A deep dive into the latest Supreme Court news, a couple of unusual shadow docket rulings, and a cross-ideological merits decision that raises classic questions about federal power, preemption, and how much weight lower courts should give to context.
We open with reporting on leaked internal Supreme Court memoranda related to the 2016 stay of the Clean Power Plan, including what the documents may reveal, why the leak itself is so unusual, and whether timing and incomplete records change the story. We also discuss Justice Sotomayor’s public apology after comments about Justice Kavanaugh, and what that moment says about judicial professionalism and public exchange.
From there, we turn to some shadow docket happenings: a one-line summary reversal in a Texas redistricting case and a Fourth Amendment summary reversal out of the D.C. courts. Finally, we move to the merits docket and consider Hencely v. Fluor Corporation (24-924), a case involving federal contractor preemption and a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, where the Court narrows a (possibly infamous) Scalia opinion.
Key Topics
[00:05:32] - NYT leak of Supreme Court memoranda on the Clean Power Plan stay
[00:10:13] - Whether document leaks are better than source-based leaks
[00:21:30] - Justice Sotomayor’s remarks about Justice Kavanaugh and her apology
[00:27:27] - Summary reversal in Abbott v. LULAC and Texas redistricting
[00:35:18] - D.C. Fourth Amendment summary reversal and reasonable suspicion
[00:47:04] - Hencely v. Fluor Corp.: military contractor liability and preemption
[00:52:48] - Little v. Barreme, general law, and the limits of contractor immunity
