The Supreme Court is expected to issue important decisions on social media rights, immunity for former presidents and the obstruction charge used in the Jan. 6 case.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has extended by two days its deadline to announce decisions in nearly a dozen cases where decisions are still pending this week.
According to the Supreme Court’s website, the court is scheduled to announce its rulings on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. Previously, only Wednesday was scheduled as a ruling day.
The Supreme Court has yet to rule on many of this term’s high-profile cases, including whether a federal law requiring hospitals that receive Medicare funds to perform abortions in cases of medical emergencies overrides an Idaho law that criminalizes most abortions. Other outstanding cases include a ruling on whether the Biden administration censored protected speech on social media and whether to uphold a bankruptcy settlement with a maker of the opioid OxyContin that exempts members of the Sackler family, who own the company, from civil liability.
But topping the Supreme Court’s watch list is the court’s decision on whether former President Donald Trump enjoys immunity from prosecution for acts committed while in office. Trump faces criminal charges in both Washington and Georgia for crimes he allegedly committed as part of efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. During oral arguments in April, the justices were entirely skeptical of the argument that Trump should enjoy absolute immunity from all criminal prosecution, but they also questioned whether the court would uphold a trend toward prosecuting presidents after they leave office.
“Wouldn’t that put us in a vicious cycle that would destabilize our democracy?” asked Justice Samuel Alito.
The trial in Washington, D.C., originally scheduled for March 4, has already been significantly delayed by Trump’s appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court. Even if the Supreme Court’s decision does not require further review at the district level, it seems increasingly unlikely that a trial will take place before the November election.
The Supreme Court is also considering an appeal of the obstruction statute that has led to the prosecution of hundreds of people, including Trump, in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The plaintiff, former Pennsylvania state police officer Joseph W. Fisher, argues that the Justice Department improperly used a post-Enron law that criminalizes the destruction of evidence to prosecute more than 300 people, including Fisher, for disrupting a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. The Justice Department has said its use of the statute is consistent with how appeals courts across the country have interpreted it since it became law as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
The Supreme Court begins publishing its decisions each day at 10 a.m. The decisions are then posted on the Court’s homepage with a link to the full decision.
