From SCOTUS

  • In Texas v. New Mexico, the court upholds the U.S.’s objections to a consent decree that would resolve the dispute over each state’s allocation of the waters of the Rio Grande.
  • The court rules 6-3 in Department of State v. Munoz that a citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.
  • In Erlinger v. United States, the court rules that under the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes mandatory prison terms, a judge should use a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard to decide whether the offenses were committed on separate occasions or instead a jury must make those decisions unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • In Smith v. Arizona, the court rules for the state that the confrontation clause does not bar an expert to present an absent analyst’s true statements in support the expert’s opinion.
  • The Supreme Court rejects the challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law that bans the possession of a gun by someone who has been the subject of a domestic violent restraining order in United States v. Rahimi.