Justice ALITO , delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Illinois law, public employees are forced to subsidize a union, even if they choose not to join and strongly object to the positions the union takes in collective bargaining and related activities. We conclude that this arrangement violates the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern. We upheld a similar law in Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U....
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Before us for review are orders of a three-judge court in the Western District of Texas effectively directing the State not to conduct this year's elections using districting plans that the court itself adopted some years earlier. The court developed those plans for use in the 2012 elections pursuant to our directions in Perry v. Perez, 565 U.S. 388, 132 S.Ct. 934 , 181 L.Ed.2d 900 (2012) ( per curiam ). We instructed the three-judge...
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company (collectively, Amex) provide credit-card services to both merchants and cardholders. When a cardholder buys something from a merchant who accepts Amex credit cards, Amex processes the transaction through its network, promptly pays the merchant, and subtracts a fee. If a merchant wants to accept Amex credit cards—and attract Amex cardholders to its business—...
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. The Appointments Clause of the Constitution lays out the permissible methods of appointing "Officers of the United States," a class of government officials distinct from mere employees. Art. II, 2, cl. 2. This case requires us to decide whether administrative law judges (ALJs) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) qualify as such "Officers." In keeping with Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868 , 111 S.Ct. 2631,...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns a criminal drug offender originally sentenced in accordance with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Subsequently, the Sentencing Commission lowered the applicable Guidelines sentencing range; the offender asked for a sentence reduction in light of the lowered range; and the District Judge reduced his original sentence from 135 months' imprisonment to 114 months'. The offender, believing he should have obtained a yet...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. This case requires the Court to address the intersection of principles that define when arrests are lawful and principles that prohibit the government from retaliating against a person for having exercised the right to free speech. An arrest deprives a person of essential liberties, but if there is probable cause to believe the person has committed a criminal offense there is often no recourse for the deprivation. See, e.g.,...
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. When foreign law is relevant to a case instituted in a federal court, and the foreign government whose law is in contention submits an official statement on the meaning and interpretation of its domestic law, may the federal court look beyond that official statement The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit answered generally "no," ruling that federal courts are "bound to defer" to a foreign government's construction of its own law,...
PER CURIAM . The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court. Justice KENNEDY took no part in the decision of this case.
Justice AUTO delivered the opinion of the Court. It has been estimated that 24 million voter registrations in the United States — about one in eight — are either invalid or significantly inaccurate. Pew Center on the States, Election Initiatives Issue Brief (Feb. 2012). And about 2.75 million people are said to be registered to vote in more than one State. Ibid. At issue in today's case is an Ohio law that aims to keep the State's voting lists up to date by removing the names of those...
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. A Minnesota law provides that "the dissolution or annulment of a marriage revokes any revocable[] beneficiary designation[] made by an individual to the individual's former spouse." Minn. Stat. 524.2-804, subd. 1 (2016). That statute establishes a default rule for use when Minnesotans divorce. If one spouse has made the other the beneficiary of a life insurance policy or similar asset, their divorce automatically revokes that designation...
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. * The Bankruptcy Code prohibits debtors from discharging debts for money, property, services, or credit obtained by "false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud," 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(2)(A), or, if made in writing, by a materially false "statement ... respecting the debtor's ... financial condition," 523(a)(2)(B). This case is about what constitutes a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition." Does a...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 requires defendants convicted of a listed range of offenses to "reimburse the victim for lost income and necessary child care, transportation, and other expenses incurred during participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense. " 18 U.S.C. 3663A(b)(4) (emphasis added). We must decide whether the words "investigation" and "...
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter the curtilage of a home in order to search a vehicle parked therein. It does not. I Officer Matthew McCall of the Albemarle County Police Department in Virginia saw the driver of an orange and black motorcycle with an extended frame commit a traffic infraction. The driver eluded...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. A federal statute allows judges to issue wiretap orders authorizing the interception of communications to help prevent, detect, or prosecute serious federal crimes. See Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 2510 et seq. The statute requires the judge to find "probable cause" supporting issuance of the order, and it sets forth other detailed requirements governing both the application for a wiretap and the...
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. The State of New Jersey wants to legalize sports gambling at casinos and horseracing tracks, but a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, generally makes it unlawful for a State to "authorize" sports gambling schemes. 28 U.S.C. 3702(1). We must decide whether this provision is compatible with the system of "dual sovereignty" embodied in the Constitution. I A Americans have never been of one mind about...
Justice KENNEDY announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-B-1, and II-C, and an opinion with respect to Parts II-A, II-B-2, II-B-3, and III, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Justice THOMAS join. Petitioners in this case, or the persons on whose behalf petitioners now assert claims, allegedly were injured or killed by terrorist acts committed abroad. Those terrorist acts, it is contended, were in part caused or facilitated by a...
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., requires employers to pay overtime compensation to covered employees. The FLSA exempts from the overtime-pay requirement "any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles" at a covered dealership. 213(b)(10)(A). We granted certiorari to decide whether this exemption applies to service advisors — employees...
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner Carlos Ayestas, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a Texas court, argues that he was wrongfully denied funding for investigative services needed to prove his entitlement to federal habeas relief. Petitioner moved for funding under 18 U.S.C. 3599(f), which makes funds available if they are "reasonably necessary," but petitioner's motion was denied. We hold that the lower courts applied the wrong legal...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. A clause in 7212(a) of the Internal Revenue Code makes it a felony "corruptly or by force" to "endeavo[r] to obstruct or imped[e] the due administration of this title." 26 U.S.C. 7212(a). The question here concerns the breadth of that statutory phrase. Does it cover virtually all governmental efforts to collect taxes Or does it have a narrower scope In our view, "due administration of [the Tax Code]" does not cover routine...
JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. The Bankruptcy Code places various restrictions on anyone who qualifies as an "insider" of a debtor. The statutory definition of that term lists a set of persons related to the debtor in particular ways. See 11 U.S.C. 101(31). Courts have additionally recognized as insiders some persons not on that list — commonly known as "non-statutory insiders." The conferral of that status often turns on whether the person's transactions with the...
