The justices heard oral arguments this week in four cases – and denied review in hundreds of others – as the 2026-27 term officially got underway. Additionally, a dispute on broadcasting rates for political ads returned to the interim docket, where it joined a still-pending application on transgender inmates.At the Court This WeekToday, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from today’s conference are expected on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. EDT.On Thursday, a dispute over broadcasting rates for political ads returned to the Supreme Court’s interim docket, approximately a month after the justices temporarily paused a ruling by a federal court that would have allowed only candidates for federal office to access more favorable rates. The Trump administration asked the court to block an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit requiring the Federal Communications Commission to act by noon today on a challenge to its notice extending the candidate rates to political parties and joint fundraising committees. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee echoed this request in their own application. Later on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay, which will keep the 4th Circuit’s order on hold while the Supreme Court considers the case. For more on the dispute, see the On Site section below.Also on Thursday, lawyers for a group of inmates challenging the Federal Bureau of Prison’s new policy on healthcare for transgender inmates urged the Supreme Court to deny the Trump administration’s request to block an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that bars the bureau from enforcing the policy, which would prevent transgender inmates from obtaining gender-transition surgeries, hormone therapy, and “social accommodations.” Learn more about the filing in the On Site section.On Wednesday, the justices heard oral argument in Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Guåhan, a case on the interaction between two federal environmental laws that arose when the U.S. Air Force applied to renew its permit to dispose of munitions on a beach in northern Guam. Here are the links to our Case Preview and Argument Analysis.On Tuesday, the justices heard argument in Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, a dispute under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act on how to handle certain claims that employers have invested employees’ retirement funds imprudently. Here are the links to our Case Preview and Argument Analysis.On Monday, the justices officially kicked off the 2026-27 term by hearing argument in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, on whether a lawsuit filed in Colorado state court seeking to hold energy companies responsible for their alleged role in climate change can go forward, or whether federal law instead bars such claims. Here are the links to our Case Preview and Argument Analysis.Also on Monday, the justices heard argument in Johnson v. United States Congress, on whether a federal district court may hear a constitutional challenge to a law limiting disability benefits for certain incarcerated veterans. Here are the links to our Case Preview and Argument Analysis.Looking ahead, the Supreme Court Building will be closed on Monday for Columbus Day (meaning the justices will not return to the bench until Tuesday). We will send an abridged edition of this newsletter on Monday to Plus subscribers.Morning ReadsMajority of states urge Supreme Court to consider prediction market regulationZach Schonfeld, The HillLast month, New Jersey asked the Supreme Court to take up a dispute on whether states may regulate prediction markets like Kalshi or if, instead, “the federal government should be in control.” This week, a bipartisan group of states filed a brief in support of this request, telling the justices that “[f]ederal and state courts are hopelessly confused and divided over” this issue. “The bipartisan coalition was led by Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson (R) and joined by the District of Columbia and 38 other states,” according to The Hill. The NFL also filed a brief asking the court to hear the case and hold that states may regulate prediction markets, contending that federal regulators may not have “sufficient resources to ensure prediction markets ‘do not jeopardize game integrity.’”'Accidents happen': What the Supreme Court has said about survivors of botched executionsDevin Dwyer, ABC NewsOn Sept. 30, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, but she survived “receiving two doses of lethal injection” and is now “conscious” and “speaking” while continuing to recover, according to ABC News. Her survival raises significant “legal questions about whether a second state attempt to kill her would violate the Constitution,” including the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. ABC News noted that the Supreme Court addressed a related situation in 1947, when it “decided the case of 17-year-old Willie Francis, a black teenager who was sent to the electric chair but survived a botched electrocution.” “In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Stanley Reed, the Supreme Court concluded Francis’ constitutional rights would not be violated by electrocuting him a second time (which Louisiana ultimately did).” “Even the fact that petitioner has already been subjected to a current of electricity does not make his subsequent execution any more cruel in the constitutional sense than any other execution,” Reed wrote.Man Who Threatened Supreme Court Justices Avoids Jail SentenceJordan Fischer, Bloomberg LawPanos Anastasiou, 78, was sentenced on Wednesday “to three years of supervised release for sending hundreds of messages threatening US Supreme Court justices,” according to Bloomberg Law. “Between 2023 and 2024, Anastasiou sent more than 500 messages to the Supreme Court’s public portal that included racist and homophobic rhetoric, as well as calls for the assassinations of Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.” He “pleaded guilty