Another Supreme Court term has come to a close. This year, the court delivered major decisions on abortion access, democracy, free speech, the rights of unhoused people, and gun safety among other issues. The ACLU was involved in cases throughout the term, including as lead counsel in a 9-0 victory for free speech.

However, the court radically moved the nation's law, threatening democracy, opening the doors for governments to criminally punish people because of who they are, and imperiling what abortion access remains throughout the U.S. following the court's 2022 Dobbs decision.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court greatly expanded presidential immunity, making presidents more akin to a king than a public servant.

The opinion gives presidents legal cover to break the law when arguably using their formal powers to do so. This immunity includes much of former President Trump’s conduct in his effort to overturn a free and fair election that he lost. In a sharp opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “with fear for our democracy, I dissent.” 

This decision means a president could commit absolute atrocities in office – turning the Armed Forces against political opponents, using the Justice Department to investigate or prosecute critics of the president, or worse – and as long as their actions are "official," they will be immune from criminal prosecution. 

Regarding former President Trump, the court ruled that he is at least presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts and is absolutely immune for some “core” of them – including his attempts to use the Justice Department to obstruct the results of the election. The majority also made it more difficult to consider evidence of criminal conduct.

The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the U.S. Constitution and decades of Supreme Court precedent support the principle that nobody is above the law – even the president. The ACLU’s brief further argued that while it has long been recognized that presidents cannot be prosecuted criminally in office, even presidents themselves have recognized that they can be prosecuted after leaving office. That is why President Gerald Ford deemed it necessary to pardon President Richard Nixon in 1974 following the Watergate scandal – a pardon that would have been unnecessary were Nixon immune from criminal prosecution. 

Congress must pass a constitutional amendment restoring presidential liability – because our democracy and freedom depend on our ability to hold public officials accountable no matter who is in charge.

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about the case here. 

The Supreme Court ruled that states and cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping in public, even if shelters are full and they have nowhere else to go.

The decision in Grants Pass eviscerates precedent that prohibited the government from punishing people simply for existing while homeless because doing so constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The court has opened the door for cities to legally try to punish people out of poverty, but our state and local leaders still have a choice. They can either continue the same failed policies and further harm the most vulnerable in our communities, or they can address the root causes of homelessness by increasing access to housing, health care, education, and jobs. 

Despite this ruling, unhoused people still have rights under state and federal law, including due process, freedom from discrimination, and protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

Know your rights while experiencing homelessness

The decision stems from a challenge to an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon, barring people from sleeping outside in public using a blanket, pillow, or something as basic as a cardboard sheet. A lower court ruled these restrictions violate the Eighth Amendment’s protections from cruel and unusual punishment by removing unhoused people’s ability “to take…rudimentary precautions to protect themselves from the elements.” 

The ACLU submitted a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that punishing unhoused people for sleeping outside when they cannot access shelter violates the Eighth Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment. As the brief highlights, the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment and its application in over 100 years of Supreme Court cases make clear that the government cannot punish people in ways that are disproportionate to the crime. 

We cannot ticket, fine, and jail our way out of homelessness, and the ACLU of Maine will continue opposing policies that treat unhoused people as criminals when they are simply trying to survive.

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about this case here. 

The Supreme Court dismissed a case challenging health care providers’ ability to provide emergency abortion care under federal law, sending the case back to the lower court without ruling on the merits.

Idaho’s ban on emergency abortion care has forced health care providers to choose between denying treatment to a patient in a medical emergency or facing criminal prosecution. The decision temporarily restores patients' ability to access emergency abortion care, as required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), but the court has only continued to put pregnant patients at unnecessary risk by declining to resolve the merits of the case. 

Moreover, the dissenting opinion by Justice Alito, joined by Justices Gorsuch and Thomas, will embolden those who are pursuing a strategy to give legal rights to embryos and fetuses that will override the rights of the pregnant person and ban not only abortion, but other forms of reproductive health care like fertility treatment and birth control. 

