As a resource for court observers interested in criminal law, this column completes (together with my prior column) my listing of criminal law and related cases decided by the court this term. Below you will find a list of 19 merits cases the court decided this term that I think are broadly related to criminal law topics – as well as six more criminal law summary dispositions. A full listing of all the criminal law merits cases decided in a term allows readers to look at the entire forest in addition to single trees.
The 16 pure criminal law cases discussed in my last column, plus the 19 additional “related” cases listed below and the six summary dispositions totals 41 criminal law and related decisions issued by the court this term. This constitutes a whopping 60% of the 68 merits cases that the court lists as “Opinions of the Court - 2025” on its website. Don’t let anyone tell you that the Supreme Court does not do much criminal law work. They do.
Sidenote on the structure of the Supreme Court’s website
This is worth briefly examining here, not just for readers trying to find their way around that website, but also to note the confusion between the undifferentiated mass of justices’ writings that the media and public see, versus what the court thinks are clear divisions between their opinions.
The Supreme Court’s website is complex, and impossible to figure out unless you spend minutes (hours?) clicking around on it. Seven main topics are listed across the top. These headings yield a total of 44 different subheadings once you click on them. Spend a summer afternoon on this, and you’ll soon be sleeping among the daisies.
For official writings, the court’s website divides the justices’ opinions into two subheadings. One is captioned “Opinions of the Court,” consisting primarily of the justices’ precedential legal views in cases after full briefing and oral argument. Here the court also lists “summary” dispositions, that is, decisions issued without full briefing or oral argument based on the petition for certiorari (review) papers alone. And then there is a separate subcategory, titled “Opinions Relating to Orders.” The latter category addresses what has become known as the “interim” or “emergency” or “shadow” docket – my strong-but-unpopular view is that we should just use the court’s own term and call this the “orders” docket. This part of the court’s website includes opinions issued upon the denial or granting of stays (emergency or otherwise) – but it also includes opinions that a justice or justices might write to dissent from the denial of a petition for certiorari.
This two-part division of justices’ writings does not perfectly match the way court observers tend to think about what the court does. What a justice says about a legal issue is important, no matter where the court decides to publish it. And when hard copies of the court’s work are finally published in thick volumes, these are labeled the U.S. Reports. The justices used to say that the “opinions” decisions are forceful legal precedents, while those on the “orders” docket are not. But that division appears to have broken down. And any interested court observer needs to examine both places to have a full understanding of what the justices are officially saying.
Now that that’s clear (smile), here are some further thoughts, and additional lists, summarizing this term’s criminal law writings published as “Opinions of the Court.”
Further thoughts about the 16 pure criminal law decisions
In my July 15 column, I wrote about the 16 pure criminal law cases decided by the court this term after full briefing and oral argument. That’s almost 30% of the court’s merits docket. Eleven of the 16 were decided in favor of a criminal defendant or the defense’s view. And this takes work: the 16 pure criminal law cases alone totaled 624 pages of writing (I added them up). My prior column offered some immediate thoughts about these “pure” cases; below are a few additional ones. (I recently spoke about the court’s criminal work on The Dispatch’s “Advisory Opinions” podcast.)
- Only three of the 16 pure cases were decided 5-4, while seven were decided by 9-0 votes (albeit some with concurring opinions). There were also three 8-1 results. Whether due to careful case selection or other factors, the fact is that the justices found more agreement than disagreement in the criminal law cases they decided to hear.
- The three 5-4 decisions were all pro-defense results. (Another two cases were pro-defense by 6-3 votes.) Together with the three expected “liberal” justices, Justice Brett Kavanaugh provided a dispositive vote in all three pro-defense 5-4 decisions – he was joined by the chief justice in two and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the third. Kavanaugh was also in the majority of all the 6-3 decisions. It’s a fine demonstration of what I have called “the wild card court” this term.
- Two of the pro-defense cases were decided for the criminal defendant on Second Amendment grounds; and the three “liberal” justices separated themselves in both (dissenting in Wolford v. Lopez, and concurring separately in United States v. Hemani). When former federal prosecutor Samuel Alito is ruling to strike down a criminal statute while former public defender Ketanji Brown Jackson is dissenting, a pro-defense decision does not comfortably fit the characterization of “liberal.” The “politics” of gun control (and perhaps other issues) suggests that criminal law observers need to develop a more nuanced way of measuring results.
- Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority of all 16 of the court’s pure criminal law cases. That is remarkable: Roberts is the only justice we can say this about. And the chief being in the majority is a powerful position: he thereby retains the power to assign the writing of each majority opinion to any of his eight colleagues. Kagan was given the authorship for five of the 16 cases; no other justice wrote more than two (Justice Clarence Thomas wrote none).
- The factors that go into majority opinion assignments are complex and can be “strategic.” But another factor is often unmentioned yet has become the norm under Roberts: equally distributing all the full merits decisions (57 this term) among all nine justices. (For example, this term each justice authored either six or seven majority opinions.) This requires some experienced predictive prescience, looking at the entire term months in advance. If the “liberal” justices will not be in the majority in closely divided cases at the end of the term, the chief needs to “load them up” with majority opinions early. Regardless of how this all plays out, with five majority decisions assigned to her, Kagan has become (perhaps surprisingly, as she has little criminal litigation experience) the “go-to” author for criminal law decisions.
19 cases related to, even though not “pure,” criminal law
Beyond the 16 pure criminal law cases (or 17, see my prior column), I consider another 19 opinions of the court this term to be related to criminal law, such that criminal law litigators or aficionados would want to read them.
Indeed, the 2025-26 term might be called the “immigration term.” In addition to Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship decision (extensively covered elsewhere), the court decided four additional cases important for immigration law. Competent criminal lawyers, defense or prosecution, should be aware of immigration status and consequences in any criminal case. So I list the immigration cases first:
Urias-Orellana v. Bondi (March 4, Jackson, 9-0): A “substantial evidence” standard of proof applies to the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determinations about fear of persecution claims under the immigration statutes.
Blanche v. Lau (June 23, Thomas, 6-3): An officer at the border need not have clear and convincing evidence to deem a lawful permanent resident (green card holder) inadmissible if such evidence is presented at a later removal hearing. (Based on footnote two, a possible lower standard of proof was left undecided.)
Mullin v. Al Otro Lado (June 25, Alito, 6-3): “An alien ‘arrives in the United States’ [under the statute] only when he crosses the border,” and persons arriving “at” the border without crossing it are not entitled to apply for asylum.
Mullin v. Doe (June 25, Alito, 6-3): A statutory challenge to the elimination of Temporary Protected Status for Hatians and Syrians is barred from judicial review by the statute; and the constitutional challenge based on race discrimination is “unlikely to succeed.” (The procedural status here was certiorari before judgment on a government motion for stay.)
Fourteen additional civil cases related to criminal law. Reasonable minds might disagree about whether the following cases should be considered related to criminal law. But given this is a resource for criminal law practitioners and scholars, I err on the side of broad inclusion. Similar cases are grouped together (for example, two cases on aiding and abetting, two cases that address confiscated property in Cuba, and so on). Phrases that help suggest a link to criminal law issues or interests are underlined.
GEO Group, Inc. v. Menocal (Feb. 25, Kagan, 9 (7+2) to 0): A pretrial order denying dismissal based on a claim of defense contractor immunity is not immediately appealable, because it is not a final order.
Cox Communications v. Sony Music (March 25, Thomas, 9 (7+2) to 0): Aiding and abetting copyright infringement is not sufficiently proved absent proof that a service provider either induced, or tailored service to, the infringement.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin Pharma(June 4, Jackson, 9-0): A patent infringement claim for “active inducement” requires more than just a “plausible reading” of a generic drug label.
Cisco Systems v. Doe (June 23, Barrett, 6-3, dissents in part): Aiding and abetting claims (for alleged religious persecution in China) are not authorized under the Alien Tort Statute or the Torture Victim Protection Act.
Hencely v. Fluor Corp. (April 22, Thomas, 6-3; unusual voting coalitions, Alito dissenting with Roberts and Kavanaugh): State law claims against a government contractor (for allegedly hiring a suicide bomber employee) are not preempted when the contractor allegedly acted outside government authority.
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport (April 29, Gorsuch, 9-0): A religious nonprofit has standing to challenge a state attorney general subpoena that demands identification of donors.
Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises (May 21, Thomas, 8-1, unusual Kagan solo dissent): Cruise lines’ use of docks built by Havana and later confiscated by the Cuban government is sufficient to support liability for “trafficking in confiscated property” under a 1996 federal statute.
Exxon Mobil v. Corporacion Simex, S.A. (Cuba) (June 23, Kavanaugh, 6-3): Any sovereign immunity for Cuban agencies and instrumentalities from confiscated property liability was abrogated by a 1996 statute.
Sripetch v. SEC (June 4, Gorsuch, 9-0): Securities law: a showing of pecuniary loss is not required for a disgorgement award.
Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T(June 4, Roberts, 8-1): The Federal Communications Commission may issue a forfeiture order without a jury trial because the order is not a final resolution or conclusive.
FS Credit Opportunities v. Saba Capital (June 11, Barrett, 6-3): Investment Company Act (similar to securities law) – “The ICA does not impliedly empower private parties to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the Act.”
Landor v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections (June 23, Gorsuch, 6-3): A damages lawsuit against individual prison officers for violating a prisoner’s religious rights is not authorized if the officers have not knowingly and voluntarily consented to possible liability, under a spending clause statute.
Pung v. Isabella County (June 23, Alito, 9 (7+2) to 0): “Just compensation” for a fairly conducted tax sale of property for unpaid taxes is the auction price, not a higher hypothetical fair market value.
West Virginia v. B.P.J. (June 30, Kavanaugh, 6-3, dissents in part): A state may permissibly maintain female sports teams limited to biological females under Title IX and the 14th Amendment. (I wrote last summer about potential criminal laws relating to transgender persons).
The six summary criminal law dispositions this term
For some cases that come to the court on petitions for review, the result seems so clear (if not “easy”) to a majority of the justices that they are decided summarily, that is, without asking for full briefing or oral argument. Instead, the court will issue a “per curiam” decision, based simply on the petition for certiorari filings alone. (“Per curiam” means “for the court” without identifying an author.) The justices most often use this tool to reverse decisions of lower courts that have granted defense relief in criminal habeas corpus or denied qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. This term was no exception. The first and last case below were pro-defense; the other four were not.
Pitts v. Mississippi (Nov. 24, 9-0): The Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause requires case-specific findings before screening of a child abuse victim’s trial testimony (but the error might be held “harmless” on remand).
Clark v. Sweeney (Nov. 24, 9-0): The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit violated the “party presentation principle” when it granted habeas relief in a second-degree murder case. (I criticized this decision in a December 2025 column.)
Klein v. Martin (Jan. 26, 8-1, Jackson dissenting without opinion): The 4th Circuit erred in ruling that “no fair-minded jurist” could find that an undisclosed forensic report was immaterial in a Brady analysis under the federal habeas statute.
Zorn v. Linton (March 23, 6-3, Sotomayor dissenting with Kagan and Jackson): An officer was entitled to qualified immunity because no precedent clearly established that using a wristlock on a nonviolent protestor after a verbal warning would violate the Constitution. Dissent: The lower court’s denial of summary judgment for the officer was “not so clearly erroneous as to warrant the ‘extraordinary remedy of a summary reversal.’”
District of Columbia v. R.W. (April 20, Sotomayor dissenting without opinion; Jackson dissenting): An officer had reasonable suspicion to stop a juvenile based on the totality of the circumstances. Dissent: The appellate court applied the correct methodology; the court’s “factbound” assessment “does not merit the use of our summary discretion.”
Whitton v. Dixon (June 1, 7-2, Thomas dissenting with Alito): Reversed a Florida affirmance of a murder (death penalty) verdict because the materiality of false and harmful witness testimony at trial could not be cured by reference to DNA evidence that did not exist at the time of trial but was discovered a decade later. Dissent: “[W]e should not have exercised our summary powers ... here” because the evidence was overwhelming without the DNA evidence and Whitton has not exhausted his claim. Thus, any error was a technicality that will not affect the outcome of the case.
Recommended Citation: Rory Little, Completing the picture of the court’s criminal law term, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 30, 2026, 10:30 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/completing-the-picture-of-the-courts-criminal-law-term/