The United States Supreme did not include its decision overturning Roe v. Wade among its newest five opinions.
With only a few weeks remaining in the court’s current term, there had been speculation the landmark leaked opinion could be released on June 13.
Instead, the court published opinions on Kemp v. United States, Garland v. Gonzalez, Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, Denezpi v. United States, and ZF Automotive U. S., Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd.
Two of the court’s rulings made it more difficult for national immigration law to be challenged by non-citizens.
In Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, the court unanimously ruled that the federal government does not need to offer a bond hearing after six months to certain immigrants who are being detained as part of the deportation process regardless of the amount of time they have been in custody. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the majority opinion.
Sotomayor wrote:
“The issue in this case is whether … the Government [is required] to offer detained noncitizens bond hearings after six months of detention in which the Government bears the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that a noncitizen poses a flight risk or a danger to the community. It does not. … On its face, the statute says nothing about bond hearings before immigration judges or burdens of proof, nor does it provide any other indication that such procedures are required. Faithfully applying our precedent, the Court can no more discern such requirements.”
The 6-3 ruling in Garland v. Gonzalez that a lower court overstepped the foundation of its authority by granting relief to the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that challenged the U.S. government’s practice of detaining immigrants for more than six months. Justice Samuel Alito authored the majority opinion, noting that awarding the injustice relief was “unlawful.” Sotomayor offered a partially concurring opinion and partially dissenting opinion and was joined by Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan.
The court also ruled 6-3 in Denezpi v. United States and agreed that Native Americans tried in certain tribal courts can be prosecuted for the same crime in federal court. The decision affirms a prior ruling issued in 1970.
According to Jurist, the court “held 8-1 in Kemp v. United States that the term ‘mistake’ in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(1) ‘includes a judge’s errors of law.’” The majority of judges rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the term included factual errors made by a party after he missed a filing deadline while trying to have his drug and firearms convictions overturned. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the lone dissenting vote.
Finally, the court considered a consolidated case involving two instances of foreign arbitration proceedings. In a unanimous decision, the justices wrote “[o]nly a governmental or intergovernmental adjudicative body constitutes a ‘foreign or international tribunal.’”
“Such bodies are those that exercise governmental authority conferred by one nation or multiple nations. Neither the private commercial arbitral panel in the first case nor the ad hoc arbitration panel in the second case qualifies,” stated the court’s opinion, written by justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Protestors had gathered outside the Supreme Court on June 13 in hopes of blocking the Justices from entering the building.
“We are in a crisis of democracy,” said ShutdownDC on its website, citing the leaked draft of the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. “Following decades of organizing by the far right, conservatives now hold a majority on the Supreme Court, and a group of five justices can roll back critical rights and protections that should be settled law.”
“Times of crisis can either be opportunities to break through the inertia and win transformational change or they can be opportunities for the establishment to further entrench the status quo,” the group added.
Although the group claims to have shut down business as usual at the court, the decisions were all released by noon.
