The record consists of opinions from the Supreme Court of the United States issued between 2025 and 2026. The decisions address matters in criminal law, business and regulatory issues, and elections.
Criminal law
These rulings addressed federal criminal prosecutions, sentencing, and related statutory questions.
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Supreme Court considered whether federal election-day statutes (3 U.S.C. §1 and 2 U.S.C. §§1, 7), which set a uniform Tuesday in November for choosing federal officeholders, preempt a Mississippi law allowing certain voters to cast absentee ballots by mail or common carrier if postmarked by election day and received within five business days. The Court held that the statutes do not bar Mississippi from counting such ballots. It reasoned that the term "election" has long been understood to refer to the electorate's act of choosing candidates by casting votes, not to the later receipt or counting of ballots; this reading is reinforced by related federal law such as UOCAVA (which treats receipt deadlines as a state matter), constitutional provisions separating the day of voting from receipt, and the absence of any explicit nationwide receipt deadline in the election-day statutes themselves.
In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, Falun Gong practitioners sued Cisco and its executives, alleging that the company aided the Chinese government’s persecution by supplying surveillance technology used to identify and detain them, and sought damages under the Alien Tort Statute for aiding and abetting violations of international law as well as under the Torture Victim Protection Act for aiding and abetting torture. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that courts may not create new causes of action under the ATS for violations of international norms, including aiding-and-abetting liability, and that the TVPA does not authorize aiding-and-abetting claims. The Court reasoned that the ATS is strictly jurisdictional and that fashioning new rights of action would improperly intrude on Congress’s authority to create causes of action and on the political branches’ conduct of foreign policy; it further concluded that the TVPA’s text, which imposes liability only on those who “subject” another to torture, does not encompass aiding and abetting because it lacks any express reference to that form of liability.
The Supreme Court case addressed whether Section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act (ICA) creates an implied private right of action allowing shareholders to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the statute. Petitioners, closed-end funds incorporated in Maryland, had adopted resolutions limiting voting rights of large shareholders under the Maryland Control Share Acquisition Act; respondents Saba Capital sued under Section 47(b), claiming these resolutions violated the ICA’s equal-voting-rights rule for shares. The Court held that Section 47(b) does not authorize such private suits. It reasoned that the provision is a directive to courts about when to grant the remedy of rescission for already-performed contracts, rather than “rights-creating” language aimed at protecting a particular class of persons, and that the ICA’s structure—designating the SEC as primary enforcer while expressly authorizing only two narrow private actions—precludes implying additional ones. The decision reversed the lower courts’ contrary rulings.
In Rutherford v. United States, petitioners Daniel Rutherford and Johnnie Carter were each convicted of multiple §924(c) firearm offenses tied to crimes of violence and received stacked mandatory minimum sentences of 32 and 57 years, respectively. After Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018, which ended the 25-year stacking rule for first-time offenders but did not make the change retroactive to previously sentenced defendants, both men moved for sentence reductions under the compassionate release statute, 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A)(i), arguing that the resulting disparity qualified as an “extraordinary and compelling” reason. The Supreme Court held that a nonretroactive sentencing amendment cannot serve as such a reason, either alone or in combination with other factors. The Court explained that nonretroactivity is the ordinary practice when Congress changes penalties, that the statute’s text requires reasons sufficiently unusual and convincing to warrant relief, and that the Sentencing Commission’s 2023 policy statement treating unusually long sentences as qualifying grounds conflicts with the statute and is therefore invalid.
The case concerned Joe Fernandez, who was convicted in 2014 of murder for hire and a firearms offense based on testimony from an alleged co-conspirator and sentenced to consecutive life terms; after losing a direct appeal and two motions under 28 U.S.C. §2255, he sought compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A), arguing that doubts about the trial evidence and his possible innocence constituted “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a sentence reduction. The Supreme Court affirmed the Second Circuit’s reversal of the district court’s grant of relief, holding that a prisoner may not attack the validity of a conviction through a compassionate-release motion. The Court reasoned that Congress channeled collateral attacks on federal convictions exclusively through the specific, tightly constrained procedures of §2255—including its one-year limit, bar on successive petitions, and procedural-default rules—and that allowing such claims under §3582 would let prisoners evade those limits; it further noted that the text, structure, and history of §3582 focus on personal circumstances such as age, illness, or rehabilitation rather than legal challenges to the conviction itself.
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, the Supreme Court addressed whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) preempts a state-law negligent-hiring claim against a transportation broker. The case arose after petitioner Shawn Montgomery was severely injured when a truck driven by an employee of motor carrier Caribe Transport II, LLC—which had been hired by broker C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.—struck his vehicle; Montgomery alleged that Robinson negligently selected the carrier despite its poor federal safety rating. The lower courts held that the FAAAA’s preemption provision barred the claim. The Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the claim falls within the FAAAA’s safety exception, which preserves state regulatory authority over motor vehicle safety. The Court reasoned that negligent-hiring claims impose a duty of care in selecting carriers and directly concern the trucks used in transportation, thereby qualifying for the exception and avoiding preemption.
business & regulatoryfederal powertorts & liability
