Today is Justice Clarence Thomas’ birthday. Born in 1948, Thomas has served on the court since 1991. He is the second-longest-serving justice of all time.
Plus, today is expected to be an opinion announcement day at the Supreme Court. We will be live blogging beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
At the Court
On Monday, the court added a case to its 2026-27 oral argument docket, reimposed the conviction of the man found to have killed Etan Patz, and denied several noteworthy cases. For more on Monday’s order list, see the On Site section below.
The court has also identified Thursday as an opinion day. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
After opinion announcements on Thursday, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review.
Morning Reads
Judges Jockey for Potential Trump Supreme Court Appointment
Jacqueline Thomsen, Bloomberg Law
Although it is unknown when or if President Donald Trump will have the opportunity to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court, some judges appear to be positioning themselves as attractive candidates while their friends “quietly push[] those in Trump’s orbit for their preferred judges to be considered if a seat were to open up,” according to Bloomberg Law. “The only people who would be considered, I think, would be a Trump-appointed judge, and the Trump-appointed judges are going to have their contacts in the administration,” said John Malcolm, a conservative lawyer with Advancing American Freedom. Citing people “familiar with” the conversations, Bloomberg Law reported that U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer and Judge Andrew Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit are among those that “have been discussed as potential candidates for the Supreme Court.”
She got eight years for plotting to kill Justice Kavanaugh. Prosecutors want more.
Dan Morse, The Washington Post (paywalled)
In October 2025, Sophie Roske was sentenced to eight years in prison for plotting to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske, who “was named Nicholas Roske at birth and raised as a boy” but now identifies as a woman named Sophie, had brought a gun to Kavanaugh’s house but then “abandoned her attack plan,” walked away, and called the police, according to The Washington Post. After Roske pleaded guilty, Justice Department officials sought a sentence of at least 30 years, and they’re now challenging U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman’s eight-year sentence, which stemmed, in part, from the judge’s belief that a terrorism enhancement to the sentence was never “intended to apply equally across all terrorism cases.” Boardman emphasized that “Roske acted alone, was not part of any terrorist organization, did not have a manifesto, and ultimately decided against committing violence and self-reported.” “To Boardman, Roske’s actions didn’t track many other terrorism defendants, and Roske should benefit from her lack of past criminal history.”
An explosive appeal from Trump over E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict stalls at the Supreme Court
John Fritze and Kara Scannell, CNN
Late last year, President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to consider his effort “to overturn a federal jury’s finding that he sexually abused and defamed magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.” The justices were set to consider his petition for review for the first time at one of their private conferences in February, but they rescheduled it. And over the past four months, they’ve rescheduled it 14 more times. “Only one other has been rescheduled as often in the current term, according to a CNN analysis” – that case “involves a housing police officer in Ohio who shot and killed a suspect who was fleeing with a gun in his hand.” CNN noted that the Supreme Court “almost never explains its handling of pending appeals and has not done so in the Carroll case. The delay could be because one or more justices is writing an opinion about the case. Or the court could be waiting for other appeals involving the Trump and Carroll dispute that are expected soon.”
Alabama nitrogen gas ruling could reverberate beyond state
Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
This month, a federal district court in Alabama barred the state “from carrying out nitrogen gas executions” after death-row inmate Jeffery Lee raised Eighth Amendment concerns, and a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court declined to put that order on hold. “The decisions at three levels of the federal judiciary make future adoptions of nitrogen gas uncertain and raise questions about the potential expansion of firing squads, which only four other states employ,” according to the Alabama Reflector. Currently, five states allow for nitrogen gas execution, but only two states – Alabama and Louisiana – have “conducted an execution with it.”
On Site
Court News
Supreme Court agrees to hear case on the ability to sue federal officials
The court on Monday added one new case to its docket for the 2026-27 term, involving the ability to sue federal officials for violating constitutional rights even when there is no law specifically authorizing such a claim. The announcement came as part of a list of orders released from the justices’ June 18 conference. The justices will meet for another conference – the final regularly scheduled conference before their summer recess – on Thursday.
Court News
Court reimposes conviction of man found to have killed Etan Patz
Also on Monday, the court threw out a lower-court ruling that called for a new trial for the man convicted of the 1979 kidnapping and murder of Etan Patz, one of the first missing children to be featured on milk cartons. In a 10-page, unsigned opinion, the court emphasized that federal courts can only grant post-conviction relief if the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.”
Court News
Justices issue orders on murder-for-hire case involving social media influencer, the role of race in seizing persons, and the execution of a Texas man claiming to be intellectually disabled
Over a dissent by Justice Samuel Alito, the court sent the case of a Texas woman convicted of hiring someone to commit murder back to the lower court for another look. And its denial of review in two other criminal cases drew written dissents – one from Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, in a case involving the role of race in whether someone has been “seized” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, and another by the court’s three Democratic appointees in the case of a Texas man who – with the state’s support – was seeking a new proceeding to determine whether he is intellectually disabled and cannot be executed.
Court News
Supreme Court declines to hear several important cases, including on voting rights and the environment
In Monday’s order list, the court also announced that it had denied several notable petitions for review, including cases involving voting rights, the environment, and a trademark dispute involving a company founded by NBA superstar LeBron James. It also asked for the federal government’s views in challenges to a state bar association’s allocation of leadership positions and an Oregon reporting requirement for prescription drug makers.
