The Supreme Court’s June of Doom Is Upon Us

One area where the court may surprise everyone again is on tribal sovereignty. The justices heard two cases in February on the matter, one involving double jeopardy for prosecutions by tribal law enforcement and another that addresses tribal gaming powers on a reservation in Texas. Both of those rulings could be accompanied by the court’s decision in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a follow-up to its blockbuster 2020 ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. In McGirt, the Supreme Court effectively recognized that roughly half of Oklahoma was still Indian Country, prompting a furious backlash from Oklahoma’s governor and some local officials. Whether the justices will narrow McGirt by expanding the states’ powers to prosecute some crimes on reservations—and the broader implications that would have for tribal sovereignty—is an open question after oral arguments last month.

Other major decisions may draw fewer headlines but still have a significant long-term impact. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court will likely rewrite or clarify (depending on who you ask) its past precedents on when and how school employees can pray on the job with students. Vega v. Tekoh is a curious case on Miranda warnings and Section 1983 that could signal whether a critical mass of conservative justices are now willing to let police not read suspects their rights under the now-famous warning. And in one of the many Biden v. Texas–es out there, the justices will weigh in on the Trump-era “remain-in-Mexico” policy and whether the current president can now unwind it.

The court has previously met tight deadlines when it found itself overloaded in the last term, and it probably won’t end up missing its end-of-term deadline at the end of June. A more interesting question is whether the last-minute flurry is good for the justices’ decision-making process. There is no reason why the justices need to leave town before the Fourth of July weekend other than Washington, D.C.’s abysmal climate. Indeed, the Supreme Court no longer actually goes into recess at the end of each term; the court technically stays in session year-round so that they can keep hearing shadow-docket cases in the “off-season,” so to speak. It’s impossible to say whether the eleventh-hour haste affects the quality of the court’s work, of course. One hopes that their desire to get these cases done on time won’t affect their ability to get them done right. Then again, by the time June ends, the matter of whether the high court fulfilled its obligations to justice is likely to be the subject of considerable debate regardless of whether they fulfill their obligations to the calendar.