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:

Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission Jun 05, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-466_5i26.pdf

Case background

Ongkaruck Sripetch engaged in numerous fraudulent schemes involving at least 20 penny-stock companies. After discovering the schemes, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a civil enforcement action against him, charging six counts of securities fraud and one count of selling unregistered securities. Sripetch consented to the entry of judgment against him and agreed that the court could order disgorgement. When the SEC then sought over $4.1 million in disgorgement, Sripetch objected, arguing that the request violated Liu v. SEC, 591 U. S. 71, because the SEC lacked evidence that his schemes caused investors to suffer any financial losses and so left no victims for whom disgorgement could be awarded. The district court found that the SEC had shown pecuniary loss, but on appeal the Ninth Circuit took a different path, holding that a finding of pecuniary harm is not required at all before a court may order disgorgement. That ruling deepened a split among the Courts of Appeals.

Questions Presented

Whether the SEC may seek equitable disgorgement under 15 U.S.C. 78u(d)(5) and (d)(7) without showing investors suffered pecuniary harm.

Holding

A showing of pecuniary loss to investors is not required before the SEC may obtain a disgorgement award. Even assuming that disgorgement under Section 78u(d)(7) remains an equitable remedy that must comply with traditional equitable rules — including the rule that disgorgement be awarded for victims — those principles do not demand proof of pecuniary loss. Courts sitting in equity have long deprived wrongdoers of the net profits of their unlawful activity, and a person whose legally protected interests have been invaded may recover the defendant’s wrongful gain even when he has suffered no measurable loss whatsoever. Because traditional equitable principles do not require a showing of pecuniary loss, and nothing in Liu teaches otherwise, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.

The Court

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 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.

Rutherford v. United States Jun 04, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-820_97be.pdf

Case background

Petitioner Daniel Rutherford was convicted of two counts of using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and petitioner Johnnie Carter was convicted of three § 924(c) violations. At the time each was sentenced, a defendant convicted of two § 924(c) counts faced a mandatory 25-year sentence for the second offense that was “stacked” upon — run consecutively to — the penalty for the first. That scheme produced a 32-year minimum sentence for Rutherford and a 57-year minimum for Carter. Years later, Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018, which eliminated the 25-year stacking requirement for first-time offenders. But that amendment does not apply to defendants sentenced before the Act, so neither Rutherford nor Carter qualifies for the reduced penalties. Each instead invoked the nonretroactive change as a basis for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), the “compassionate release” provision, which allows a court to reduce a term of imprisonment if it finds, after considering the § 3553(a) factors, that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction” and that the reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. The courts below held that the nonretroactive change to § 924(c) cannot be an “extraordinary and compelling” reason; the Third Circuit added that the Commission’s 2023 policy statement — which lists an “unusually long sentence” among such reasons — conflicts with the will of Congress. The Court granted certiorari in these consolidated cases to resolve a split among the Circuits.

Questions Presented

Whether the Sentencing Commission acted within its expressly delegated authority by permitting district courts to consider, in narrowly cabined circumstances, a nonretroactive change in law in determining whether “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warrant a sentence reduction.

Holding

When Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive — as with the change to § 924(c) — the resulting sentencing disparity cannot serve as an “extraordinary and compelling” reason that warrants a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). Under the ordinary meaning of the words, “extraordinary and compelling” reasons are those that are especially unusual and convincing. A disparity created by Congress’s deliberate choice to extend reduced penalties to some offenders but not others is neither: nonretroactive amendments to criminal penalties are the norm, so the disparity is an unexceptional feature of a system in which nonretroactivity is the default, and treating it as a compelling reason for release would undermine Congress’s choice to leave the existing sentence intact. Eligibility for compassionate release is a distinct gatekeeping step that turns on whether a prisoner can offer “extraordinary and compelling” reasons, not on the § 3553(a) sentencing factors. Because the statutory text and structure foreclose treating the § 924(c) change — considered by itself or in combination with other factors — as a basis for eligibility, the Sentencing Commission’s contrary 2023 policy statement is invalid to that extent. 120 F. 4th 360, affirmed.

The Court

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

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Rutherford v. United States, 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.

Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. Jun 01, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-983_c07d.pdf

Case background

In 1928, the United States-based Havana Docks Corporation acquired from the Cuban Government a time-limited property interest, a usufructuary concession, in the development and operation of docks at the Port of Havana, set to expire in 2004. After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, the new Cuban Government decreed that it would forcibly take American-owned properties in Cuba and specifically identified Havana Docks; in 1960 it seized the docks without compensation. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission later certified about $9 million in losses, plus six percent annual interest, but Havana Docks had no means to obtain compensation. In 1996, Congress enacted the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, 22 U.S.C. § 6021 et seq., which creates a private right of action for U.S. nationals who own claims to property confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959. Title III of the Act imposes liability on those who knowingly and intentionally traffic in such confiscated property. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama continuously suspended the Title III right of action; President Trump allowed the suspension to expire in May 2019. From 2016 to 2019, four commercial cruise lines — Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, and MSC — transported nearly a million paid passengers to Cuba, using the docks Havana Docks had built to embark and disembark them. Havana Docks sued the cruise lines under Title III in the Southern District of Florida. The District Court rejected the cruise lines’ argument that they were not liable because Havana Docks’s interest would have expired in 2004 absent confiscation, and entered summary judgment, awarding Havana Docks more than $100 million from each. A divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that a defendant is liable for trafficking only if its conduct would have interfered with the plaintiff’s property interest had there been no confiscation.

Questions Presented

Whether a plaintiff suing under Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act must prove that the defendant trafficked in property confiscated by the Cuban Government as to which the plaintiff owns a claim, or instead that the defendant trafficked in property that the plaintiff would have continued to own at the time of trafficking in a counterfactual world “as if there had been no expropriation.”

Holding

The cruise lines’ use of the docks is sufficient to establish that they used “property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government”; Havana Docks is not required to establish that the cruise lines trafficked in Havana Docks’s own property interest. Under the plain text of Title III, “property which was confiscated” can refer to the physical property in which the plaintiff had an interest, and not just the interest itself. Confiscated property is, as it were, tainted — off limits — such that anyone who uses it can be liable to those who had any interest in that property. The Eleventh Circuit’s counterfactual approach conflicts with the statutory text, and the cruise lines’ argument that the Cuban Government confiscated only the concession and not the docks themselves fails: when armed agents physically occupied the dock facilities in 1960, they seized control of the docks within the meaning of the Act.

The Court

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

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 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.

Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock May 31, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-935_k53m.pdf

Case background

Flowers Foods, Inc., is one of the Nation’s largest producers of packaged baked goods, with bakeries in 19 States. To get its products to market, Flowers depends in part on franchisees who buy the rights to distribute Flowers’s products in specific geographic territories. Angelo Brock is one such franchisee serving the Denver area; he picks up Flowers’s products from a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to local stores, all without leaving the State. In 2022, Brock sued Flowers in federal district court, alleging that the company had underpaid him and other distributors in violation of federal and state law. Flowers moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, but the district court denied the motion and the Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that Brock belonged to a class of workers engaged in interstate commerce and so fell within the Act’s § 1 exemption from arbitration.

Questions Presented

Are workers who deliver locally goods that travel in interstate commerce — but who do not transport the goods across borders nor interact with vehicles that cross borders — “transportation workers” “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” for purposes of the Federal Arbitration Act’s § 1 exemption?

Holding

A worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey can qualify for § 1’s exemption from the Federal Arbitration Act without crossing state lines or interacting with vehicles that do. The statutory phrase “engaged in . . . interstate commerce” does not require either border-crossing or vehicle-touching; longstanding cases interpreting that language describe individuals who, like Brock, play a direct, necessary, and active role in moving goods between States while operating entirely within one of them.

The Court

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock, written by Justice Gorsuch.

Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC May 28, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1238_1b7d.pdf

Case background

Shawn Montgomery sustained severe and permanent injuries when his tractor-trailer was struck on the side of an Illinois highway by a truck driven by Yosniel Varela-Mojena, who was hauling a shipment for motor carrier Caribe Transport II, LLC. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., a transportation broker, had coordinated that shipment. Montgomery sued, alleging that C.H. Robinson was liable for his injuries because it negligently hired Varela-Mojena and Caribe Transport despite a “conditional” safety rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The district court held the negligent-hiring claim was expressly preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act and did not fall within the Act’s safety exception, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

Questions Presented

Does § 14501(c) preempt a state common-law claim against a broker for negligently selecting a motor carrier or driver?

