Supreme Court Term 2023-2024
We’re breaking down the cases we've asked the court to consider this term.
Latest Case Updates
Ongoing
Updated August 29, 2024
Ongoing
Updated August 26, 2024
Ongoing
Updated August 12, 2024
Closed (Judgment)
Updated August 9, 2024
Featured
Minnesota Supreme Court
Aug 2024
![Minnesota](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/04/Minnesota.jpg)
Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Hunt
The ACLU and ACLU of Minnesota intervened as defendants to block an attempt by Minnesota Voters Alliance -- a private plaintiff group -- to challenge a law that restored voting rights to individuals convicted of a felony while they are "not incarcerated for the offense" and "including any period when they are on work release."
Status: Closed (Judgment)
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U.S. Supreme Court
Jul 2024
![Louisiana](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/03/Depositphotos_466919260_S-600x400.jpg)
Callais v. Landry
Whether the congressional map Louisiana adopted to cure a Voting Rights Act violation in Robinson v. Ardoin is itself unlawful as a gerrymander.
Status: Ongoing
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Nebraska Supreme Court
Jul 2024
![Nebraska vote](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/07/Vote-Nebraska-600x400.jpg)
Spung v. Evnen
Less than four months before the November 2024 presidential election, the Nebraska Secretary of State issued a directive embracing a non-binding opinion issued by the state Attorney General that would essentially reinstate permanent felony disenfranchisement and re-disenfranchise tens of thousands of Nebraska citizens. This directive is violative of both the Nebraska Constitution and several state statutes, and urgent relief is needed to avoid mass disenfranchisement of an entire class of Nebraska citizens.
Status: Ongoing
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South Carolina Supreme Court
Jul 2024
![South CArolina Supreme](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/07/GQStblrWIAAVtQW-600x315.jpg)
League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander
This case involves a state constitutional challenge to South Carolina’s 2022 congressional redistricting plan, which legislators admit was drawn to entrench a 6-1 Republican majority in the state’s federal delegation. Plaintiff the League of Women Voters of South Carolina has asked the state’s Supreme Court to conclude that the congressional map is an unlawful partisan gerrymander that violates the state constitution.
Status: Ongoing
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Ohio
Jul 2024
![dis](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/03/disability-600x400.jpg)
League of Women Voters of Ohio v. LaRose
In Ohio, HB 458 makes it a felony for any person who is not an election official or mail carrier to return an absentee voter's ballot—including voters with disabilities—unless the person assisting falls within an unduly narrow list of relatives. We are challenging the law because it violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) by making it exceedingly difficult for voters with disabilities to cast their ballots.
Status: Ongoing
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Mississippi
Jul 2024
![Mississippi](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/02/MS-Redistricting-Maps-Header-600x400.jpg)
Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP v. State Board of Election Commissioners
Mississippi has a growing Black population, which is already the largest Black population percentage of any state in the country. Yet. Black Mississippians continue to be significantly under-represented in the state legislature, as Mississippi’s latest districting maps fail to reflect the reality of the state’s changing demographics. During the 2022 redistricting process, the Mississippi legislature refused to create any new districts where Black voters have a chance to elect their preferred representative. The current district lines therefore dilute the voting power of Black Mississippians and continue to deprive them of political representation that is responsive to their needs and concerns, including severe disparities in education and healthcare.
Status: Closed (Judgment)
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Ohio
May 2024
![Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region et al., v. Ohio Department of Health, et al.](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region et al., v. Ohio Department of Health, et al.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the law firm WilmerHale, and Fanon Rucker of the Cochran Law Firm, on behalf of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, Preterm-Cleveland, Women’s Med Group Professional Corporation, Dr. Sharon Liner, and Julia Quinn, MSN, BSN, amended a complaint in an existing lawsuit against a ban on telehealth medication abortion services to bring new claims under the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment, including additional challenges to other laws in Ohio that restrict access to medication abortion in the state.
Status: Ongoing
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Texas
Apr 2024
![Crystal Mason](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/03/Crystal_Mason_1160x650-600x336.png)
Crystal Mason v. State of Texas
Crystal Mason thought she was performing her civic duty by filling out a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. She didn't know it would land her a five-year prison sentence, upending her family and the life she had built. At the time, Ms. Mason was on federal supervised release, a preliminary period of freedom for individuals who have served their full time of incarceration in federal prison. Ms. Mason didn’t know, and nobody told her, that the state considered her ineligible to vote while on supervised release. Because her name didn’t appear on voter rolls, she filed a provisional ballot, consistent with federal law. The state never counted her ballot but has still sought to send her to prison for an innocent mistake.
