WASHINGTON â Donald Trump and the conservative interests that helped him reshape the Supreme Court got most of what they wanted this term, from substantial help for Trumpâs political and legal prospects to sharp blows against the administrative state they revile.
The decisions reflected a deep and sometimes bitter divide on a court in which conservatives, including three justices appointed by Trump, have a two-to-one advantage over liberals, and seem likely to reinforce the views of most Americans that ideology, rather than a neutral application of the law, drives the outcome of the courtâs biggest cases.
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Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait Oct. 7, 2022, at the Supreme Court building in Washington. Bottom row, from left, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Â
Chief Justice John Roberts, often viewed with suspicion by Trump and his allies over his concerns about judicial independence and worries about the courtâs reputation, delivered the most consequential decisions. Those include the courtâs grant of broad immunity from criminal prosecution to former presidents and its reversal of a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations.
âHeâs got competing inclinations. One is to be the statesman and institutionalist,â University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen said. The other, Hasen said, is to dig in âwhen it is something that is important enough to him.â
The end of the courtâs term marked a remarkable reversal of fortunes for Trump as he seeks a second term as president.
Six months ago, he was readying for a criminal trial in early March in Washington on charges of election interference following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 and he was in danger of being kicked off the presidential ballot in several states.
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Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks June 15 at a campaign event at 180 Church in Detroit. Â
In the courtâs final decision issued Monday, the justices handed him an indefinite trial delay and narrowed the election interference case against him. The prior week, they separately limited the use of an obstruction charge he faces that should give him even more legal arguments, months after the court restored Trump to the presidential ballot.
Each of the three cases stemmed from Trumpâs actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Â
The court also overturned the Chevron decision, stripped the SEC of a major fraud-fighting tool and opened the door to repeated, broad challenges to regulations that, in combination with the end of Chevron, could lead to what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described as a âtsunami of lawsuits.â
The decisions also provoked spirited, sometimes barbed, discussions of judicial modesty. âA rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,â Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent from overturning Chevron.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chided Roberts for the âfeigned judicial humilityâ of his opinion on immunity. Roberts mocked the dissentersâ âtone of chilling doom.â
In each of the Trump cases, the majority included Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of Trumpâs three appointees, and two others, Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, who also rebuffed calls to sit out the Trump cases. Those same justices, plus Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, formed the majority in the cases about federal regulations.
The conservatives also voted together on a major homelessness case that found outdoor sleeping bans aimed at homeless encampments donât violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment â even when shelter space is lacking.
Roberts, though, has repeatedly defended the court from criticism that its justices were little more than politicians in robes.
But the courtâs public standing has taken a hit in recent years, particularly since Roe was overturned. Seven out of 10 Americans said the justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbiters of government authority, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted before the final round of decisions was issued.
Abortion was one issue in which the court sidestepped the liberal-conservative divide by avoiding major rulings in a presidential election year when abortion is an animating issue, mainly because of the justices' 2022 decision that led to abortion bans or severe restrictions in most Republican-controlled states.
A one-sentence order in a case from Idaho cleared the way for emergency abortions to resume, despite the stateâs strict abortion ban. But it didnât end the court case or answer key questions about whether doctors can provide emergency abortions elsewhere, even in states where abortion bans would prohibit them.
In a second abortion case, the justices unanimously dismissed a lawsuit from anti-abortion doctors who sought to roll back decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration to ease access to mifepristone, a pill used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States last year. The decision explicitly avoided any ruling on the FDAâs actions, focusing entirely on the doctorsâ lack of legal standing to sue.
The justices also reversed 5th Circuit rulings that would have struck down a federal gun control law intended to protect victims of domestic violence, overturned the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and barred Biden administration officials from trying to persuade social media platforms to remove misinformation.
In a separate case involving guns, the court overturned a Trump-era Justice Department regulation that banned bump stocks, rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.Â
A termâs final days often produce a torrent of heated exchanges in the most contentious cases, and this year saw more than its share of big rulings that waited until the very end.
In May, Justice Sonia Sotomayor telegraphed what the recent days might look like for her and the other liberal justices. âThere are days that Iâve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,â Sotomayor said. âAnd there are likely to be more.â
Notable Supreme Court cases of 2024
Review key cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in 2024.
Both laws aimed to address conservative complaints that the social media companies were liberal-leaning and censored users based on their viewpoints, especially on the political right.
Supreme Court makes it harder to charge Capitol riot defendants with obstruction, charge Trump faces
Roughly 170 Capitol insurrection defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups.Â
The current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies.Â
The case is the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.
The high court had put the settlement on hold last summer, in response to objections from the Biden administration.
The ruling came after a day an opinion was briefly posted on the court's website accidently and quickly taken down, but not before it was obtained by Bloomberg News.
The justices ruled that people accused of fraud by the SEC, which regulates securities markets, have the right to a jury trial in federal court.
The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agencyâs air pollution-fighting âgood neighborâ plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led courtâs latest blow to federal regulations.
The case is among several before the court this term that affect social media companies in the context of free speech.
The justices ruled in favor of a 1994 ban on firearms for people under restraining orders to stay away from their spouses or partners.
The high court found 6-3 that the Trump administration did not follow federal law when it reversed course and banned bump stocks.
The Supreme Court has preserved access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year.Â
The unanimous opinion reverses a lower court decision tossing out the gun rights groupâs lawsuit against ex-New York State Department of Financial Services Ssuperintendent Maria Vullo.
The Supreme Court has preserved a Republican-held South Carolina congressional district, rejecting a lower-court ruling the district discriminated against Black voters.
The Supreme Court has rejected a conservative-led attack that could've undermined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Â
The Supreme Court on Monday restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to hold the Republican former president accountable for the Capitol riot.