We’re thrilled to introduce the first in a series of animated videos, done in partnership with Briefly, on some of the most important upcoming cases of the current term. This first video is an introduction to United States v. Hemani. Watch it here. Week in Review The court heard four arguments this week, during the first half of the February sitting. Here are the links to SCOTUSblog’s coverage. Havana Docks Corporation v. Royal Caribbean Cruises and Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporacion Cimex: Case Preview and Argument Analysis Enbridge Energy, LP v. Nessel: Case Preview and Argument Analysis Pung v. Isabella County, Michigan: Case Preview And on Tuesday and Wednesday, the court released opinions in four argued cases: The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. v. Palmquist, U.S. Postal Service v. Konan, Villarreal v. Texas, and The GEO Group, Inc. v. Menocal. In Hain, the court unanimously affirmed the vacatur of a district court judgment due to lack of jurisdiction. In Konan, the court held that the USPS cannot be sued over intentionally misdelivered mail. In Villarreal, the court held that a trial court did not err when it allowed a defendant to meet with his lawyers during an overnight break in testimony but barred them from “managing” his ongoing testimony. In GEO Group, the court held that a government contractor cannot immediately appeal an order rejecting its immunity claim. At the Court On Thursday, the Trump administration asked the court on its interim relief docket to allow it to remove protected status from Syrian nationals. For more on the case, see the On Site section below. Today, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected on Monday at 9:30 a.m. EST. On Monday, the court will hear argument in United States v. Hemani, on whether a federal statute that prohibits gun possession by users of illegal drugs violates the Second Amendment. Find Amy’s case preview in the On Site section. We will be live blogging the Hemani argument on Monday beginning at 9:30 a.m. EST. Morning Reads FedEx Says It Could Return Any Money From Tariff Refunds to Customers Tony Romm, The New York Times Days after it sued the federal government for tariff refunds, FedEx announced that it plans to return any tariff payments it recovers “to customers who bore the brunt of those charges,” according to The New York Times. “With its announcement this week, the shipper appears to be the first large business to signal it would share any refunds it obtains from tariffs, which some companies have sought to abate over the past year by raising their prices.” How the tariffs ruling could complicate Trump’s next Supreme Court nomination W. James Antle III, Washington Examiner When the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s signature tariffs, just one of his appointees was in dissent: Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That fact looms large in the current debate over potential Supreme Court retirements, according to the Washington Examiner, and explains why Trump may prefer for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (who dissented with Kavanaugh in the tariffs case) to remain on the court. “Trump risks ending up with a less-aligned justice, even if he fills the seat with a proven legal conservative, since Thomas and Alito are his most supportive members of the court.” Trump wants to end affirmative action. Here’s how he plans to do it. Jessica Guynn, USA Today In January, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Minnesota, claiming that its “efforts to fight discrimination in the civil service” by requiring state agencies to pursue a diverse workforce “are themselves discriminatory,” according to USA Today. The lawsuit is part of a broader push against affirmative action that has benefitted from a number of recent court rulings, including the Supreme Court’s decision “in 2023 that colleges’ consideration of race as a factor in student admissions was unconstitutional.” “The Supreme Court left us with a weird legal landscape in which affirmative action in higher education was unlawful but affirmative action in the workplace was technically lawful,” said NYU School of Law’s David Glasgow to USA Today. “With this new Minnesota lawsuit, that could change.” Prosecutor claims that delayed charges against Abrego Garcia were ‘extraordinary’ but justified Travis Loller, Associated Press At a Thursday hearing, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire testified about his decision to charge Kilmar Abrego Garcia with human smuggling last year after he rose to national prominence for being mistakenly deported to El Salvador. After the deportation, “the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration had to work to bring him back,” according to the Associated Press. Abrego Garcia has argued that the human smuggling charges are “vindictive” and were pushed by Trump administration officials who were angry about having to facilitate his return. On Thursday, McGuire acknowledged that it’s unusual for more than two years to pass between a traffic stop and charges being filed, as was the case for Abrego Garcia, but added that the charges are “based on the evidence” and that “he had not previously been aware of the stop.” The Postal Service's Recent Supreme Court Win Is Bad News for Government Accountability Damon Root, Reason In a column for Reason, Damon Root reflected on the Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling in favor of the federal government in a case on misdelivered mail, in which the court held that a federal law protecting the U.S. Postal Service from lawsuits over lost or miscarried mail bars lawsuits over mail that was intentionally not delivered. Root explained why he believes the decision deepened a government accountability crisis. “Federal officials already enjoy far too much immunity from being sued over their misconduct. This ruling just added to that problem,” he wrote. On Site From the SCOTUSblog Team Trump administration asks justices to allow it to remove protected status from Syrian nationals The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to freeze a ruling by a federal judge in New York which indefinitely postpones the termination of a program allowing Syrians to live in the United States temporarily. Case Preview Court to hear argument on whether and when drug users may possess firearms The court will hear argument on Monday in the second gun-rights case of the term. In January, the Trump administration supported Hawaii gun owners in their challenge to a state law requiring them to obtain express permission from the owners of private property before bringing guns onto that property. But on Monday, the administration will be asking the justices to allow it to prosecute a Texas man on charges that he violated a federal law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from having a gun. Relist Watch Beach blasts and