Status: Closed (Judgment)
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U.S. Supreme Court
Apr 2024
![Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States
Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Idaho politicians seeking to disregard a federal statute — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) — and put doctors in jail for providing pregnant patients necessary emergency medical care. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on this case on April 24, 2024. The Court’s ultimate decision will impact access to this essential care across the country.
Status: Ongoing
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All Cases
1,452 Court Cases
U.S. Supreme Court
Mar 2017
![Weaver v. Massachusetts](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Weaver v. Massachusetts
Whether, when defense counsel in a criminal trial, through constitutionally deficient performance, fails to object to “structural error,” the prejudice required to show ineffective assistance of counsel is presumed and thus shown as a matter of law.
Status: Ongoing
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![Weaver v. Massachusetts](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
U.S. Supreme Court
Criminal Law Reform
Weaver v. Massachusetts
Whether, when defense counsel in a criminal trial, through constitutionally deficient performance, fails to object to “structural error,” the prejudice required to show ineffective assistance of counsel is presumed and thus shown as a matter of law.
Mar 2017
Status: Ongoing
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U.S. Supreme Court
Mar 2017
![Davila v. Davis](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Davila v. Davis
Whether, in federal habeas review of a Texas death sentence, procedural default of an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim may be excused when the cause of the default is initial-collateral review counsel’s own ineffectiveness.
Status: Ongoing
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![Davila v. Davis](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
U.S. Supreme Court
Capital Punishment
Davila v. Davis
Whether, in federal habeas review of a Texas death sentence, procedural default of an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim may be excused when the cause of the default is initial-collateral review counsel’s own ineffectiveness.
Mar 2017
Status: Ongoing
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U.S. Supreme Court
Mar 2017
![County of Los Angeles v. Angel Mendez](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
County of Los Angeles v. Angel Mendez
Whether the Ninth Circuit’s “provocation rule” that police officers may be held liable for using force when they provoked a threatening reaction with a Fourth Amendment violation is consistent with the Supreme Court’s use of force analysis in Graham v. Connor and subsequent cases?
Status: Ongoing
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![County of Los Angeles v. Angel Mendez](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
U.S. Supreme Court
Criminal Law Reform
County of Los Angeles v. Angel Mendez
Whether the Ninth Circuit’s “provocation rule” that police officers may be held liable for using force when they provoked a threatening reaction with a Fourth Amendment violation is consistent with the Supreme Court’s use of force analysis in Graham v. Connor and subsequent cases?
Mar 2017
Status: Ongoing
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Mississippi
Mar 2017
![Dockery v. Hall](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Dockery v. Hall
The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Law Offices of Elizabeth Alexander, and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, filed a petition for class certification and expert reports for a federal lawsuit on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF). The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2013, describes the for-profit prison as hyper-violent, grotesquely filthy and dangerous. EMCF is operated "in a perpetual state of crisis" where prisoners are at "grave risk of death and loss of limbs." The facility, located in Meridian, Mississippi, is supposed to provide intensive treatment to the state's prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, many of whom are locked down in long-term solitary confinement.
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![Dockery v. Hall](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Mississippi
Smart Justice
Prisoners' Rights
Dockery v. Hall
The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Law Offices of Elizabeth Alexander, and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, filed a petition for class certification and expert reports for a federal lawsuit on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF). The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2013, describes the for-profit prison as hyper-violent, grotesquely filthy and dangerous. EMCF is operated "in a perpetual state of crisis" where prisoners are at "grave risk of death and loss of limbs." The facility, located in Meridian, Mississippi, is supposed to provide intensive treatment to the state's prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, many of whom are locked down in long-term solitary confinement.
Mar 2017
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Montana
Mar 2017
![Langford v. Bullock](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Langford v. Bullock
This case was filed on behalf of prisoners following a serious disturbance in 1991 at the Montana State Prison (MSP) that resulted in seven deaths. The lawsuit challenges inadequate medical and mental health care, overcrowding, and inadequate environmental and fire safety conditions, classification policy, and sex offender policies. The parties settled all issues except those related to treatment of protective custody prisoners, which were ultimately tried in a separate case filed by the Department of Justice. A settlement was reached in 1995, but it required monitoring by experts to assure compliance with the terms of the settlement.
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![Langford v. Bullock](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/fallback-case-gavel.png)
Montana
Prisoners' Rights
Langford v. Bullock
This case was filed on behalf of prisoners following a serious disturbance in 1991 at the Montana State Prison (MSP) that resulted in seven deaths. The lawsuit challenges inadequate medical and mental health care, overcrowding, and inadequate environmental and fire safety conditions, classification policy, and sex offender policies. The parties settled all issues except those related to treatment of protective custody prisoners, which were ultimately tried in a separate case filed by the Department of Justice. A settlement was reached in 1995, but it required monitoring by experts to assure compliance with the terms of the settlement.
Mar 2017
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