EMTALA is a 1986 federal law that requires any hospital with an emergency room that receives Medicare funds (virtually all hospitals) to provide stabilizing treatment to any patient experiencing an emergency medical condition. Following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs, one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country took effect in Idaho.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Idaho in August 2022 since the state law violated EMTALA. A lower court granted an injunction, but Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court lifted the injunction, allowing the law to take effect during litigation, and took the case in January 2024. 

The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief explaining how Idaho’s arguments cannot be justified under the Supreme Court’s own precedents and that all three branches of government have long recognized that hospitals are required to provide emergency abortion care to any patient who needs it under EMTALA.

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about this case here.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected a request by anti-abortion groups to impose nationwide restrictions on mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in almost two-thirds of abortions nationwide and also used for miscarriage care.

The decision will preserve the state-level patchwork of access to medication abortion for now, and medication abortion and miscarriage care remain legal in Maine – but today’s ruling is far from the end of the line.

This unanimous decision clarifies that the availability and use of this medication does not violate the rights of those who do not want to use it. Abortion bans in other states still stand and the court could consider other challenges in the future.

The case reached the Supreme Court after a federal district judge in Texas attempted to remove mifepristone from the market and the Fifth Circuit for the United States Court of Appeals imposed severe nationwide restrictions. In today’s ruling, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s decision because the anti-abortion doctors who brought the case do not have a sufficient connection to the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone for legal standing.

The ACLU filed an amicus brief in this case highlighting how the lower court decisions imposing sweeping restrictions on mifepristone relied heavily on unreliable testimony and flawed research from a handful of witnesses who oppose abortion in all circumstances and want to see it banned nationwide.

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about this case here.

The Supreme Court upheld a federal law that makes it a felony for anyone subject to a civil domestic violence restraining order to possess a gun.

A lower court had invalidated the law because it found no analogues that restricted gun possession for those who commit domestic violence in the 1700s or 1800s, a time when federal and state governments largely ignored domestic violence. 

The lower court took that approach because the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Bruen required, in essence, that any modern gun safety laws have a historical twin law. That approach risks freezing government’s ability to protect people from newly recognized threats and tethers the authority to regulate gun possession to periods when governments disregarded many forms of violence directed against women, Black people, Indigenous people, and others.  

By upholding the law, the Supreme Court rejected an expansive argument proposed by the United States and adopted a narrower theory the ACLU advanced. The ACLU submitted a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold the law, but on narrower grounds than those advanced by the government. 

The ACLU’s brief argued that imposing time-limited firearms restrictions based on civil restraining orders is a critical tool for protecting people who have experienced domestic violence and face a threat of further violence, and finds support in common law analogues disarming persons found dangerous. But the ACLU urged the court to reject the government’s argument that gun rights extend only to “responsible citizens.” The court expressly rejected that theory. 

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about this case here. 

The Supreme Court heard challenges to Texas and Florida laws that allowed the government to regulate how large social media companies like Facebook and YouTube curate content posted on their sites. The court sent the two cases challenging the laws back to the lower courts, ruling unanimously that the lower courts hadn’t conducted a proper analysis of the First Amendment challenges. The court also made clear that government regulation of how social media platforms curate their feeds violates the First Amendment. 

The court recognized that the government cannot control social media to impose its own vision of what online speech should look like. This is crucial to protecting the right to speak freely online and access information on the internet. 

The ACLU, ACLU of Texas, and ACLU of Florida joined a friend-of-the-court brief led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) urging the court to block the two laws. The ACLU and its partners argued that, under the guise of “prohibiting censorship,” these laws would have replaced the private entities’ editorial voice with preferences dictated by the government. 

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about the case here.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a New York state regulator violated the National Rifle Association’s First Amendment rights.

The government employee used her official position to coerce private companies to blacklist the group because she disagreed with its political views. The ACLU represented the NRA, arguing that any government attempt to blacklist an advocacy group because of its viewpoint violates the First Amendment.

