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The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020 and concluded October 3, 2021.[1]
Because per curiam decisions are issued from the Court as an institution, these opinions all lack the attribution of authorship or joining votes to specific justices. All justices on the Court at the time the decision was handed down are assumed to have participated and concurred unless otherwise noted.
Chief Justice: John Roberts
Associate Justices: Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett (confirmed Oct. 26, 2020)
| Full caption: | DeRay Mckesson v. John Doe |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Justia |
592 U.S. ___
Decided November 2, 2020.
Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Thomas dissented without separate opinion. Barrett did not participate in the consideration or decision of the case.
| Full caption: | Trent Michael Taylor v. Robert Riojas, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
592 U.S. ___
Decided November 2, 2020.
Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Thomas dissented without separate opinion. Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Barrett did not participate in the consideration or decision of the case.
| Full caption: | Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor Of New York |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Oyez |
592 U.S. ___
Decided November 25, 2020.
Application for injunctive relief granted.
The Court ordered New York State enjoined from enforcing Executive Order 202.68 with respect to religious groups, pending appeals.
Consolidated with Agudath Israel of America, et al. v. Cuomo. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh filed concurrences. Roberts filed a dissent. Breyer filed a dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan. Sotomayor filed a dissent, joined by Kagan.
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| Full caption: | David Shinn, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections v. George Russell Kayer |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Oyez |
592 U.S. ___
Decided December 14, 2020.
Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented without separate opinion.
| Full caption: | Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. State of New York, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Oyez |
592 U.S. ___
Argued November 30, 2020.
Decided December 18, 2020.
District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
Breyer filed a dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan.
| Full caption: | Tony Mays, Warden v. Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 592 U.S. ___ |
| Prior history: | Petition denied, Hines v. Carpenter, No. 05–00002 (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 16, 2015); rev'd, sub nom. Hines v. Mays, 814 Fed. Appx. 898 (6th Cir. 2020) |
| Laws applied: | U.S. Const. amend. VI |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
592 U.S. ___
Decided March 29, 2021.
Sixth Circuit reversed.
Sotomayor dissented without separate opinion.
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| Full caption: | Ritesh Tandon, et al. v. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 593 U.S. ___ |
| Prior history: | Injunction denied, 2021 WL 1185157 (9th Cir. 2021) |
| Laws applied: | U.S. Const. amend. I |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Findlaw |
593 U.S. ___
Decided April 9, 2021.
Application for injunctive relief granted.
Roberts noted without separate opinion that he would deny the application. Kagan filed a dissent, joined by Breyer and Sotomayor.
| Full caption: | Alaska v. Sean Wright |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 593 U.S. ___ |
| Prior history: | Petition denied, D. Alaska rev'd, 819 Fed. Appx. 544 (9th Cir. 2020) |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
593 U.S. ___
Decided April 26, 2021.
Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded.
| Full caption: | Jody Lombardo, et al. v. City of St. Louis, Missouri, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 594 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
594 U.S. ___
Decided June 28, 2021.
Eighth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Alito filed a dissent, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
| Full caption: | Peyman Pakdel, et ux. v. City and County of San Francisco, California, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 594 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
594 U.S. ___
Decided June 28, 2021.
Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded.
| Full caption: | Jefferson S. Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections v. Matthew Reeves |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 594 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Cornell |
594 U.S. ___
Decided July 2, 2021.
Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded.
Breyer dissented without separate opinion. Sotomayor filed a dissent, joined by Kagan.
| Full caption: | Alabama Association of Realtors, et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services, et al. |
|---|---|
| Citations: | 594 U.S. ___ |
| ---- | |
| Full text of the opinion: | official slip opinion · Findlaw |
594 U.S. ___
Decided August 26, 2021.
In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, which was designed to provide various forms of aid to people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. One provision of the Act was a 120-day moratorium on evictions from properties that participated in federal assistance programs or were subject to federally backed loans. When the moratorium expired in July, Congress chose not to renew it statutorily. Instead, the Director of the CDC administratively imposed a new moratorium that barred evictions from all properties and levied criminal penalties on property owners that violated it. The administrative moratorium was originally scheduled to expire on December 31, 2020, but as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, Congress renewed it until January 31, 2021. Before the new statutory deadline passed, the CDC moved again to administratively extend it - first through March, then through June, and finally through July 2021.
In May of 2021, the Alabama Association of Realtors sued, alleging that the CDC lacked the authority to extend the moratorium. The District Court granted summary judgement in favor of the realtors, but stayed its order pending appeal. The realtors appealed the stay in June, and the Supreme Court declined to vacate it. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett noted that they would have vacated the stay, while Justice Kavanaugh wrote that due to the moratorium expiring in only a few weeks, he voted to allow the stay to continue, but that "clear and specific congressional authorization" would be required for the CDC to extend the moratorium beyond July 31. On August 3, 2021, the CDC Director imposed a new moratorium. The realtors returned to court to seek vacatur of the stay. The District Court noted that the four dissenting votes in addition to Justice Kavanaugh's statement meant that the realtors were now likely to succeed on the merits if the case proceeded to the Supreme Court. However, the District Court concluded that its hands were tied by the precedent against vacating the stay. The realtors again appealed to the Supreme Court, which vacated the stay and ended the eviction moratorium.
Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. In it, he argued that the realtors were not as likely to succeed on the merits as the majority claimed, and thus the moratorium should have been stayed while litigation proceeded.
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