Holding

A claim that one company negligently hired another to transport goods is not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, because States retain authority to regulate safety with respect to motor vehicles under the Act. Requiring a broker to exercise ordinary care in selecting a carrier “concerns” motor vehicles — most obviously the trucks that will transport the goods — and so falls within the Act’s safety exception, which saves it from preemption.

The Court

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

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 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.

First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Davenport May 27, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-781_pok0.pdf

Case background

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc., is a religious nonprofit that has provided counseling and resources to pregnant women in New Jersey since 1985, and does not provide or refer clients for abortions. In 2022, New Jersey’s Attorney General established a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force” and served First Choice with an investigatory subpoena demanding twenty-eight categories of documents, including the names, addresses, and other personal information of most of its donors. First Choice challenged the subpoena in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a violation of its First Amendment rights, while the Attorney General sued to enforce the subpoena in state court. The federal district court held the constitutional claims were not ripe, and a divided Third Circuit panel affirmed per curiam, reasoning that First Choice could raise those claims in state court.

Questions Presented

Where the subject of a state investigatory demand has established a reasonably objective chill of its First Amendment rights, is a federal court in a first-filed action deprived of jurisdiction because those rights must be adjudicated in state court?

Holding

First Choice has established a present injury to its First Amendment associational rights sufficient to confer Article III standing. The Attorney General’s subpoena, which demands disclosure of First Choice’s donors, has caused an ongoing, concrete injury to the group’s associational rights — an injury that is present now and does not depend on the outcome of the state enforcement proceeding.

The Court

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport, written by Justice Gorsuch.

Louisiana v. Callais May 20, 2026

Show notes

Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_new_jifl.pdf

Case background

These consolidated cases concern whether Louisiana’s new congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. After the 2020 census, a federal court held that Louisiana’s congressional map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it did not include a second majority-minority district. When the State drew a new map that did include such a district, that new map was in turn challenged as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Questions Presented

Did the lower court err in finding that race predominated in the Legislature’s enactment of the new map?
Did the lower court err in finding that the new map fails strict scrutiny?
Did the lower court err in subjecting the new map to the Gingles preconditions?
Is this action nonjusticiable?

On reargument, the parties were also directed to address whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.

Holding

Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating the new map, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The Court

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

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, 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.

What So Ordered Is, and How It's Made May 18, 2026

Show notes

About this trailer

This is the introductory trailer for So Ordered. It explains what the podcast is, how each episode is made, and what to expect before the regular opinion readings begin.

What the podcast does

The Supreme Court releases dozens of written opinions every term, and those opinions shape American law. Oral arguments are recorded and freely available, but the Court does not release audio of the justices reading their final opinions. If you want to take in an opinion, you have to read it.

So Ordered closes that accessibility gap by producing audio readings of each majority opinion across the term. The reading is the Court’s actual published opinion, lightly adapted for spoken delivery (for example, numerical volume-and-page citations are simplified or omitted because they do not translate well to audio). The substance is the Court’s own words, unabridged.

How episodes are made

Each opinion is read in a synthesized voice lightly stylized to resemble the authoring justice. A short clip of that justice’s voice, taken from a publicly available oral argument, is fed into an open-source AI voice model, which then generates the reading. You may hear something that carries a hint of the justice who wrote the opinion — but it is not their voice and not a recording of them.

AI disclosure: Every voice on this podcast, including the introduction, is generated by artificial intelligence. No human narrates the intro and no human reads the opinion. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are all produced by the model from the written text alone and should not be attributed to any justice. If a passage is ever unclear, consult the original opinion at supremecourt.gov.

Practical notes

This is a personal, free, non-commercial project. There is no advertising, no paywall, no political angle. Episodes are not abridged, so expect some that run over an hour. The model is not perfect; occasional glitches or odd pronunciations may slip through review, and the process will be refined over time.

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So Ordered

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