On Monday, the United States Supreme Court declined to intervene in several controversial cases, leaving the decisions of lower courts in place.
• The high court allowed a decision by the Texas Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled hospitals in Texas cannot be forced to perform abortions on women if it would violate Texas law. The Texas abortion law is considered one of the most strict in the U.S. Doctors have stated it bans abortions that are necessary to prevent organ failure, sepsis, and other severe threats to the health of women.
Notably, there were no dissents from the court on Monday, suggesting the court expects it will have to resolve a similar issue in an Idaho law, which protects the mother’s life but not her health. In June, the Supreme Court, which had heard arguments in the Idaho case, decided to make no decision on the issue for now, sending it back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for a full hearing, which had temporarily blocked enforcement of the law.
• The Supreme Court allowed a workaround for Lyft and Uber drivers in California to be left in place bound by agreements they signed committing them to resolving labor disputes through arbitration under federal law.
Simply put, they can’t go to court with their claims. However, the California state attorney general and numerous city attorneys sued the drive-share companies for the drivers for monetary damages. Two officials in the court allowed the cases to continue on the grounds that the officials in California were independently acting and had never signed an arbitration agreement.
• In yet another possibly important case — involving a judge’s refusal to step aside in a Guantanamo case, the high court again refused to intervene. The case arose in the case of one of the first prisoners taken to Guantanamo in 2002, Ali Hamda Ahmad Suliman al Balhul.
One of the attorneys on the prosecution team against al Balhul was Gregory Katsas. Katsas, years later a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was assigned to hear the appeal by Balhul.
Balhul’s attorneys moved to disqualify Katsas based on his involvement in the Guantanamo case; however, Katsas would not recuse himself. The government contends that the issue Katsas was involved in as an attorney in Balhul’s case wasn’t the one that was appealed to the high court, and therefore, Katsas didn’t have to recuse. Tuesday, the justices allowed Katsas’ participation to continue undisturbed.
• The justices also took a hands-off approach to a Michigan state constitutional amendment that blocked the use of public funds for private schools. A group of parents who wanted to get public assistance for tuition for their children’s attendance at private schools challenged the state law’s constitutionality. They maintained that although the law technically banned public money for all private schools, the burden primarily fell on parochial schools. The Supreme Court of Michigan agreed but was overruled by a federal appeals court, in which parents then appealed to the Supreme Court but failed to win intervention by the high court.
• In the only election case pending on the court docket, the justices left a decision by the federal appeals court in place, dismissing a case brought by Michigan poll watchers during the 2020 election. Poll watchers had signed affidavits that alleged suspicious activity with the voting machines. Dominion Voting Systems accused the poll workers of defamation and got a cease-and-desist order that barred them from continuing their campaign. Poll workers were then sued, and their case was dismissed. On Monday, the Supreme Court left the dismissal in place.
• Finally, the court rejected Elon Musk’s case to avoid compliance with a warrant for private Twitter communications received and sent by Donald Trump before and after the 2020 election. The warrant was issued by Jack Smith, Special Counsel, for communications between October 2020 and January 2021. It blocked Twitter — now called X — from informing former President Trump of the warrant’s existence. Musk asserted the warrant and its conditions prevented Donald Trump from asserting his executive privilege and that “gagged” Twitter’s First Amendment rights “in a highly public investigation.” However, the justices left the warrant undisturbed nevertheless.
While the court’s actions make judgments in these cases, they aren’t viewed as “precedent,” and there is always the possibility that some cases could return to the court again.
