Based on the freedom of association, the Court ruled this term in Harris v. Quinn that the First Amendment prohibits a state from collecting an agency fee from certain quasi-public employees who do not want to join or support a union.
The First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause affords special protection to certain places traditionally open for speech activities, such as sidewalks and public ways, placing a heavy burden on any government attempt to restrict speech in what the Court has identified as “traditional public fora.” But even in a public forum, the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech—so-called time-place-manner restrictions—provided those restrictions are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to
In Citizen’s United v. FEC, the Roberts Court struck down a key provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) that limited independent political expenditures made by corporations, associations, and labor unions. This term in the case of McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court continued to dismantle the BCRA, striking down the Act’s aggregate-contributions limits. This provision, which had been previously upheld in Buckley v.
From campaign finance, union dues, and legislative prayer to abortion protests and contraception coverage, the First Amendment played a central role in some of the October 2013 term’s most headline-grabbing cases. In these decisions, the Court was at its most divided, splitting 5–4 in four of five cases—and even where it was unanimous in striking down a Massachusetts law that limited protest outside of abortion clinics, the Justices split 5–4 on how the law violated the First Amendment and which standard to apply.
The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing a state religion or endorsing any one religion over others. Accordingly, the Court has held that government-sponsored prayer in some contexts, such as schools, violates the Establishment Clause. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held thirty years ago in Marsh v.
Two terms ago, the Supreme Court upheld—as a tax—the main provisions of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act (ACA). Since then, the embattled legislation has been assailed by countless other political and legal challenges. One provision of the ACA in particular has been especially controversial: the contraception mandate.
The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigative stops when an officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. Reasonable suspicion takes into account the totality of the circumstances and depends upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. This term, a divided Court held that an anonymous and uncorroborated tip can provide a sufficient basis for an officer’s reasonable suspicion to make an investigative stop.
Although police generally need a warrant to search a person’s home, homeowners and tenants may consent to a police search. In 2006, the Court held in Georgia v. Randolph that where one cotenant objects to a search, that objection overrides the consent of any other cotenants. This term, the Court limited that holding to cases where the objecting cotenant is present on the scene, even when the objecting cotenant is not present because he was arrested.
Although it is longstanding precedent that police do not need a warrant to search a suspect incident to that suspect’s arrest, the Court limited the scope of those permissible warrantless searches in Riley v. California. In Riley, the Court unanimously held that the police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized incident to an arrest. In Riley the Court consolidated two cases with roughly the same facts.
The Immigration and Nationality Act permits qualifying U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to petition for certain family members to obtain immigrant visas. A sponsored individual, known as the principal beneficiary, is placed into a “family preference” category based on his relationship with the petitioner. The principal beneficiary’s spouse and minor children in turn qualify as derivative beneficiaries, “entitled to the same status” and “order of consideration” as the principal.
