This text appeared in the ‘Top Story’ email newsletter sent on Dec. 28, 2024.
The Supreme Court issued a series of consequential decisions in 2024 that could impact American law and hot-button issues for decades to come.President-Elect Donald Trump Trump and Jan. 6 saw a slew of cases in the lower courts, with at least three major ones reaching the justices in the 2023-2024 term. Outside of those cases, the court also issued game-changing decisions on administrative law, helped clarify its view of the First Amendment in social media regulation, and engaged in debates over the nature of originalism in judges’ decision-making.
In Trump v. United States, the court heard Trump’s appeal of a lower court decision that held he and presidents more generally didn’t enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution. A majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, held instead that presidents have different levels of immunity—specifically for their official acts.
The court remanded the case back to the district court level for further analysis over issues like whether some of the alleged conduct in Trump’s election interference case was official or unofficial. Roberts acknowledged that distinguishing between official and unofficial acts can be difficult but offered some broad guidance, including admonishing courts from inquiring into a president’s motives.
Before hearing that case, the Supreme Court also wrestled with how to interpret a relatively undebated section of the 14th Amendment that prohibits insurrectionists from holding certain federal offices. The case (Trump v. Anderson) saw the court reversing the Colorado Supreme Court’s judgment that Trump was disqualified from becoming president due to his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Although the court was unanimous in holding states couldn’t disqualify federal candidates, the justices’ opinions revealed sharp divisions in how the justices approached the case. The liberal justices, for example, issued a concurrence that accused the majority of attempting to insulate alleged insurrections from future challenges.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued her own separate concurrence that criticized the liberal justices for their rhetoric while agreeing with their conclusion that the majority went beyond the scope of what it needed to in deciding the case. Her opinion was just one of many indicating independence from other conservative justices but also an unwillingness to follow liberals’ jurisprudential inklings.
In Trump v. United States, Barrett joined the majority but disagreed with the chief justice’s claim that juries shouldn’t hear evidence concerning a president’s official acts. She also staked out differences on originalism in other cases and split with her conservative colleagues in a Jan. 6-related case, Fischer v. United States.
In Fischer, Jan. 6 defendants brought a challenge to the way the Department of Justice applied an obstruction statute to their conduct. While Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the court’s conservatives in ruling against the DOJ, Barrett penned the dissent with the other liberal justices joining her.
Administrative law was also a big area of law the Supreme Court justices tackled this year, with one decision in particular signaling major change for how each branch of the federal government would operate. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a majority of the court overruled the decades-old Chevron deference doctrine, which required courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous laws from Congress.
Multiple cases also emerged regarding social media, and this summer; the court remanded appeals court decisions on Florida’s and Texas’ attempts to regulate the platform’s content moderation. In Moody v. Netchoice, Justice Elena Kagan wrote a majority opinion that said social media companies’ ability to present curated content was protected speech and that Texas “cannot prohibit speech to improve or better balance the speech market.”
In U.S. v. Rahimi, the court revisited its originalist ruling in New York New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which said firearm regulations had to be consistent with the nation’s history and tradition. Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion in Bruen, was the sole dissent in the court’s eventual opinion in Rahimi, which held that a law prohibiting firearm ownership among individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders was constitutional.
The majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions showed the court wrestling with its approach to originalism. While Thomas said in his opinion that “[n]ot a single historical regulation justifies the statute at issue,” the majority suggested his approach was too narrow and that a historical “twin” in law wasn’t required to uphold the law in question.
Far from escaping controversy, the justices are tackling even more important and hot-button cases in the 2024-2025 term. In December, for example, they heard oral argument over Tennessee’s attempt to restrict puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.
They also heard a challenge in October to President Biden’s so-called “ghost guns” regulations and, in January, are expected to hear TikTok’s challenge to Congress’ divestment law. Before the term is over, the court is expected to hear other cases involving nuclear waste storage, e-cigarettes, age verification for porn sites, and Mexico’s allegations that U.S. gun manufacturers contribute to crime in its country.
