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Washington, D.C. - As the calendar flips over to June, the U.S. Supreme Court still has a heap of cases to decide on issues ranging from trademark registration rules to judicial deference and presidential immunity, setting the first month of summer up to be full of blockbuster opinions.

The justices are expected to deliver at least 30 more opinions by the end of the month, although that number could jump to 32 if the court decides to write separately in a few cases that aren't consolidated but deal with the same topic. It's the third term in a row where 30 or more cases are still pending come the first day of June.

At this time in the 2021 term, the Supreme Court still had 32 opinions to issue, and in the 2022 term, the justices needed to deliver 30 before their July 4th break, according to data maintained by Law360.

Those terms each had several landmark decisions handed down in June that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, limited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, expanded the Second Amendment, vindicated religious business owners' right to refuse service, and prohibited universities from using affirmative action in admission decisions.

But neither of them can hold a candle to this term's number of influential cases that still need to be decided, which include questions over abortion care access, gun regulations, the administrative state, bankruptcy, social media, and more.

Here, Law360 looks at 10 of the most important topics the Supreme Court must still weigh in on.

Judicial Deference

Two New England fishing companies — Loper Bright Enterprises and Relentless Inc. — have asked the Supreme Court to overturn its 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council that created the controversial analytic tool commonly referred to as the Chevron doctrine, which instructs courts on when to defer to federal agency interpretations of ambiguous laws.

The companies contend the doctrine wrongly protects federal agencies from judicial review and encourages aggressive rulemaking, while the federal government defends it as a "bedrock principle" of administrative law that leaves courts with plenty of power to reject substandard agency interpretations.

A majority of justices made it clear at oral arguments in January that the doctrine as we know it won't remain on the books, and the court's liberal justices have since hinted at its demise. The only question remaining is whether a limited version of regulatory deference will survive or if it will be wiped out for good.

The cases are Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo et al., case number 22-451, and Relentless Inc. et al. v. Department of Commerce et al., case number 22-1219.

Presidential Immunity

Former president Donald Trump has asked the justices to grant him absolute immunity from federal criminal prosecution related to his alleged attempts to pressure state lawmakers and organize alternative slates of electors to change the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump contends the Constitution's text and the country's two centuries of history prove presidents were never meant to face criminal prosecution for their official acts. Among other arguments, he claims the impeachment clause provides the sole avenue to punish presidents for their acts, and that only after a president is impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and convicted by the U.S. Senate, can they be criminally charged.

Meanwhile, special counsel John L. "Jack" Smith counters that the Constitution's framers, who lived under the rule of British monarchs, never intended to immunize presidents for allegedly criminal acts. And even if the nation's top executive is entitled to some level of immunity, it should only apply to the office's core responsibilities, not private acts like the ones Trump is accused of, Smith said.

At oral arguments in April, a majority of the court seemed to agree presidents are entitled to limited, not absolute, immunity, but the justices divided on where to draw the line between protected and unprotected acts.

The case is Trump v. United States, case number 23-939.

Abortion

A pair of consolidated disputes has put the Supreme Court in a position to decide how much access individuals will have to abortion medication and emergency abortion care.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Danco Laboratories LLC have asked the justices to reinstate two post-approval FDA actions that eased restrictions on popular abortion drug mifepristone by allowing non-physicians to prescribe the drug and enabling providers to mail it to patients.

The FDA and Danco, maker of Mifeprex, the brand name of mifepristone, argue a court order rolling back the actions is improper for several reasons, including because the group that obtained it, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, has no standing to challenge the agency's decisions. The FDA additionally claims it did not arbitrarily make the post-approval changes, but instead made them after an extensive review process, and that the court order rolling them back is too broad.

The Alliance refutes those arguments, maintaining it has standing because the agency's actions would force its members to treat individuals experiencing complications related to mifepristone in spite of their anti-abortion beliefs. The group also contends the FDA's review process wasn't thorough enough because the agency ignored information about the purportedly harmful side effects of mifepristone.

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the Alliance's standing theory during oral arguments in March, and some individual justices expressed doubt about the group's critiques of the FDA's review process.

In the second case, Idaho and state House Majority Leader Mike Moyle contend the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which requires federally funded emergency rooms to provide abortion care if it's necessary to stabilize a patient, cannot preempt the state's law prohibiting the procedures in all instances except when the pregnant person's life is in danger. The federal government argues the Constitution's supremacy clause dictates that the federal law must come out on top.

The justices seemed to split along gender lines during oral arguments in April, with the women dominating the questioning of Idaho over how the two laws interplay while the men waited to question the federal government about preemption.

The consolidated mifepristone cases are Food and Drug Administration et al. v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al., case number 23-235, and Danco Laboratories LLC v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al., case number 23-236. The consolidated emergency care cases are Moyle et al. v. United States, case number 23-716, and Idaho v. United States, case number 23-727.

Guns

Two Texans have urged the justices to invalidate separate federal gun regulations that prohibit persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns and ban the possession of bump stocks generally.

Zackey Rahimi alleges the domestic abuse law, 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(8), violates the Second Amendment under a new test established by the court's 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which instructs courts to look for historical analogues of the challenged modern statutes. Meanwhile, the federal government claims the court can uphold the prohibition even if it can't find a historical match because past federal firearm regulations have always been aimed at groups of people the government has deemed dangerous, like domestic abusers.

Rahimi's case is the first time the court has been asked to apply its so-called Bruen test, but the justices, including Bruen's author Justice Clarence Thomas seemed skeptical at oral arguments in October that Rahimi's theory holds water.

In the second case, firearms instructor Michael Cargill is challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' 2019 decision to categorize bump stocks as machine guns, the possession of which is banned under the National Firearms Act. Bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifles are different from machine guns, he argues, because each shot fired by the rifle requires a separate pull of the trigger, which the bump stock facilitates by using the gun's momentum to repeatedly bump the trigger against either the shooter's finger or a barrier.

