The opinion that doesn’t count.

Damon Landor, a Rastafarian who had not cut his hair for nearly twenty years, was held down and shaved by Louisiana prison officials weeks before the completion of a five-month sentence at a federally-funded state correctional facility — over his presentation of a Fifth Circuit opinion holding that Louisiana's hair-cutting policy violates RLUIPA. Everyone agrees a RLUIPA violation occurred. The question is whether RLUIPA's authorization of 'appropriate relief against a government,' 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-2(a), authorizes private suit for money damages against state officers in their individual capacities. The Fifth Circuit held that 'although RLUIPA's text suggests a damages remedy, recognizing as much would run afoul of the Spending Clause,' affirming dismissal under Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Texas, 560 F.3d 316 (5th Cir. 2009). Six judges, in two opinions, would have granted rehearing en banc. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and the United States, reversing its prior position, supported petitioner.

After Fernandez's mandatory life sentence on a 2013 cartel-murder conviction was reduced to time served under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) — based on the same district judge's accumulated 'disquiet' about the verdict and a co-defendant sentencing disparity — the Second Circuit reversed. It held that any reason 'in substance' challenging the validity of a conviction or sentence is reserved exclusively to § 2255 with its AEDPA-calibrated procedural limits, and that § 2255 is the 'more specific' statute. Fernandez argues that 'extraordinary and compelling reasons' are terms of degree, not kind; that § 994(t)'s express rehabilitation-alone bar is the only categorical limit Congress enacted; and that § 3582(b)'s preservation of the conviction's finality places § 3582 motions outside Heck's 'necessarily imply invalidity' channeling rule. The Government's brief framed the exclusion as reaching claims 'cognizable under § 2255'; at oral argument it reformulated the rule to reach any 'asserted reason that attacks the validity of the conviction or sentence,' a switch Justices Kagan and Barrett pressed it on directly.

President Trump removed Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission in March 2025 without invoking the statutory grounds for removal. The District Court reinstated her; the D.C. Circuit denied a stay. The Supreme Court granted the stay, treated the application as a petition for certiorari before judgment, and granted the petition. The case asks whether the for-cause removal restriction in 15 U.S.C. § 41 is constitutional as applied to FTC Commissioners exercising the modern FTC's executive powers.

The Department of Homeland Security has, at times since 2016, employed a practice known as 'metering' under which Customs and Border Protection officers stationed at the borderline of a port of entry direct noncitizens without valid travel documents to wait on the Mexican side before crossing into the United States to be processed. The District Court held the practice unlawful as a withholding of inspection and asylum-eligibility processing under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1158 and 1225. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that 'arrives in the United States' encompasses noncitizens who encounter officials at the border, whichever side of the line they are standing on. The Supreme Court is asked whether the phrase reaches a noncitizen physically stopped on the Mexican side of the line.