The ACLU disagrees sharply with the NRA on many issues but represented the group because of the First Amendment principles at stake. This case sets an important precedent for the free speech rights of all advocacy organizations, including the ACLU. While government officials are free to speak their mind, the First Amendment bars them from abusing their authority to pressure others to penalize speech based on its viewpoint. 

While the NRA advocates for dangerous policies that disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities, the ACLU challenged Vullo’s actions because allowing them to stand would have opened the door for other government officials to blacklist organizations like the ACLU. For instance, a governor like Ron Desantis might have used his authority to blacklist LGBTQ and other civil rights groups in Florida. 

Government officials cannot have unfettered power to blacklist – and ultimately punish – any organization until it can no longer pursue its mission simply because they disagree with the organization’s political stance.

Read the court’s opinion here and read more about the case here.

In addition to these significant decisions, the court has already taken up two ACLU cases for the upcoming term, including a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care and internet censorship in Texas.

We are only able to show up in all of these cases – and cases to come – because of the unwavering support of people like you. Thank you so much for fueling our work through this Supreme Court session and for being by our side as we navigate the road ahead.
 

Home is both a physical place and a concept. In the popular imagination, home is a refuge, a shelter, a place of safety and belonging. It is where we come from and where we return.

We fill our homes with the things most precious to us, surrounding ourselves with the sights of beloved possessions, the sounds of our favorite music, and the aroma of our favorite foods.  Those who have always had a home often take it for granted. Like breathing, it is something we fundamentally rely upon but rarely think about.

To be homeless in our society means that not only were your needs out of reach, but also that your network of family and friends, and whatever “safety net” of social programs were available have been exhausted.

Being unhoused means that you are at the mercy of the weather, of law enforcement, and of your community – it creates vulnerability in so many ways that it can be difficult to imagine for those who have always been housed. To be unhoused means you don’t even have the dignity and privacy to engage in essential activities, like sleeping or using the bathroom, things that would be considered a crime if done in public.

Despite the importance of a home and the vulnerability of being unhoused, the United States Supreme Court has now made life even more dangerous for the 650,000 unhoused Americans and increased the risks for millions more who are living on the edge and housing-insecure.

Many like to think that homelessness is rare, a problem on the margins. In fact, it is a social problem that does not exist in every society, yet it is increasingly common throughout the country. Between 2012-2022, homelessness grew by 67% in Maine alone.

The growing number of unhoused people is the result of broad economic forces and policy issues, not of individual behaviors or decision making. While our elected officials and policymakers allude to the “housing crisis,” they have done very little to create affordable housing options or stand up a robust shelter system here in Maine. Instead, the focus has been on continuing to blame, punish, and shame homeless people themselves, continuing a decade’s long trend of attempting – and failing – to punish people out of poverty.

Several towns and cities throughout Maine are imposing criminal penalties for all kinds of non-criminal behavior: sleeping, standing, sitting, and even “loafing”. Most recently, Bangor passed an ordinance banning people from being on certain medians and imposing fines of up to $2,500, even if they are not creating a safety hazard. One of the problems with these laws is that they punish all kinds of legal activities, including protected free speech and free expression. They also penalize people for being homeless in public, in an effort to push them into the shadows rather than address the reasons they are homeless to begin with.

Ordinances targeting unhoused people are nothing new and not unique to Maine.

In 2002, the Ninth Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon, that banned unhoused people from sleeping on public property, even when shelters were full. The ban also prohibited people from using bedding, pillows, sleeping bags, or something as simple as a sheet of cardboard.

The lower court ruled these restrictions violated the Eighth Amendment’s protections from cruel and unusual punishment by removing unhoused people’s ability “to take…rudimentary precautions to protect themselves from the elements.” Remember, Grants Pass sought to punish people for trying to survive outside even when shelters were full and they had no other options.

Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed that decision and opened the door for states and cities to punish poor people simply for existing in public spaces, people who literally have nowhere else to go.

However, just because the court has ruled that cities can pursue punitive policies does not mean that they must or should.