Court News
Texas asks court to leave in place age-verification and parental-consent law on apps
On Monday afternoon, Texas urged the Supreme Court to leave in place an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that allows the state to enforce a law that imposes age-verification and parental-consent requirements on minors’ access to apps and paid content within those apps. The state’s solicitor general, William Peterson, emphasized that “the modern digital world is different” from the physical world, and that the law is required because, in the digital world, children can access “any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge.”
Opinion Analysis
Court determines federal defendants’ appellate waivers unenforceable if a miscarriage of justice would result
On Thursday in Hunter v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a federal defendant’s waiver of appellate review is unenforceable if it would result in a miscarriage of justice. Although the court did not decide whether enforcing defendant Munson Hunter’s appellate waiver in his case would constitute a miscarriage of justice, the majority described the circumstances where this standard would be met as “rare” and involving “extreme cases.”
Contributor Corner
Hemani: proving the reason, not just naming it
In her Ratio Decidendi column, Stephanie Barclay reflected on the court’s ruling in United States v. Hemani, a case that she believes showed “what can unite an otherwise fractured bench.” All of the justices agreed that the “government cannot disarm a person simply by naming a permissible reason. … What it must do is prove that the permissible reason it names is the reason it acts on, and to tie that reason to the person it seeks to disarm.”
SCOTUS Outside Opinions
A victory for the defendant in United States v. Hemani, but little guidance for the lower courts
In a column for SCOTUSblog, Joel Johnson emphasized the confusion that likely will follow in the wake of United States v. Hemani. “The court deemed that prosecution inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” “But,” according to Johnson, “the most revealing thing about the court’s opinion may be what it never admits – that the real issue with [Ali] Hemani’s prosecution was a statute so vague that no one can say whom it covers.”
A Closer Look
Separate Writings
Since we are in the heart of opinion season, we thought it would be helpful to revisit past Closer Looks related to the court’s decision-making process. A version of this piece was originally published on March 16.
During her remarks at the Library of Congress on Thursday, March 12, Justice Amy Coney Barrett shed light on a question that sometimes comes up on Supreme Court opinion days, including on Feb. 20, when the court released its tariffs ruling: How does a justice decide when to write a separate opinion?
The tariffs case raised this question because it included not only the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and the principal dissent by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but also five other separate writings. Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined the majority opinion in full, each wrote a concurring opinion. Justice Elena Kagan wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson wrote her own solo opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. And although Justice Clarence Thomas (along with Justice Samuel Alito) joined Kavanaugh’s dissent, he also wrote his own solo dissent.
The concurrences and dissents in the tariffs case called to mind an earlier era in Supreme Court history when separate writings were not just common but expected. For roughly the first decade of its existence, the court would resolve cases with seriatim opinions – that is, a collection of separate opinions from the justices, rather than a single opinion of the court. Once these opinions were published, “the lawyers would have to count the justices to try to figure out what propositions of law did the majority support and which propositions were dictum” (not essential to the decision and therefore not establishing a precedent), according to Justia.
Chief Justice John Marshall, who served from 1801 to 1835, convinced his colleagues to end this practice and instead come together behind a single opinion of the court. During her Thursday remarks, Barrett reflected on the significance of this change, noting that Marshall also persuaded his colleagues to forgo all separate writing in most cases. “Concurrences and dissents were actually quite rare, which I think is part of what enabled him to establish the court’s strength,” Barrett said.
Today, separate writings are relatively common, although the court is nowhere near a return to the seriatim approach. During the 2024-25 term, there were 50 concurring opinions and 48 dissenting opinions written, in addition to the 67 opinions of the court.
At the Library of Congress event, Barrett was asked by Judge Robert M. Dow., Jr., who is counselor to the chief justice and who interviewed Barrett on stage, about how she decides when to write separately. Barrett explained that sometimes it’s not her choice, because the most senior justice in the group of dissenters can assign dissents to her. When it’s up to her, Barrett said, she will only write separately for a few key reasons.
“I try not to write [separate opinions] too frequently. I kind of like the way John Marshall said seriatim opinions are out. I generally try to just let the majority opinion speak for the court,” she said. “But sometimes I will write a concurrence or my own dissent if I have something that I feel like I should explain, something about my position that I feel like warrants explanation so that it doesn’t look inconsistent. If I don’t join the full opinion,” Barrett continued, “I usually write to say why. And if I feel like I have something to say that would add to the development of the law, something that I hope that lawyers and other courts will think about or that law professors might help us by writing about or doing some research in, that’s the situation in which I will write a concurrence.”
“I try to resist the temptation to write one because I feel like I could have said what the majority said better,” Barrett added.
SCOTUS Quote
MS. MIZNER: “Many people have more than – have multiple cell phones. …”
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “Really? What is – what is your authority for the statement that many people have multiple cell phones on their person?”
MS. MIZNER: “Just observation. But –“
JUSTICE SCALIA: “You've observed different people from the people that I've observed.”
(Laughter.)
MS. MIZNER: “That's probably true.”
— United States v. Wurie (2014)
