The Supreme Court November arguments will span seven hours of presentations over five days, starting Nov. 2 and ending Nov. 10, according to the calendar released Tuesday. The justices will hear a slate that includes a Catholic preschool’s challenge to Colorado’s universal preschool program and a dispute over whether a federal inmate may sue a prison official for alleged constitutional violations.
Supreme Court November arguments: religious discrimination dispute
In St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, the court will weigh whether excluding a Catholic preschool from Colorado’s program amounts to religious discrimination barred by the First Amendment. The school sought an exemption from state rules that require participating preschools to accept all applicants, including LGBTQ children and children of LGBTQ parents.
A federal appeals court upheld the state’s rules, finding under the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith that the requirements are neutral and generally applicable to all preschools, regardless of religious affiliation. Some states have urged the Supreme Court to keep in place other election-related limits while broader legal challenges play out.
In Nielsen v. Watanabe, the court will address whether federal inmate Kekai Watanabe, who says his coccyx was fractured in a fight, may sue prison officials who allegedly denied him hospital care and rejected multiple requests for treatment. Watanabe relies on the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, which recognized a damages action against federal officers for certain constitutional violations even absent a specific statute.
The government argues that Bivens should not extend to his claim. The case also involves the conduct of officials within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees federal correctional institutions nationwide.
The November argument schedule
- Maxwell v. Dinis (Nov. 2): Whether an inmate’s challenge to the calculation and application of time credits under the First Step Act, seeking faster transfer to a halfway house or home confinement, may proceed as a habeas petition.
- Younge v. Fulton Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office (Nov. 2): Whether a defendant may assert an affirmative defense later in the case when it was not raised in the answer to the complaint.
- St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy (Nov. 3): (1) Whether demonstrating a lack of general applicability under Employment Division v. Smith requires showing unfettered discretion or categorical exemptions for identical secular conduct. (2) Whether Carson v. Makin, which invalidated Maine’s exclusion of religious schools from a tuition program, displaces Smith’s rule only when the government expressly excludes religious entities.
- Guerrero v. Johnson (Nov. 4): Whether a death-row prisoner’s intellectual-disability claim, which would bar execution, fits within a narrow exception allowing a second federal post-conviction petition when the state contends he could have raised it earlier.
- Nielsen v. Watanabe (Nov. 9): Whether the lower court correctly allowed a federal prisoner’s damages suit against prison officials to proceed under Bivens.
- Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission (Nov. 9): How to determine just compensation when a private company exercises delegated federal eminent domain to secure rights of way for natural gas pipelines.
- Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, LLC (Nov. 10): Whether the Department of Labor may conduct hearings to collect funds from employers that violate terms of the seasonal agricultural worker visa program.