29 Cases Left in SCOTUS Term Includes Abortion Access and Gun Rights Cases

The potential for expanded gun rights and kicking abortion access back to being regulated by the states top the remaining 29 cases left for the Supreme Court to decide before the end of the present term.

The Supreme Court announced this week it will release opinions on Monday and Wednesday amid a slower-than-usual pace for the court’s work ever since the May 2 leak to the press of the draft opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which signaled the majority of justices were in favor of giving states the right to make laws severely limiting abortion access.

Here are the top five cases to watch for in the coming weeks as the court is slated to conclude its term by the first days of July.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization 

Perhaps one of the most anticipated rulings of this term will be the decision in Dobbs, a lawsuit between the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi and the state itself.

The case relates to a Mississippi law passed in 2018 that prohibits abortion procedures after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with Jackson Women’s Health Organization suing the state to stop its implementation.

Justices heard arguments over the state’s law last year and will decide whether or not a ban on abortions before viability is in violation of the Constitution.

“It is particularly important to show what we do in overturning a case is grounded in principle and not social pressure, not political pressure,” Justice Stephen Breyer said in December, citing the 1992 case Casey v. Planned Parenthood. “To overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason, to reexamine a watershed decision, would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question.”

Republican-majority states have been emboldened by signals the court will issue a ruling that allows them to weaken significantly or overturn the ability to access legal abortion procedures this summer and have already begun crafting their own laws banning abortions.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen

Two New York-based men are challenging the Empire State’s law that requires gun owners to provide sufficient reasoning to carry a firearm in public when applying for a concealed carry permit.

The Supreme Court heard arguments over the case in November. The court’s Republican-appointed majority appeared skeptical of the law’s requirement that residents demonstrate a “proper cause” for obtaining a license to carry a concealed pistol or revolver.

In regard to whether there is a national impact that could arise if the high court curtails New York’s concealed carry law, University of South Texas law professor Josh Blackman said “most state laws will be totally unaffected” since a majority only require applicants to pass a background check.

Less than two weeks after a deadly mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed last month to hold an emergency legislative session if the Supreme Court returns a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.

Blackman told the Washington Examiner there wouldn’t be much legislation to pass “as a practical matter.”

Carson v. Makin

Justices heard arguments in Carson v. Makin in December, a free-exercise challenge to a scholarship program in Maine that pays for some students to attend private schools but excludes from the program schools that provide any kind of religious instruction.

The court will examine a previous ruling related to the topic and determine if any religious freedoms and equal protection clauses were violated.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

Justices will hear arguments on April 25 in another First Amendment case titled Kennedy v. Bremerton School District surrounding a dispute over a Washington state high school football coach who was placed on leave for leading postgame prayers on the field.

Former coach Joe Kennedy’s legal fight with the Bremerton, Washington, school district began in 2015, and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court in 2019, when justices declined to take it and said the case was for lower courts to decide.

West Virginia v. EPA

The Supreme Court heard arguments in February over a lawsuit by a coalition of states and coal companies seeking to limit the Environmental Protection Agency‘s authority to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions, with the majority of justices appearing to see the agency’s power as narrow.

The primary question of the case is whether the EPA’s reach extends outside of energy plants to encompass broader aspects of the U.S. energy sector as part of a broader effort to combat air pollution.

A main part of the high court’s forthcoming decision could focus on the major questions doctrine, which is the concept that Congress has delegated authority to an agency to make a rule or regulation.

If the court decides it has jurisdiction and reaches the major questions doctrine, that case may have a broad impact not only in terms of EPA authority, but for administrative agencies across the executive branch as well.

How will the leak investigation affect the remaining high court term?

Officials investigating the leaked draft opinion have escalated their search tactics into unprecedented territory, requiring law clerks late last month to provide cellphone records and sign affidavits making it illegal to lie to investigators seeking to find the origins of the leak.

“I don’t know how on Earth the court is going to finish up its work this term,” a source close to the justices told NPR earlier this week in the wake of the Supreme Court marshal’s investigation into the leak.

While it is unclear how much of the delay to finalize the remaining 29 opinions is attributable to the leaked draft, the Supreme Court has dealt with higher caseloads at the end of terms in past years.

In 1982, the justices delivered 69 decisions in June and the first two days of July that year, more than twice the number remaining for the present term.