Government

So Ordered

AI-narrated readings of U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions. Each episode pairs the Court’s syllabus with a reading of the majority opinion, lightly adapted for listening and voiced by a synthesized voice styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice.

AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

Latest Episodes:

Monsanto v. Durnell Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1068_n7ip.pdf

Case background

Monsanto Company manufactures and distributes Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide designed to control weeds. EPA has repeatedly evaluated glyphosate and repeatedly concluded that it is not likely to cause cancer in humans, an assessment shared by many other regulatory bodies around the world, and has accordingly never required a cancer warning on the labels of glyphosate-based pesticides like Roundup. In 2019, John Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court, alleging that he had used Monsanto’s Roundup products for about 20 years and that they had caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As relevant here, Durnell brought a failure-to-warn tort claim asserting that Monsanto should have included a cancer warning on Roundup’s label. A jury agreed and awarded him more than $1 million on that theory, and the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting Monsanto’s argument that FIFRA expressly preempted the claim. This Court granted certiorari to resolve a division among the federal courts of appeals and state appellate courts over whether FIFRA preempts such claims.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether FIFRA preempts a state-law failure-to-warn claim where EPA has repeatedly concluded that the warning is not required and the warning cannot be added to a product without EPA approval.

Holding

FIFRA expressly preempts Durnell’s state-law failure-to-warn claim because the claim would require Monsanto to add a cancer warning to Roundup’s label. FIFRA’s preemption clause, entitled “Uniformity,” bars a State from imposing any labeling or packaging requirement “in addition to or different from” those required under the Act. To register a pesticide, EPA must approve its label by determining that the label contains all warnings “necessary and . . . adequate to protect health and the environment” and no “false or misleading” statements; once approved, the manufacturer is legally required to use that label unless and until EPA approves or requires a change. Because state tort duties constitute state labeling requirements, Durnell’s claim, which would compel a warning EPA has not required, is in addition to and different from Monsanto’s federal-law labeling obligations. Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., which addressed the materially identical preemption clause of the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, confirms that conclusion. Reversed and remanded.

The Court

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett joined. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Monsanto v. Durnell, written by Justice Kavanaugh.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Kavanaugh. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

Chiles v. Salazar Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539new_3fb4.pdf

Case background

Kaley Chiles holds a master’s degree in clinical mental health and a state counseling license in Colorado. She begins counseling with no predetermined goals, instead discussing a client’s own goals and then formulating methods of counseling that will most benefit them. On matters of sexuality and gender her clients arrive with different objectives: some are content with their sexual orientation and gender identity and want help only with social issues or family relationships, while others hope to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies. She employs only talk therapy, prescribing no medication and using no physical techniques.

In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in “conversion therapy” with minors, defining the term to reach any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as any effort to change behaviors or gender expressions. The same statute expressly permits counselors to provide acceptance, support, and understanding for identity exploration and development, and to assist a person undergoing gender transition. A complaint to the state regulatory board can trigger discipline up to a fine, probation, or loss of license.

Ms. Chiles filed suit in federal court and sought a preliminary injunction, raising a First Amendment challenge to the law only as it applies to her talk therapy. Both the district court and the Tenth Circuit held she had Article III standing to bring her as-applied pre-enforcement challenge, but both denied the injunction on the merits, reasoning that Colorado’s law is best understood as regulating professional conduct and reaches speech only incidentally, so that it triggers no more than rational-basis review. Judge Hartz dissented. This Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit conflict over how the First Amendment interacts with laws like Colorado’s when they are applied to talk therapy.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause.

Holding

Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.

As applied to a counselor who does nothing but speak, the law does not merely regulate the content of her speech; it prescribes what views she may express, permitting words of acceptance and support while forbidding anything that attempts to change a client’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Speech does not become conduct because a government calls it a “treatment” or a “therapeutic modality.” The First Amendment is no word game, and constitutional rights cannot be circumscribed by mere labels. That the regulation falls only on licensed health care professionals changes nothing; NIFLA expressly rejected the notion that professional speech carries diminished constitutional protection. Nor does the law fit any recognized exception: it compels no disclosure of factual, noncontroversial information in commercial speech, and it does not regulate conduct in a way that only incidentally burdens speech. Colorado’s appeal to traditions of medical licensing, informed consent, and malpractice liability proceeds at far too high a level of generality, and no one of those traditions supports the State’s position on its own terms. The judgment of the Tenth Circuit is reversed and the case remanded.