Additionally, unhoused people are still entitled to protections under state and federal law, including due process, freedom from discrimination, and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Fines and jail time will not change the circumstances unhoused people face, because they do not address the root causes of the housing crisis.

Housing is a deep and abiding human need, and ignoring the issue causes grave harm to our communities. Despite this cruel ruling, our state and local leaders still have a choice. Instead of attempting to punish people out of poverty, they must address the root causes immediately and vigorously, ensuring access to shelter, health care, and education for all in need.

Today, the Supreme Court declined to issue a ruling in Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States. Instead, it sent the case back down to the lower courts where anti-abortion extremists will continue to fight to strip pregnant people of the basic right to emergency care, including when their life is at risk.

While the court’s decision temporarily restores the ability of doctors in Idaho to provide emergency abortions required under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act —EMTALA— by dismissing the case without affirming once and for all that pregnant people have a right to the emergency abortion care they need to protect their health and lives, the court continues to put pregnant patients at unnecessary risk.

Below, we break down why the case matters, and what happens next.

EMTALA requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing treatment to patients in emergency situations. Since it was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the federal government–across Democratic and Republican administrations–has consistently recognized that EMTALA requires hospitals to provide emergency abortion care to any patient who needs it. For nearly 40 years, EMTALA has been a crucial tool in guaranteeing the right to emergency care for pregnant patients in need.

Although the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade did not diminish these longstanding federal protections, extremist politicians still tried to prevent people experiencing emergency pregnancy complications from getting care in emergency rooms. In this case, Idaho, which has a near total abortion ban, went all the way to the Supreme Court for the power to criminalize emergency abortions required under EMTALA.

The ACLU and the Cooley Law Firm filed a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of EMTALA. We explained that the law clearly requires hospitals to provide emergency abortion care, regardless of state abortion bans like Idaho’s and others, and that pregnant people cannot be excluded from EMTALA’s protections. The court’s concurring opinion authored by Justice Elena Kagan, and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in part, echoes the arguments we laid out in our brief.

The Supreme Court had the opportunity to affirm that every pregnant person in this country is entitled to the emergency care they need to protect their health and lives, and it failed to do so. The court’s refusal to safeguard the right to emergency abortion care–and put an unequivocal end to extremist attacks by anti-abortion politicians on this essential health care –puts pregnant patients at risk and devalues equality under the law.

Two Years Post-Roe: Life in the Aftermath

Two Years Post-Roe: Life in the Aftermath

On this episode, we’re going back into our archives to share an episode that unfortunately still has deep resonance today. Last year, we asked you what a year without Roe has been like in your lives and you responded in droves. Today, with abortio...

On this episode, we’re going back into our archives to share an episode that unfortunately still has deep resonance today. Last year, we asked you what a year without Roe has been like in your lives and you responded in droves. Today, with abortio...

Visit this episode

Importantly, the court’s order does nothing to stop the chaos and confusion unleashed by abortion bans across the country, which still prevent providers from giving appropriate medical care to patients when they need it most. While the court’s order does provide a temporary reprieve for pregnant patients in Idaho facing medical emergencies, it also allows extremist politicians in the case to continue to fight to put doctors in jail simply for providing essential care. And, alarmingly, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, wrote a dissenting opinion that provides a roadmap for just how they would strip pregnant people of the right to emergency abortion care should this case return to the Supreme Court.

The dissenting opinion also indicates a willingness to endorse an extreme strategy to give legal rights to embryos and fetuses that will override the rights of the pregnant person, and could lead not only to a national abortion ban, but bans on other forms of reproductive health care like fertility treatment and birth control.

This case proves that this battle is far from over. Extremist politicians are coming for our reproductive freedom and will not stop until abortion, including emergency abortion, is banned in all 50 states. They already went all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to put doctors in jail for providing life-and health-saving emergency abortion care, and they will do it again if we let them.

At the ACLU, we’ll continue to use every tool at our disposal to fight attacks on our bodily autonomy. We urge Congress to act now and pass federal protections for abortion rights that will end extreme bans in states and protect access to care nationwide.