(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court’s current term featured major decisions involving former President Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution and his ballot disqualification, abortion rights, gun rights, the power of federal agencies, social media regulation, Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement and others.
Here is a look at rulings issued in various cases.
TRUMP IMMUNITY CLAIM
The court on July 1 found that Trump cannot be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but can for private acts, in a landmark ruling recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution. The 6-3 decision threw out a lower court’s ruling that had rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Immunity for former presidents is “absolute” with respect to their “core constitutional powers,” according to the ruling, and a former president has “at least a presumptive immunity” for “acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.”
OBSTRUCTION CHARGE
The justices on June 28 raised the legal bar for prosecutors pursuing obstruction charges in the federal election subversion case against Trump and defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The justices ruled 6-3 to throw out a lower court’s decision that had allowed a charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding – the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump – against a defendant from Pennsylvania. Fischer had challenged the obstruction charge, which prosecutors brought against him and hundreds of others – including Trump – in Jan. 6-related cases.
TRUMP BALLOT DISQUALIFICATION
The court on March 4 handed Trump a major victory by barring states from disqualifying candidates for federal office under a constitutional provision involving insurrection and reversing Colorado’s exclusion of him from its ballot. The justices unanimously overturned a decision by Colorado’s top court to kick the former president off the state’s Republican primary ballot after finding that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualified him from again holding public office. The Colorado court had found that Trump took part in an insurrection for inciting and supporting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
ABORTION PILL ACCESS
The justices on June 13 rejected a bid by anti-abortion groups and doctors to restrict access to the abortion pill in a 9-0 ruling that handed a victory to President Joe Biden’s administration in its efforts to preserve broad access to the drug. The justices overturned a lower court’s decision to roll back Food and Drug Administration steps in 2016 and 2021 that eased how the drug, called mifepristone, is prescribed and distributed. The court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the case.
IDAHO ABORTION LAW
The justices on June 27 allowed abortions to be performed in Idaho when pregnant women are facing medical emergencies in a ruling that did not decide the case on its merits. The 6-3 decision effectively reinstated a federal judge’s ruling that Idaho’s Republican-backed near-total abortion ban must yield to a 1986 U.S. law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act when the two statutes conflict. Biden’s administration had sued Idaho over the ban, which has a narrow exception permitting an abortion only to save the woman’s life.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GUN CURBS
The court on June 21 upheld a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns. The 8-1 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision striking down the 1994 law as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” The challenge was filed by a Texas man charged with illegal gun possession while subject to a domestic violence restraining order after assaulting his girlfriend.
BUMP STOCKS
The court on June 14 declared unlawful a federal ban on “bump stock” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, rejecting yet another firearms restriction. The 6-3 ruling upheld a lower court’s decision siding with a plaintiff from Texas who challenged the ban by claiming that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives improperly interpreted a federal law banning machine guns as extending to bump stocks. The rule was implemented in 2019 after a 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 58 people.
NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION FREE SPEECH
The justices on May 30 revived a National Rifle Association lawsuit accusing a New York state official of coercing banks and insurers to avoid doing business with the gun rights group in a 9-0 ruling that warned public officials against wielding their power to punish speech they dislike. The justices threw out a lower court’s ruling that had dismissed the NRA’s lawsuit. At issue is whether the official wielded her regulatory power to coerce financial institutions into cutting ties with the NRA in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections against government restrictions on free speech.
SOUTH CAROLINA VOTING
The court on May 23 made it harder to prove racial discrimination in electoral maps in a ruling backing South Carolina Republicans who moved out 30,000 Black residents when they redrew a congressional district. The 6-3 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that the map had violated the rights of Black voters under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. The case centered on the boundaries drawn by the Republican-led state legislature for one of South Carolina’s seven U.S. House of Representatives districts. The new map raised the district’s share of white voters and reduced its share of Black voters, who tend to support Democratic candidates.
FEDERAL AGENCY POWERS
The court on June 28 dealt a major blow to federal regulatory power by overturning a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer. The justices ruled 6-3 to set aside lower court decisions against fishing companies that challenged a government-run program partly funded by industry that monitored overfishing of herring off New England’s coast. The overturned precedent, known as “Chevron deference,” had called for judges to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of U.S. laws deemed to be ambiguous.
SEC IN-HOUSE ENFORCEMENT
The justices on June 27 rejected the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house enforcement of laws protecting investors against securities fraud, dealing another blow to the agency’s powers. The 6-3 decision upheld a lower court’s ruling siding with a Texas-based hedge fund manager who contested the legality of the SEC’s actions against him after the agency determined he had committed securities fraud. The ruling opened the door to challenges to other federal agencies’ in-house enforcement arrangements.