The Court

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Chiles v. Salazar, written by Justice Gorsuch.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Gorsuch. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

Ellingburg v. United States Aug 29, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r09_4fb4.pdf

Case background

The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 requires defendants convicted of certain federal crimes to pay monetary restitution to their victims. The MVRA became law on April 24, 1996. Petitioner Ellingburg committed his crime before the MVRA’s enactment, but he was sentenced later in 1996 under the Act and ordered to pay $7,567.25 in restitution, an obligation he has not yet satisfied. Ellingburg raised an Ex Post Facto Clause challenge to his continued restitution obligation, which turns in part on the threshold question whether MVRA restitution is criminal punishment. Applying Circuit precedent, the Eighth Circuit concluded that restitution under the MVRA is not criminal punishment subject to the Ex Post Facto Clause. In this Court, Ellingburg and the United States agreed that the Eighth Circuit erred, so the Court appointed John F. Bash as amicus curiae to defend the judgment below.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether criminal restitution under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA) is penal for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause.

Holding

Restitution under the MVRA is plainly criminal punishment for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Whether a law violates that Clause requires evaluating whether the law imposes a criminal or penal sanction as opposed to a civil remedy — a question “of statutory construction” that requires the Court to “consider the statute’s text and its structure.” Smith v. Doe, 538 U. S. 84, 92. Viewed as a whole, the MVRA makes abundantly clear that restitution is criminal punishment: it labels restitution a “penalty” for a criminal “offense,” 18 U. S. C. § 3663A(a)(1); only a criminal defendant convicted of a qualifying crime may be ordered to pay it; it is imposed at sentencing together with other criminal punishments such as imprisonment and fines; and at that proceeding the Government, not the victim, is the party adverse to the defendant. The regime is codified in Title 18, “Crimes and Criminal Procedure,” with the authorizing provisions in Chapter 232, “Miscellaneous Sentencing Provisions,” and a district court imposing restitution must follow the procedures applicable to other criminal penalties. Although Congress intended restitution under the Act both to punish offenders and to compensate victims, victims cannot initiate or settle the restitution process as they could in a civil proceeding. 113 F. 4th 839, reversed and remanded.

The Court

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Ellingburg v. United States, written by Justice Kavanaugh.

Watson v. Republican National Committee Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1260_g3cn.pdf

Case background

Three federal election-day statutes set the day for the “election” of Representatives, Senators, and the President on a Tuesday in November. See 3 U. S. C. § 1; 2 U. S. C. §§ 1, 7. Mississippi permits certain residents, such as college students away from home and senior citizens, to vote in federal elections by absentee ballot, Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-713, and it is one of roughly 30 States that count at least some absentee ballots mailed by election day but received afterward. Absentee voters in Mississippi may dispatch their ballots by mail or common carrier, and every absentee ballot must be “postmarked on or before the date of the election and received by the registrar no more than five (5) business days after the election.” §§ 23-15-637(1)(a), (3). In 2024, the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, and various individuals sued the Mississippi secretary of state and several election officials, contending that federal law prevents Mississippi from counting absentee ballots received after election day. On their reading, the election-day statutes use the word “election” to refer to two acts, ballot casting and ballot receipt, so setting the day for the “election” sets the deadline for both. The Libertarian Party of Mississippi filed a similar suit, the District Court consolidated the cases and granted summary judgment to Mississippi, and the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that Mississippi’s statute is preempted because the federal election-day statutes require ballots to be received by election day.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the federal election-day statutes preempt a state law that allows ballots that are cast by federal election day to be received by election officials after that day.

Holding

The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in those statutes requires ballots to be received by election day. The defining element of an “election” has always been the electorate’s choice of candidate, and that choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received. A related statute, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, reinforces the point: it repeatedly presupposes that ballot receipt is a matter of state law, and its cross-references to state ballot-receipt deadlines would make little sense if the election-day statutes already set a nationwide one. The reading is also consistent with the Constitution, which requires the day on which Presidential electors give their votes to be the same throughout the United States but says nothing about the day for receipt. Plaintiffs’ contrary arguments from 19th-century historical practice, from Foster v. Love, and from election integrity and voter confidence are unavailing: the practice they identify cannot be tied to the statutory text, Foster is not about ballot receipt and nowhere mentions it, and policy arguments are properly directed to legislatures rather than courts. 120 F. 4th 200, reversed and remanded.

