It's the end of June, and you know what that means: Supreme Court decision season! This year, the Court has ruled on cases relating to such hot-button issues as Trump's immigration restrictions and public accommodations laws as well as lesser-known constitutional questions raised by modern society, like the legality of law enforcement searches of electronic data. Unfortunately, modern media outlets also all too often prioritize breadth over depth, describing the Court as "taking this stance" on a political issue rather than describing the specific legal question and the reasoning that went into their ruling. To some extent that's understandable, since Supreme Court decisions are written in legalese. But have no fear! I've done some digging, and here's a snapshot of how the Court has ruled this year, starting with...

Trump v. Hawaii

The Question: This is the (in)famous "Muslim ban" case. It all started in January of 2017, shortly after the inauguration, when Trump issued a 90-day ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) and a 120-day hold on refugee admissions (with an exception for religious minorities). This was promptly struck down by several lower courts, so he tried again in March, this time removing Iraq from the no-entry list and un-exempting religious minority refugees. But it was struck down again, leading the Supreme Court to take up the case. Meanwhile, the March rules expired in September, so Trump replaced them with a new ban, this time covering Venezuela and North Korea as well. The Court took these changes into account when it ruled that...

The Ruling: "The President has lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him" under the Immigration and Naturalization Act, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts. Specifically, Section 1182(f) "entrusts to the President the decisions whether and when to suspend entry, whose entry to suspend, for how long, and on what conditions" with the sole prerequisite being his judgment that the entry of certain immigrants would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." In short, the majority ruled that federal law explicitly gives Trump the power to decide who gets to immigrate here.

While the justices did consider the question of whether the ban had sufficient basis in anti-Muslim hostility to violate the First Amendment's requirement of government neutrality with respect to religion, they ultimately found that it could survive a "rational basis" test because the administration had demonstrated that the ban did in fact serve the legitimate interest of national security. Multiple agencies had conducted a review beforehand of which countries allowed adequate vetting of their nationals, and the "travel ban" targets were selected--and changed--according to those reports.

Other opinions were also filed, both concurring (agreeing with the majority opinion of Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and Kennedy) and dissenting from it. While Kennedy agreed with the majority, he did so cautiously, warning government officials that just because a policy decision received judicial deference this time does not mean that courts will ignore clearer violations of civil liberties. Thomas concurred in judgment and expressed concern about nationwide injunctions being issued by district courts in the first place, calling the practice "legally and historically dubious" and suggesting that it might need to be ruled on by the Supreme Court in the future.

Breyer issued a soft dissent joined by Kagan on the grounds that the ban's waiver process for certain foreign nationals deemed to pose little risk--which was one factor cited by the majority in its decision that the ban was motivated by legitimate interests--existed in name only. Sotomayor and Ginsburg issued a much sharper dissent decrying the fact that the majority's decision "leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a 'total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States' because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns...by ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent, and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the Proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens."

Regardless of your feelings on this decision, it was for sure among the highest-impact decisions of this year and maybe even of this era. Of course it wasn't the only big decision of this year, but don't worry--there will be more reviews to come!