OZONE EMISSIONS
The court on June 27 blocked a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation aimed at reducing ozone emissions that may worsen air pollution in neighboring states. The 5-4 decision granted requests by Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as U.S. Steel Corp, pipeline operator Kinder Morgan and industry groups, to halt enforcement of the EPA’s “Good Neighbor” plan restricting ozone pollution from upwind states, while they contest the rule’s legality in a lower court. The agency had said the rule would result in cleaner air for millions of people, saving thousands of lives.
CONSUMER WATCHDOG AGENCY’S FUNDING
The justices on May 16 upheld the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism in a challenge brought by the payday loan industry, handing a victory to Biden’s administration. The 7-2 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that the CFPB’s funding design – drawing money each year from the Federal Reserve instead of from budgets passed by lawmakers – violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution giving Congress the power of the purse. The CFPB was established under a law signed by Democratic former President Barack Obama in 2010 to curb the kind of predatory lending that contributed to the 2007–2009 financial crisis.
DEBIT CARD ‘SWIPE FEES’
The court on July 1 revived a North Dakota convenience store’s challenge to a Federal Reserve regulation on debit card “swipe fees” in a ruling that could make it easier for businesses to try to undo longstanding federal rules. The 6-3 decision reversed a lower court’s dismissal of the 2021 lawsuit by the store that challenged the 2011 rule governing the amount businesses pay banks when customers use debit cards to make purchases. The dismissal had been based on the store missing a six-year statue of limitations.
PURDUE PHARMA BANKRUPTCY SETTLEMENT
The court on June 27 blocked OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would have shielded its wealthy Sackler family owners from lawsuits over their role in the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic. The 5-4 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that had upheld the plan to give Purdue’s owners immunity in exchange for paying up to $6 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits accusing the company of unlawful misleading marketing of the powerful pain medication. The Biden administration had challenged the settlement as an abuse of bankruptcy protections meant for debtors in financial distress, not people like the Sacklers who have not filed for bankruptcy.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT MODERATION
The court on July 1 threw out a pair of judicial decisions involving challenges to Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas designed to restrict the power of social media companies to curb content that the platforms deem objectionable. The justices directed lower appeals courts to reconsider their decisions regarding these 2021 laws authorizing the states to regulate the content-moderation practices of large social media platforms. Tech industry trade groups have challenged the two laws as First Amendment violations.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
The justices on March 15 decided that government officials can sometimes be sued under the First Amendment for blocking critics on social media. In unanimous rulings in two cases from California and Michigan, the justices set a new standard for determining if public officials acted in a governmental capacity when blocking critics on social media – a test to be applied in lawsuits accusing them of First Amendment violations. First Amendment free speech protections generally constrain government actors, not private individuals.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SOCIAL MEDIA
The justices on June 26 declined to impose limits on the way the Biden administration may communicate with social media platforms, rejecting a challenge to how officials encouraged the removal of posts deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID. The 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that various federal officials likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects against governmental abridgment of free speech. The justices found that those behind the challenge including the states of Missouri and Louisiana lacked the necessary legal standing to bring the case.
HOMELESS ENCAMPMENTS
The court on June 28 upheld anti-camping laws used by authorities in an Oregon city to stop homeless people from sleeping in public parks and public streets – a ruling that gives local and state governments a freer hand in confronting a national homelessness crisis. The 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that found that enforcing the ordinances in the city of Grants Pass when no shelter space is available for the homeless violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments. Various jurisdictions employ similar laws.
STARBUCKS UNIONIZATION
The justices on June 13 sided with Starbucks in the coffee chain’s challenge to a judicial order to rehire seven Memphis employees fired as they sought to unionize in a ruling that could make it harder for courts to quickly halt labor practices contested as unfair under federal law. The justices unanimously threw out a lower court’s approval of an injunction sought by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ordering Starbucks to reinstate the workers while the agency’s in-house administrative case against the Seattle-based company proceeds.
WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION LAWSUITS
The justices on April 17 made it easier to bring certain workplace discrimination lawsuits in a ruling that gave a boost to a St. Louis police officer who claimed she was transferred to an undesirable new role because of her sex. At issue was whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars workplace bias, requires employees to prove that discrimination caused them significant harm such as a pay cut, demotion or job loss. The unanimous ruling disapproved that approach.
‘TRUMP TOO SMALL’ TRADEMARK
The court on June 13 barred a federal trademark for the phrase “Trump Too Small” – an irreverent criticism of the former U.S. president – rejecting a California lawyer’s claim that the trademark denial violated his First Amendment rights. The justices unanimously overturned a lower court’s decision that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s rejection of Steve Elster’s application to register the trademark to exclusively use it on T-shirts violated his free speech rights.
(Compiled by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