The Court

Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson joined. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined, and in which Justice Kavanaugh joined as to all but Parts II-C-2 and III.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Watson v. Republican National Committee, written by Justice Barrett.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Barrett. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

Coney Island Auto Parts Unlimited, Inc. v. Burton Aug 21, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r08_f2q3.pdf

Case background

Vista-Pro Automotive, LLC, entered bankruptcy in 2014 and initiated adversarial proceedings against Coney Island Auto Parts Unlimited, Inc., to collect $50,000 in allegedly unpaid invoices. Vista-Pro attempted to serve process on Coney Island by mail but purportedly failed to comply with the mail-service requirements of Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 7004(b)(3). Coney Island did not file an answer, and the Bankruptcy Court entered a default judgment in 2015. Over the next six years, Vista-Pro’s bankruptcy trustee attempted to enforce the judgment, sending a demand letter to Coney Island’s CEO in April 2016; those efforts bore fruit in 2021 when a marshal seized funds from Coney Island’s bank account in satisfaction of the judgment. Coney Island then filed a motion to vacate the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60, arguing that Vista-Pro’s failure to make proper service rendered the judgment void. The Bankruptcy Court denied relief, holding that Coney Island had failed to abide by Rule 60’s requirement that parties make motions for relief within a “reasonable time.” The District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(c)(1) imposes any time limit to set aside a void default judgment for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Holding

Rule 60(c)(1)’s reasonable-time limit applies to a motion alleging that a judgment is void under Rule 60(b)(4). The plain text of Rule 60(c)(1) provides that a “motion under Rule 60(b) must be made within a reasonable time,” and a motion for relief from an allegedly void judgment is such a motion. The structure of the Rule confirms that reading: Rule 60 modifies the default reasonable-time limit expressly when it means to — imposing a 1-year limit on motions alleging mistakes, new evidence, or fraud — yet it includes no analogous unlimited-time principle for motions alleging voidness. That a void judgment is a legal nullity does not change the analysis, because the passage of time cures few legal errors and statutes and rules routinely limit the time for seeking relief from an erroneous judgment. A party would need to identify some principle of law, such as the Due Process Clause, conferring a right to allege voidness at any time, and Coney Island disclaimed any such argument. Neither historical practice nor Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee supports an unlimited window, and policy concerns, drafting history, and constitutional avoidance carry weight only when a Rule’s language is ambiguous.

The Court

Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson joined. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, agreeing that Rule 60’s text and structure require the result but objecting that the majority unnecessarily opined on the potential validity of a Due Process Clause challenge to the reasonable-time limit — an argument Coney Island did not raise below and expressly disclaimed in this Court.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Coney Island Auto Parts Unlimited, Inc. v. Burton, written by Justice Alito.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Alito. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n Aug 11, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621_h315.pdf

Case background

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) restricts a political party’s spending on campaign activities undertaken in coordination with its candidates. 52 U. S. C. §30116(d). Those coordinated-expenditure limits vary by State and by office sought; a national party committee may spend from $130,600 to $4,071,800 in coordination with a Senate candidate. In 2001, in Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431 (Colorado II), this Court upheld the limits as consistent with the First Amendment. In 2022, a group of candidates and political party committees sued the Federal Election Commission: the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then-candidate for Senate JD Vance, and then-Representative Steve Chabot. They argued that Colorado II is no longer good law in light of the Court’s more recent campaign finance decisions. A majority of the judges on the en banc U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit questioned Colorado II but considered themselves bound by it, and so rejected the challenge. This Court granted certiorari. Because the United States declined to defend the limits, the Court appointed Roman Martinez as amicus curiae to defend the judgment below, and the Democratic national and congressional campaign committees intervened.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the limits on coordinated party expenditures in 52 U.S.C. § 30116 violate the First Amendment, either on their face or as applied to party spending in connection with “party coordinated communications” as defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.37.

Holding

FECA’s political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment. The Court has jurisdiction under Article III: at least one plaintiff had standing at the outset of the litigation, and Vice President Vance still maintains an active “Statement of Candidacy” on file with the FEC along with a campaign committee that has raised money for a Senate race. On the merits, the Court’s precedents recognize only one permissible objective for campaign finance restrictions: preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. The anti-circumvention rationale of Colorado II cannot carry these limits under the rigorous review the closely drawn test now demands. The base contribution limits, the earmarking rules, and the disclosure requirements together already serve the Government’s anti-circumvention interest without unduly restricting core political party speech, so the coordinated-expenditure limits are “disproportionate” and are not “necessary” and “narrowly tailored.” Colorado II’s reasoning has been rejected by the Court’s more recent precedents, and to the extent it retained any vitality it is now overruled. 117 F. 4th 389, reversed and remanded.

