Supremecourt.gov Audio Stream [10AM Eastern]

Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.

Question presented to the Court:

Whether the Communications Act of 1934 provisions that govern the Federal Communications Commission’s assessment and enforcement of monetary forfeitures are consistent with the Seventh Amendment and Article III.

Opinion Below: 5th Cir.

Orders and Proceedings:

Opening brief on the merits of AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.

Response brief on the merits of the federal parties

Reply of AT&T, Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.

Coverage:

Justices to hear argument on right to jury trial in FCC proceedings (Amy Howe, SCOTUSblog)

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Live commentary threads will be available for each oral argument day. See the SCOTUSblog case calendar for upcoming oral arguments.

Date: 04/21/2026

Miscellaneous Order

“Behind the scenes, Roberts led the charge for the Court to blaze a new trail—relying on statements outside the record; invoking the wrong standard for the kind of relief the applicants sought; failing to even acknowledge the irreparable harm the government (and the environment) would suffer from the Court intervening; and pushing back aggressively when Justices Breyer and Kagan both urged a compromise that should have accounted for his ostensible concerns. I’ve suggested before that the real acceleration of the Court’s modern emergency docket behavior can be traced to 2018, right around when Justice Kavanaugh succeeded Justice Kennedy. But in the first major case in which the Court granted emergency relief as a means of shaping nationwide policy, it turns out that the justice who led the charge was the one who was doing quite a bit more than calling balls and strikes.”

Date: 04/20/2026

Order List

Caption	District of Columbia, Petitioner v. R.W.
Summary	Because Officer Vanterpool clearly had reasonable suspicion to stop R. W., the judgment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded.
Author	Per Curiam
Opinion	http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-248_8m58.pdf
Certiorari	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 3, 2025)
Case Link	25-248

Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine “shadow docket” rulings on presidential power.

Just after 6 p.m. on a February evening in 2016, the Supreme Court issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling that sent both climate policy and the court itself spinning in new directions.

For two centuries, the court had generally handled major cases at a stately pace that encouraged care and deliberation, relying on written briefs, oral arguments and in-person discussions. The justices composed detailed opinions that explained their thinking to the public and rendered judgment only after other courts had weighed in.

But this time, the justices were sprinting to block a major presidential initiative. By a 5-to-4 vote along partisan lines, the order halted President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, his signature environmental policy. They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning.

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legalexperts believe, of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

Read more via the free gift article link.

The actual SCOTUS Shadow Papers can be viewed here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/18/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket-papers.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.cFA.MMVg.VcheFywS4r7M&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Clarence Thomas discusses various issues related to his time on the Supreme Court and ideology. He actually dismissed the idea that he was ideologically tied to Associate Justice Scalia. They actually had differing modes of thought on Constitutional legal issues.

I just noticed a footnote in Justice Kagan’s dissent in Mirabelli.

In FN 3, Kagan draws a comparison to Skrmetti. In that case, parents challenged Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors and raised a SDP claim grounded in the exact same parental rights precedents like Pierce, Parham etc.. asserting their right to make medical decisions for their children. The Court granted cert but explicitly limited review to equal protection, refusing to even hear the SDP claim.

Fast forward to Mirabelli, and the Court not only entertains the parental SDP claim but uses the emergency docket to grant relief

What’s the principled distinction? If parental rights under SDP are robust enough to override California’s school notification policy on an emergency basis, why weren’t they worth hearing when Tennessee was directly blocking parents from accessing medical treatment for their kids,which seems like an even more direct intrusion into parental medical decision-making?

They also never addressed this part of her critique.

Welcome to the r/SupremeCourt 'In Chambers' discussion thread!

This thread will be pinned at the top of the subreddit and refreshed every Monday @ 6AM Eastern.

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https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/3af87d97f2b6da24/6b439f9a-full.pdf

>"Read the Supreme Court’s Shadow Papers" [Actual NYT Headline]

>"In 2016, the Supreme Court halted an ambitious climate change initiative from President Barack Obama by a 5-to-4 vote along partisan lines. Its order was just one paragraph long and a stark departure from how the court typically handled major cases. Many scholars believe this case marked the birth of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” or the rushed and secretive track the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including on crucial questions of presidential power.