earlier this year” to sending these threats “as well as possessing a firearm as a felon. As part of his plea, prosecutors agreed not to seek prison time due to his advanced age and deteriorating health.”11th Circuit lets Georgia family sue FBI agent over wrongful raidMegan Butler, Courthouse News ServiceIn a June 2025 ruling in Martin v. United States the Supreme Court revived a family’s lawsuit over FBI agents’ mistaken raid of their house, ordering the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit “to reexamine whether the family’s negligence or intentional tort claims can proceed,” according to Courthouse News Service. The 11th Circuit did so, and on Wednesday “reversed the qualified immunity granted to” Agent Lawrence Guerra, who led the raid. “Agent Guerra’s conduct was ‘simply not consistent with a reasonable effort to ascertain and identify the place intended to be search,’” the three-judge panel said. “While Guerra will face the family’s claims, the panel found the United States is protected by sovereign immunity and that none of the 13 carved out exceptions to the Federal Tort Claims Act apply in this case.”Curtis Flowers, a Black man whose death sentence was tossed by Supreme Court, dies in MississippiCorey Williams, Associated PressCurtis Flowers, “who spent more than 22 years in prison and was on death row in Mississippi before the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction and death sentence,” died on Wednesday at age 56, according to the Associated Press. “Flowers was 26 when he was arrested several months after the July 1996 shooting deaths of four people inside a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store.” He “was tried in the killings six times,” before the Supreme Court held “in 2019 that the removal of Black prospective jurors deprived Flowers of a fair trial.” “Flowers remained in prison for six months after the Supreme Court ruling because he was still under indictment. He finally was released in December 2019,” and “Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in September 2020.” Flowers’ legal team said in a statement that his name is “etched into U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence – about what it means to fight for a fair trial free from racial bias in the selection of jurors.”On Site This WeekCourt NewsDispute over broadcasting rates for political ads returns to the Supreme CourtThe battle over favorable advertising rates for political parties and joint fundraising committees returned to the Supreme Court’s interim docket on Thursday morning. In a 15-page filing, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to block an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit directing the Federal Communications Commission to decide by noon on Friday on a challenge to its “public notice” that would extend the favorable rates to parties and committees. Thursday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts put the 4th Circuit’s order on hold while the Supreme Court considers the case and asked the challengers to respond by 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday.Court NewsJustices urged to leave order in place barring enforcement of Trump administration’s new policy for transgender inmatesLawyers for a group of transgender inmates in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to leave in place an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that bars the BOP from enforcing a new policy on healthcare for transgender inmates. Li Nowlin-Sohl, representing the inmates, told the justices that the Trump administration is asking the justices “to overturn a three decades-long status quo.”Case PreviewCourt to weigh deference to U.S. Sentencing Commission’s interpretations of its guidelinesBefore imposing a sentence on a federal criminal defendant, a district judge must apply the federal sentencing guidelines for the defendant’s offense and criminal history, considering the recommended sentencing range and a host of other factors. In Beaird v. United States, the Supreme Court will address the degree of deference that courts owe to the commentary that the U.S. Sentencing Commission provides for applying these guidelines.Contributor CornerWild card justices and the “Kagan court” for criminal casesIn his SCOTUSCrim column, Rory Little offered key takeaways from the 16 “pure” criminal law decisions issued during the 2025-26 term, noting, among other things, that Justice Elena Kagan authored nearly one-third of them. Relist WatchThe first relists of the 2026-27 termIn his Relist Watch column on Wednesday, John Elwood analyzed the 13 petitions for review that will get a second look from the justices at today’s conference and one summer holdover that will get a fourth look.SCOTUS Outside Opinions“Equal Justice Under Law” – except for Guam and the U.S. territories?In a column for SCOTUSblog, Neil Weare and Adi Martínez Román explored the broader context for the people of Guam in Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Guåhan. Court NewsCourt declines to hear cases on “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts, felons’ Second Amendment rights, COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and other notable issuesOn Monday, the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference on Sept. 28, including a lengthy list of denied petitions. Among the denials were a dispute over whether schools may bar students from wearing sweatshirts with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a clash over the Second Amendment rights of convicted felons, and two battles over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.PodcastsAdvisory OpinionsSUNCOR Gets ComplicatedSarah Isgur and David French discuss the surprisingly complicated oral argument in Suncor Energy; Justice Samuel Alito and his AI usage; and circuit cases on child sex abuse material, vaccine exemptions, and racial harassment.A Closer LookJustice James Moore WayneFriday’s A Closer Look is typically a judicial biography. This week we cover Justice James Moore Wayne, who served on the court from 1835 to 