unusually dangerous weapons In his Relist Watch column, John Elwood highlighted newly relisted petitions addressing the Air Force’s disposal of hazardous munitions on a beach in Guam and Connecticut’s ban on semi-automatic rifles. Opinion Analysis Court rules criminal defendants may be prohibited from discussing ongoing testimony with counsel during an overnight recess The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that, when a trial court recesses a criminal trial during a defendant’s testimony, the court may order the defendant and his lawyer not to discuss that testimony during the break except when it is incidental to discussions of trial strategy or whether to accept a plea bargain. Opinion Analysis Court rejects ICE contractor’s right to immediate appeal Wednesday’s opinion in The GEO Group v. Menocal rejects the efforts of a contractor for ICE to get an immediate appeal from a district court judgment, explaining that the contractor must wait until after a trial in the district court to bring the case to the appellate court. Contributor Corner How can the Supreme Court protect electoral integrity? In his Justice, Democracy, and Law column, Edward Foley reflected on the possibility that President Donald Trump will order the federal seizure of ballots after this year’s midterms, prompting a major legal battle. The court should prepare now “to act proactively,” Foley contended, “so as to avoid electoral subversion that can’t be remedied after it has occurred.” Podcasts Advisory Opinions The Immunity Episode Sarah Isgur and David French dive deep into the world of immunities, examining recent Supreme Court decisions and their implications. A Closer Look: Chief Justice Melville Fuller The next chief justice in our series, Melville Fuller, although today relatively unknown, presided over some of the most important cases in the history of the Supreme Court. (He also instituted the practice of having the justices shake hands before private conferences and before taking the bench.) The eighth chief justice was born in Maine in 1833 to a family of Jacksonian Democrats, and was raised in the house of his grandfather, the state’s chief justice. Fuller graduated from Bowdoin College in 1853, read law in Maine, and after a brief stint (six months) at Harvard Law School passed the bar. Fuller then moved west to Chicago, where – along with a legal career specializing in real estate and commercial law – he managed Stephen Douglas’ 1860 presidential campaign (which was a fairly important election). Fuller also served in the Illinois House of Representatives for two years, was elected president of the state bar association, and was a delegate to the Illinois constitutional convention of 1862. (His Illinois House colleagues reportedly were left unhappy when Fuller publicly opposed their gold pens as a waste of public spending.) Before President Grover Cleveland nominated Fuller to be chief justice in April 1888, Fuller had declined two other offers by Cleveland, one to be the chairman of the Civil Service Commission and the other to be solicitor general of the United States. The Senate took three months to confirm Fuller, with concerns over his perceived favoritism towards corporations and questionable loyalty to the Union. There was little doubt that Fuller, at least on paper, was qualified for the position, however. Besides his long legal career, he had previously argued multiple cases before the court. Two other rather unusual topics came up during Fuller’s confirmation: his facial hair (Fuller sported quite a mustache), and his penchant for poetry. “The greatest objection that has been urged against Chief Justice Fuller is that he wears a mustache,” reported the Chicago Tribune. But then added: “He will be confirmed by a large majority, and without a close shave.” His poetry, meanwhile, was another subject, according to the Journal of Supreme Court History: “articles asserted that Fuller was a mediocre amateur poet and, as such, was not fit to sit on the high Bench.” Despite these lapses, Fuller was confirmed, and took his judicial oath in October 1888. As was feared by some during Fuller’s confirmation, his court became “known for its decisions using the idea of substantive due process and liberty of contract to uphold the rights of big business than for its decisions advancing personal liberties.” That said, Fuller was regarded as a skilled and “patient” judicial administrator amidst the almost constant criticism of his court for its decisions (according to Fuller’s Oyez description, “only the Warren Court was the subject of more abuse”). Some of Fuller’s better-known cases include the controversial Lochner v. New York (which struck down – on the basis of substantive due process – New York’s law making it illegal for bakers to work over a certain number of hours), Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (Fuller authored the majority opinion voiding the national income tax), and United States v. E.C. Knight Co., which limited – under the interstate commerce clause – the scope of the Sherman Antitrust Act that Congress passed to break up unfair monopolies. By far the most notorious case of the Fuller court came in 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that state-mandated segregation laws were not unconstitutional so long as the separate accommodations were “equal” for the “white and colored races,” and which was not reversed until Brown v. Board of Education almost 60 years later. Fuller joined in the majority decision. Of great relevance this term, Fuller also wrote the dissenting opinion in the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. That decision affirmed the citizenship of an individual born in the United States to parents who were not American citizens. Fuller served on the court for approximately 22 years, and died in office from heart disease in July 1910. Earlier this month, one of Fuller’s descendants, Robert Fuller (the chief justice’s great great-grandnephew, if you’re curious), was tragically shot to death in his home near Washington, D.C. The story has gotten national attention, partly due to Fuller’s status as a prominent philanthropist. That is not the only time Robert Fuller was in the news, however. When interviewed in 2012, he referred to Plessy v. Ferguson as one of the court’s “self-inflicted wounds,” and acknowledged that “[t]he justice who decided the case was Henry Billings Brown, but my ancestor join[ed] in the majority opinion which established this odious doctrine of ‘separate vs. equal.’” SCOTUS Quote MR. MITCHELL: “[T]he question presented asks whether an offer of complete relief renders the case –” JUSTICE BREYER: “I’m not interested at the moment in the question asked. I am interested in the question I am asking.” — Justice Stephen Breyer in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez The post SCOTUStoday for Friday, February 27 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.