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Listen to full-length readings of the most current opinions as they are issued by the Court. Or, browse through a library containing dozens of landmark opinions from the past. Either way, it’s free! A rare find for SCOTUS nerds.
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Audio of Denezpi v. United States (2022) Majority Opinion
The Court of Indian Offenses is a trial court with jurisdiction over Native Americans where there are no tribal courts. Six months after Merle Denezpi, a member of the Navajo tribe, pleaded guilty to an assault charge in the Court of Indian Offenses, a federal grand jury indicted him for aggravated sexual assault for the exact same event that led to his assault charge in the Court of Indian Offenses - and was subsequently found guilty. He challenged his prosecution in federal court, arguing that it violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution; the Court of Indian Offenses is, after all, a federal agency. The district court ruled against Denezpi, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
The question before the Supreme Court in this case was whether a prosecution in the Court of Indian Offenses triggers the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution. The Court said no, it did not.
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Audio of the opinion of the Court in Louisiana v. United States (1965)
About six months before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, two very similar cases were argued before the Supreme Court on the same day in January - United States v. Mississippi and Louisiana v. United States - both cases were regarding state voting laws that prevented African Americans from voting. Today I'll be reading the opinion of the Court in Louisiana v. United States in which the Attorney General of the United States sued the state of Louisiana in a federal court, claiming that the state had violated the Fifteenth Amendment of the US Constitution for denying African-Americans the right to vote through unfair voter registration requirements specifically tailored for that purpose.
When the case made its way before the Supreme Court, they held that Louisiana's bogus voter suppression laws indeed violated the Fifteenth Amendment. And, in case you were wondering, the Court issued a similar decision in the Mississippi case argued that same day.
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Audio of the opinion of the Court in Romer v. Evans (1996).
In 1992, the voters of Colorado adopted Amendment 2 to the Colorado State Constitution, which prohibited any legislative, judicial or executive action to protect individuals from discrimination that is based on "homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships." Several affected citizens challenged the amendment in Court. The trial court issued a permanent injunction enjoining enforcement and, on appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed.
The question before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the Colorado violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause; the Court said it did.
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Audio of the 1972 opinion of the Court in Eisendtadt v. Baird (1972)
After his lecture on birth control and over-population at Boston University, William Baird gave contraceptive foam to an unmarried woman. But, it was a felony to give contraceptives to unmarried people in Massachusetts in 1967, so Baird was charged with the felony crime of distributing contraceptives to unmarried men or women.
The question before the Court in this case was whether the right to privacy was violated, as in Griswold v. Connecticut. In the end, the Court held that the Massachusetts law was indeed unconstitutional, but not on privacy grounds. Instead, the law's distinction between single and married recipients did not pass the rational basis test of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Audio of Part 2: Trump v. Hawaii (2018) Justice Sotomayor, Dissenting (Muslim Travel Ban)
Audio of Part 1 of Justice Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in Trump v. Hawaii (2018)
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Today I'll be reading the opinion of the Court in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) - also known as the Muslim Travel Ban case in which former President Donald Trump issued Proclamation No. 9645, asserting that it sought to improve the procedures used to screen the citizens of particular countries to determine whether they present “public safety threats” if permitted to enter the United States §1(a). So, the Proclamation placed entry restrictions on nationals from eight foreign countries whose systems for sharing information about those nationals were deemed inadequate by the former President.
There were several questions before the Court in this case.
First, whether the president had the statutory authority to issue the Proclamation to begin with. Also, whether the plaintiffs’ challenge to such authority was justiciable in federal court, whether the global injunction barring enforcement of certain parts of the Proclamation was impermissibly overbroad and, finally, whether the Proclamation violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
Today I'll be reading the opinion of the Court in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) - also known as the Muslim Travel Ban case
Audio of West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) Majority Opinion (Minimum Wage for Women, Right to Contract)
In the case I'll be reading today, the Court revisited the minimum wage for women issue once again. This time, regarding a Washington state law requiring a minimum wage of $14.50 for women for a 48-hour work week. But an employee of the West Coast Hotel Company, Elsie Parrish, received less than the required wage. So, she sued her employer to recover the difference in wages owed to her under the law. Her employer argued that the minimum wage requirement violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
This time, the Court held that a minimum wage for women did not violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process clause. Citing Muller v. Oregon, the Court held that states may use their police power to restrict individual freedom to contract - overruling Adkins and marking an end to the Court's broad view of the freedom to contract during the Lochner era.
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Audio of United States v. Vaello-Madero (2022) Justice Gorsuch, Concurring (Insular Cases)
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