The Court

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n, written by Justice Kavanaugh.

Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment Aug 05, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-171_new_3dq3.pdf

Case background

Cox Communications, Inc., is an Internet service provider serving approximately six million subscribers, each associated with a unique Internet Protocol address. Providers like Cox have limited knowledge of how their services are used: they know which IP address corresponds to which subscriber account, but cannot distinguish individual users or directly control how the service is used. Cox contractually prohibits subscribers from using their connection to post, copy, transmit, or disseminate infringing content.

Sony Music Entertainment and other major music copyright owners enlisted MarkMonitor to track copyright infringement across the Internet. Over the roughly two-year period at issue, MarkMonitor sent Cox 163,148 notices identifying IP addresses of Cox subscribers associated with infringement. Sony sued Cox in Federal District Court on two theories of secondary liability: that Cox contributed to its users’ infringement by continuing to serve subscribers it knew were associated with infringement, and that Cox was vicariously liable for that infringement. The jury found for Sony on both theories, found Cox’s infringement willful, and awarded $1 billion in statutory damages. The Fourth Circuit affirmed as to contributory liability, reasoning that supplying a product with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe is exactly the sort of culpable conduct sufficient for contributory infringement, and reversed as to vicarious liability. This Court granted Cox’s petition for certiorari as to contributory liability.

Questions Presented

(1) Did the Fourth Circuit err in holding that a service provider can be held liable for “materially contributing” to copyright infringement merely because it knew that people were using certain accounts to infringe and did not terminate access, without proof that the service provider affirmatively fostered infringement or otherwise intended to promote it?

(2) Did the Fourth Circuit err in holding that mere knowledge of another’s direct infringement suffices to find willfulness under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)? (Review was granted limited to the first question.)

Holding

The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement, and that intent can be shown only if the provider induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement. Cox neither induced its users’ infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement: it did not induce or encourage its subscribers to infringe, Sony offered no evidence of express promotion or intent to promote infringement, Cox repeatedly discouraged infringement through warnings and suspensions, and Internet access is plainly capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Accordingly, Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement of Sony’s copyrights. The Fourth Circuit’s contrary rule went beyond the two forms of liability recognized in Grokster and Sony and conflicted with this Court’s repeated admonition that contributory liability cannot rest only on a provider’s knowledge of infringement and insufficient action to prevent it. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor does not change the analysis: it creates new defenses from liability rather than imposing liability on providers who serve known infringers.

The Court

Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Jackson joined.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, written by Justice Thomas.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Thomas. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

Barrett v. United States Aug 04, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r07_7647.pdf

Case background

This case concerns the relationship between two provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 924: subsection (c)(1)(A)(i), which criminalizes using, carrying, or possessing a firearm in connection with a federal crime of violence or drug trafficking crime, and subsection (j), which prescribes different penalties, including, in certain circumstances, capital punishment, when “a violation of subsection (c)” causes death. Dwayne Barrett committed a series of robberies between August 2011 and January 2012; during one, his confederate shot and killed Gamar Dafalla. Barrett was convicted on seven counts, three of them relevant here: Hobbs Act robbery of Dafalla, which served as the predicate for a § 924(c) count and a § 924(j) count arising from the same killing. The District Court declined to sentence Barrett separately on the two firearm counts, merging the subsection (c) conviction into the subsection (j) conviction.

On appeal after resentencing, the Second Circuit held that one act may yield two convictions and instructed the District Court to impose separate convictions and sentences on both counts. That court acknowledged that subsection (c)(1) and subsection (j) qualify as the same offense under the test in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299, but believed that, as construed in Lora v. United States, 599 U. S. 453, the two provisions are separate offenses for which Congress has clearly authorized cumulative punishments. Because that decision deepened a split among the Courts of Appeals, this Court granted certiorari. Because the Government agreed with Barrett, the Court appointed an amicus curiae to defend the judgment below.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the Double Jeopardy Clause permits two sentences for an act that violates 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and § 924(j), a question that divides seven circuits but about which the Solicitor General and Petitioner agree.

The petition presented two questions, but the Court granted certiorari limited to the first. The second question, whether Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A), was not taken up.

Holding

Congress did not clearly authorize convictions under both §§ 924(c)(1)(A)(i) and (j) for a single act that violates both provisions. One act that violates both provisions therefore may spawn only one conviction. The part of the Second Circuit’s judgment that held otherwise is reversed.