>The New York Times has obtained memos from that case and is publishing those papers in full to bring the origins of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket into the light."

CA2 Decision here

District Decision here

It seems both the lower court and Circuit court were harping the plaintiffs for not proving that stun guns were in "common use." However, if you read Caetano, SCOTUS made it very clear that "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” The Supreme Court said that stun guns are protected arms but the district court and appeals court are using THEIR OWN PRECEDENT by citing "weapons in common use today for self-defense" from Gomez and completely ignoring the SCOTUS precedent of Heller. What could be the reason for this jurisprudence that is not open malice to the second amendment?

Due process has always pointed to two kinds of people: those accused of crimes and those who are not. Historically, the legal system has focused only on the first group — the accused — because due process guarantees fair treatment and a fair trial. But the text of the clause does not limit itself to criminals. It limits the government. And when the government takes a life, due process must apply whether the person is a criminal or not.

That is why the killing of someone like Renee Good matters so deeply. Yes, she committed minor offenses — refusing to exit her vehicle and attempting to flee — but she was unarmed, non‑violent, and not guilty of any crime that remotely approaches capital punishment. When an officer collapses the entire system by acting as judge, jury, and executioner, the government has taken a life without meeting the constitutional threshold that would justify such an act. That is a failure of due process, not on her part, but on the government’s.

And here is the unavoidable truth: once the government kills one non‑violent person without meeting the standard that would justify a death sentence, every American becomes vulnerable. If the government can take the life of someone whose actions do not qualify for capital punishment, then any citizen — whether five or ninety‑five, guilty of stealing penny candy or guilty of nothing at all — is exposed to the same risk. That makes this clause a protection of life for all of us, not just for those accused of crimes.

In this sense, the Due Process Clause carries a dual purpose: it protects the rights of the accused, and it protects the lives of the innocent. Its negative phrasing does not diminish its function. The protection is embedded in the structure itself. The government cannot take your life unless it meets the highest standard our system recognizes — and when it fails to meet that standard, it has violated the very restriction the Constitution imposes. That is why this clause must be understood as a protection of life, and why ignoring that protection is a constitutional flaw we can no longer afford to overlook.

Assuming that the Court hands down an opinion in Trump v. Barbara that affirms the general understanding of the Citizenship Clause, what effect, if any will that mean for the continued application of the Insular Cases?

Shortly after the Spanish-American War, and not long after Wong Kim Ark was decided, the Court handed down what are now known as the Insular cases. The holding, generally, was that newly acquired territory ceded by the Spanish was full of "alien" races, and "savage tribes" that were not amenable to Anglo-Saxon government, at least for the time being. Therefore, the Court created the "territorial incorporation" doctrine. Basically, that while the new land was controlled by the United States, and the United States had suzerainty over the land, it was not, in fact, part of the United States. Today that includes Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

So what? In unincorporated territories, those not on the path to Statehood like Hawaii and Alaska at the time, the Constitution does not quite apply. Therefore, the 14th Amendment may not apply, or at least not to the same extent, as it does in Chicago. In fact, while Puerto Ricans are granted statutory U.S. Citizenship, the people of American Samoa are classified as "non-citizen U.S. nationals." They cannot vote in federal elections or serve on federal juries.

The connection to Barbara is found in the wording of the 14th Amendment. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States..." I will assume the Court will conclude that jurisdiction means what we generally think it means, i.e. power over. Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. are clearly under the jurisdiction of the United States. But are they part of the United States?

The infamous decision in Dredd Scott, and to a lesser extent Korematsu, were based on the same racist underpinnings as the the Insular cases. We have wisely turned away from those two embarrassments but the Insular cases are still good law. Without the racism, the logic of the Insular cases collapse. Why is a person born in American Samoa not a citizen, but their sibling born in Utah is? Both are under the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of their birth. Either the Citizenship clause or the Equal Protection clause have to factor in here, right?

So what do you think? Will the ruling in favor of birthright citizenship for illegal aliens apply to our own "non-citizen" U.S. nationals? The American Samoans have one of, if not the, highest enlistment rates in the U.S. military. They have been under U.S. jurisdiction for over 100 years. If the Government's argument was about loyalty, have the Samoans not shown it?

Will the logic and holding of Barbara finally mean the overturning of the Insular cases, at least as to birthright citizenship?