the program, so long as they agree not to discriminate on the basis of “race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level or disability.”
Denver’s Catholic archdiocese told its schools not to participate, and two Catholic parishes and a family sued the state saying the program’s required nondiscrimination policy restricts their free exercise of religion.
A who’s who of evangelical groups supports the Catholic petitioners, including the National Association of Evangelicals, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Young Life, and the Council For Christian Colleges and Universities.
Veteran SCOTUS reporter Linda Greenhouse says this case may afford the Roberts court a means to continue elevating religious rights through “a systematic dismantling of the previous legal regime.”
The Roberts court “has established the principle, without precedent in constitutional history, that whatever public benefit secular institutions get, religious institutions are entitled to as well,” she wrote.
International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Ferguson
Parents are challenging a Washington state law they say limits them from making decisions about their children’s potential gender transitions.
Backing the parents are the National Association of Evangelicals, the ERLC of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, James Dobson Family Institute, Moms for Liberty, National Religious Broadcasters, and a dozen state groups affiliated with Focus on the Family.
“No parent should have to live in fear that, without their consent, the government will hold their children and facilitate life-altering medical interventions,” says an amicus brief in the case.
Grand v. City of University Heights
“Daniel Grand is a Jewish man who opened his home for prayer,” says the amicus brief from the ERLC and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The city of University Heights (Ohio) responded by ordering him to stop in a cease-and-desist letter. That cease-and-desist letter was not an invitation to negotiate; it was a credible threat of enforcement against constitutionally and statutorily protected religious exercise.”
Also backing Grand are the National Association of Evangelicals, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and other faith groups.
Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist Inc. v. Frederic
Officials in Park Hills, Ky., said it was OK for the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist to build a grotto honoring the Virgin Mary near Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Then nearby homeowners sued and the project was halted. The justices will decide if the hold-up is an unconstitutional burden on the Catholic group’s land use rights.
Immigration cases
Can the Trump administration deport illegal aliens with criminal records to “third countries” where they know no one and could face abuse or torture without a hearing before a judge? The court will decide in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D.
Can the administration detain immigrants awaiting removal hearings? What is the status of people who entered the country illegally, were granted asylum but had their asylum terminated? The court will decide in Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha.
Gun rights
Do the Second and 14th Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 semiautomatic rifles and similar weapons? Or can a local jurisdiction restrict them? The court will decide in Viramontes v. Cook County.
After a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and killed 20, the state enacted a ban on the weapons. Officials in Cook County, Ill., home to Chicago, restricted access to semiautomatic rifles based on “overwhelming, mounting and unrefuted evidence showing that assault rifles are the weapon of choice for criminals and terrorists set on quickly massacring innocents.”
This case will determine if such restrictions are constitutional.
Groups supporting the unfettered right to semiautomatic rifles include Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the Focus-affiliated Louisiana Family Forum and Jay Sekulow’s American Center For Law and Justice.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted an amicus brief that didn’t choose sides in the legal battle but urged the court to “decide this case in a manner that preserves the traditional authority of political communities to regulate weapons capable of exceptional violence and that threaten the public peace.”
Read more about all 30 cases here.
Related:
BJC sides with Orthodox Jew denied prayer meeting in his own home