All agree that the two subsections define the same offense under Blockburger, which triggers the presumption that Congress does not intend to punish the same offense under two different statutes. That presumption yields only to a plainly expressed contrary intent, and nothing in the text, structure, or legislative history of § 924 supplies one. Congress twice wrote “in addition to” language into subsection (c) itself, language this Court has called “crystal clear” evidence of an intent to overcome Blockburger, but used no similar language for the interplay between subsection (c)(1) and subsection (j). Subsection (c)’s consecutive-sentence mandate speaks only to how sentences are arranged once two convictions are permissible; it does not answer whether two convictions may be imposed at all. And because subsection (j) supplies its own comprehensive penalty scheme that operates independently of subsection (c)’s, Congress is best read to have placed in front of prosecutors a menu, not a buffet.

The Court

Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III, IV-A, and IV-B, and an opinion with respect to Part IV-C, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined. Justice Gorsuch filed an opinion concurring in part.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Barrett v. United States, written by Justice Jackson.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Jackson. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

West Virginia v. B. P. J. Aug 03, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-43_2b35.pdf

Case background

In 2021, West Virginia enacted the Save Women’s Sports Act, which prohibits male students from playing on female teams and provides that sex is determined by biology. Respondent B. P. J., a biological male who identifies as female and has taken puberty blockers and hormones, sought to compete on the girls’ cross-country and track-and-field teams. B. P. J. sued West Virginia and relevant officials, alleging violations of Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The U. S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia granted summary judgment for the State on both claims, but the Fourth Circuit reversed on the Title IX issue and remanded for further fact-finding on the equal protection claim. In a companion case, Lindsay Hecox — a biological male who identifies as female and competes in college sports — challenged Idaho’s similar Fairness in Women’s Sports Act on equal protection grounds; the District Court enjoined that law and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Court granted certiorari in both cases and decided them together.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether Title IX prevents a state from consistently designating girls’ and boys’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.

(2) Whether the Equal Protection Clause prevents a state from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.

Holding

Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX. The term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the implementing regulations refers to biological sex, and nothing in those texts requires schools to allow biological males who identify as female to play on girls’ and women’s teams. West Virginia and Idaho also did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by limiting female teams to biological females: that sex-based classification is substantially related to the important governmental interests of safety and competitive fairness, and the States need not make individualized, athlete-by-athlete exceptions to satisfy intermediate scrutiny.

The Court

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined. Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch each filed concurring opinions. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in West Virginia v. B. P. J., written by Justice Kavanaugh.

Chatrie v. United States Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf

Case background

In 2019, a man robbed a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Local police could not identify a suspect, so they obtained a geofence warrant directed to Google, requiring the company to hand over data about the cell phones located within a 150-meter radius of the credit union near the time of the crime. That data came from Location History, a Google service that records a user’s cell-phone location every two minutes or so. The warrant set out a three-step process: Google first produced anonymized location data for all phones inside the geofence in the half hour before and after the robbery; officers then narrowed the list and Google supplied additional anonymized data covering a two-hour window; and finally officers narrowed the list again and Google turned over identifying information, including names and phone numbers. That process identified three users, including petitioner Okello Chatrie, whose data showed him entering the geofence about ten minutes before the robbery. Chatrie, charged with robbery and related firearms offenses, moved to suppress the location data as the fruit of an invalid Fourth Amendment search. The District Court found the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment but denied suppression under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, and after a divided panel and an evenly divided en banc court, the Fourth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari solely on whether the police violated the Fourth Amendment in obtaining Chatrie’s location data.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the execution of the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

Holding

Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google, because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information. Everything the Court relied on in Carpenter v. United States to hold that accessing cell-site location information is a search applies as well or better to Location History, which is even more precise and revealing. Neither the limited two-hour period of data obtained nor its storage by a third-party company defeats that expectation of privacy, and the third-party doctrine does not apply. Because the Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches, the Court does not decide whether this search was reasonable, leaving to the Court of Appeals whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of probable cause and particularity.

The Court

Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Jackson joined. Justice Jackson filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined. Justice Gorsuch filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Thomas joined as to Part I, and in which Justice Barrett joined as to Parts II–B, II–C–1, and II–C–2. Justice Barrett filed a dissenting opinion.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Chatrie v. United States, written by Justice Kagan.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Kagan. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.

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So Ordered

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Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

Case background

Questions Presented

Holding

The Court

What this episode contains

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