But the federal government maintains there is no meaningful difference between bump stock-equipped rifles and machine guns, which both require only a single pull of the trigger to initiate a firing sequence.

At oral arguments in February, the court seemed divided on the issue, finding validity in the government's argument, but questioning why federal lawmakers didn't use broader language in the firearms act to capture bump stock-like devices.

The domestic abuse case is United States v. Rahimi, case number 22-915, and the bump stock case is Garland et al. v. Cargill, case number 22-976.

Agency Courts

Hedge fund manager George R. Jarkesy Jr. has lodged a constitutional challenge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house court system, which uses administrative law judges to assess fines and penalties against parties that violate federal securities law.

Jarkesy provided several reasons why the administrative court system should be dissolved, including claims it violates the U.S. Constitution's non-delegation clause and its judges are protected from removal. But at oral arguments in December, the Supreme Court focused on his contention that the system violates the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The federal government counters that the Seventh Amendment doesn't apply to administrative proceedings where the government is attempting to maintain a public right like an open and fair market.

The court seemed torn at oral arguments between protecting the right to a jury trial and issuing an opinion that wouldn't upend similar in-house court systems at other federal agencies. Although, the court's recent decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's unique funding scheme has given court watchers hope that the justices may save the SEC courts.

The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy et al., case number 22-859.

Bankruptcy Releases

U.S. Trustee William K. Harrington has asked the Supreme Court to prohibit bankruptcy courts from approving Chapter 11 organization plans that include third-party nonconsensual releases, which in this case would free members of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma LP, from liability for damages stemming from the opioid epidemic.

Harrington argues the Bankruptcy Code doesn't authorize bankruptcy judges to approve such wide-sweeping releases that can be entered in to without the consent of potential litigants. Purdue Pharma, on the other hand, argues those releases fall squarely into the Bankruptcy Codes' allowance for creative reorganization plans. This specific release, the company says, also serves the public interest and allows claimants to recover more damages from an established fund than they would if they sued the Sacklers individually.

A majority of justices appeared cautious at oral arguments in December of banning releases, which is common and has a long history, but at least one member of the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, suggested the Sacklers shouldn't get off so easily.

The case is Harrington v. Purdue Pharma LP et al., case number 23-124.

Jan. 6

Former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph W. Fischer wants the justices to rein in the federal government's reading of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's obstruction of Congress provision, which was enacted in the wake of the 2001 Enron Corp. accounting scandal and has been levied against roughly 300 defendants accused of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the 2020 presidential election results.

Fischer, one of the defendants charged with obstruction, claims the text and history of the provision, 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c)(2), prove it was only meant to apply to obstructive acts taken toward documents or records that could be used in congressional investigations. But the federal government argues the provision was meant to be a catch-all that could be applied to any obstructive act, specifically those that Congress wasn't aware of at the time the statute was written.

At oral arguments in April, the justices appeared divided along ideological lines, with the conservative justices leaning toward Fischer's reading and the liberal justices inclined to agree with the government. But Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Jackson provided some hope that a compromise could be reached and that a reading of the provision to apply to actions affecting the availability of documents may be adopted.

The case is Fischer v. United States, case number 23-5572.

Social Media

Internet trade associations NetChoice LLC and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are challenging the constitutionality of Florida and Texas laws that prohibit social media platforms from removing content or users based on viewpoint.

The associations argue the state laws violate the platforms' First Amendment right to make editorial judgments about the content presented on their websites, which they claim are similar to decisions made by newspapers and magazines. But Florida and Texas believe the platforms are common carriers required to carry all content posted by users.

A majority of the court at oral arguments in February seemed inclined to rule that platforms' content moderation decisions are protected activity similar to editorial judgments, but they also expressed concern about several issues, including that a ruling definitively striking down the state laws would be premature since the cases are only at the preliminary judgment stage.

The cases are Moody et al. v. NetChoice LLC et al., case number 22-277, and NetChoice LLC et al. v. Paxton, case number 22-555.

Immigration Proceedings

A trio of migrants wants the Supreme Court to rebuke the federal government's use of multiple hearing notices to provide information about the time and location of removal proceedings, which, if missed by the migrant, could result in an in absentia removal order.

El Salvador native Mori Esmelis Campos-Chaves, India native Varinder Singh, and Mexico native Raul Daniel Mendez-Colin argue the court's 2021 ruling in Niz-Chavez v. Garland and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act require the government to provide migrants with initial notices to appear that include the date, time, and place of the court hearing in a single document. The federal government, however, claims it can provide supplemental notices with those details.

The justices seemed skeptical of the federal government's interpretation of the law at oral arguments in January, suggesting its reading directly contradicts the statute's text.

The consolidated cases are Campos-Chaves v. Garland, case number 22-674, and Garland v. Singh et al., case number 22-884.

Homelessness

An Oregon city has urged the justices to reinstate its ban on camping in public spaces, which opponents claim has been enforced effectively as a ban on people who are homeless.

The city of Grants Pass claims its trio of ordinances prohibiting sleeping in public parks and walkways, under bridges and viaducts, and in other public spaces are constitutional because they punish the act of sleeping in public rather than the involuntary status of being homeless. But Gloria Johnson and other residents who are homeless argue the city is using the ordinances to run them out of town and that they constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The court appeared divided along ideological lines at oral arguments in April, with the liberal justices leaning toward agreeing with Johnson that the ordinances are unconstitutional under the court's 1962 decision in Robinson v. California, which made it unconstitutional to punish a defendant for a status rather than an illegal act. The conservative justices, on the other hand, questioned where to draw the line when various criminal acts could arguably be equated with a status.