1867.While justices are often lauded and remembered for their general jurisprudence, opinions in monumental cases, or even impact on the court’s procedures, one of Justice James Moore Wayne’s most important accomplishments was simply staying on the court. When Georgia seceded from the Union, Wayne remained on as the only Southern justice in what one 1944 reviewer, George Gordon Battle, called “the most important act of his career.”Wayne was born in Savannah in 1790 to a father who fought on both sides of the Revolution and owned plantations worked by nearly 100 enslaved people. The younger Wayne was temporarily thrown out of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) for joining a campus revolt, but graduated in 1808. He then read law in Savannah and New Haven, Connecticut, and passed the bar in 1811.During the War of 1812, Wayne “saw no action” as a Georgia militia captain in a volunteer unit, but won a state legislative seat after the war due in part to his opposition to a law freezing debt collection. At only 27 he became the mayor of Savannah, reportedly focusing on public works and commerce, before being elected by the state legislature to Georgia’s Superior Court.Wayne left the Georgia Superior Court for Congress in 1828 after winning a House seat, where he backed President Andrew Jackson’s administration on nearly all of its agenda, from Cherokee removal to the fight over the national bank. Sen. Thomas Benton named Wayne as among the “ten zealous, able, determined” House members who supported Jackson. Jackson himself praised Wayne as “true and faithful,” and in January 1835 nominated Wayne to fill Justice William Johnson’s seat. The Senate confirmed Wayne three days later, and he became the first Georgian on the court (one biography calls him “the most famous Georgian nobody knows”).Wayne’s “particular expertise” was in admiralty, but that’s not all he handled. In Louisville Railroad Co. v. Letson, for example, which centered around a breach-of-contract suit against a railroad company and who had jurisdiction over the case, he wrote for the court in reversing a Marshall-era rule that effectively denied corporations citizenship, instead holding that a corporation can be a citizen of a state. His biographer, Alexander Lawrence, called this probably “Wayne’s greatest contribution to the jurisprudence of his day.”Three years later in Waring v. Clarke, a case involving admiralty procedure in a Mississippi River collision, Wayne held that federal admiralty power covered any navigable water “within the ebb and flow of the tide.” In 1852’s Cooley v. Board of Wardens, which asked whether a Pennsylvania law regulating ships in the Port of Philadelphia violated the commerce clause, Wayne argued in dissent that states did not have a role in regulating interstate commerce (instead, he wrote, that fell to Congress).Wayne had a complex record on slavery, to put it mildly. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, most of his colleagues apparently wanted to avoid the question of whether Congress could ban slavery in the territories, but Wayne said at a conference “that this question [of whether the Missouri Compromise legislation was valid] should be decided by the Court and that the Chief Justice should prepare the opinion on behalf of the Court.” (The Missouri Compromise, among other things such as admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free one, banned slavery in Louisiana Purchase land above the 36º 30’ latitude line; opponents of the compromise argued that Congress lacked the authority to pass such laws in the territories.)Wayne’s motion to consider the compromise question succeeded. Chief Justice Roger Taney went on to write that African Americans were not U.S. citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Legal scholar Paul Finkelman argues Wayne, who was himself a slaveholder, wanted both that issue and the rights of free Black people resolved “in favor of the South.”Nevertheless, in 1859, Wayne returned to Savannah and gave a lengthy grand jury charge after a slave ship brought more than 400 Africans to Jekyll Island (Congress had outlawed the African slave trade more than 50 years earlier), in which he denounced the “inhuman” African slave trade. (The crewmen were acquitted anyway thanks to “local feeling in favor of the defendants.”)In 1860, Wayne’s son Henry left the U.S. Army to serve Georgia in the Confederacy. Although he did not believe states had a right to secede, Wayne paid for his son’s way south. The justice himself stayed, however, telling Henry that the South would still need a voice on the court. In 1862, a Confederate court declared Wayne an “Alien Enemy” and seized his property in Georgia.During the war, Wayne pressed for leniency toward the South by lobbying President Abraham Lincoln and other officials for pardons and refused to ride circuit in states occupied by the military. By one account, his vote decided Ex parte Garland, which struck down a congressionally required oath that would have prevented nearly every lawyer from the seceded states from arguing in the Supreme Court.Wayne died of typhoid fever in Washington in July 1867 at 77. After he died, the court went from nine to eight justices. Congress had passed legislation the year before shrinking the court to seven justices (with seats eliminated only when they became vacant). Shortly thereafter, the Judiciary Act of 1869 raised the number back to nine where it has remained since. After his death, Chief Justice Salmon Chase remembered Wayne as “a most sincere and earnest patriot.”SCOTUS QuoteJUSTICE JACKSON: “And so, in resolving that ambiguity, we go to the context, right?”MR. CHEN: “Correct.”JUSTICE JACKSON: “Those were the other points that you made.”MR. CHEN: “Yes. I think that if … we have two equally plausible readings of the statute, then I think the context and the structural features that we've raised –”JUSTICE KAGAN: “So … you're saying that my version of the statute is at least equally plausible?”MR. CHEN: “I – we –”JUSTICE GORSUCH: “Be careful, counsel.”— Johnson v. United States Congress (2026)