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Jury duty for a justice.Believe it or not, Supreme Court justices sometimes have jury duty.Justice Sonia Sotomayor “was among the nearly 250 city residents who reported for jury duty at the D.C.Superior Court” on Tuesday, according to The New York Times.“By noon, the jury office had notified the justice that she would not be needed,” but she stuck around “to have lunch with some of the judges.” At the Court On Thursday, the court released its opinions in Fernandez v.United States, Rutherford v.United States, Pitchford v.Cain, and Flowers Foods v.- In Fernandez, which was decided 8-1, the court wrote on the avenue one must use to seek to challenge the validity of a conviction and concluded that doubts about the validity of a conviction do not qualify as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for relief under a federal statute that authorizes district courts to shorten prison sentences.Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion; Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, joined by Justice Elena Kagan; and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented alone.- The court also considered “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to shorten a sentence in Rutherford and held, 6-3, that a sentencing disparity created by Congress’ nonretroactive change to the mandatory penalties for using and carrying a gun during a crime of violence does not qualify as such a reason.Barrett wrote the majority opinion, and Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Kagan and Jackson.- In Pitchford, the court held, 5-4, that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably determined that Terry Pitchford, who is currently on death row in that state, had waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor’s asserted race-neutral reasons for peremptory strikes of four Black prospective jurors.Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Barrett.- In Flowers Foods, the court, in an opinion from Gorsuch, unanimously held that the Federal Arbitration Act’s exemption from compelled arbitration for workers “engaged in ...interstate commerce” can apply to a worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey and who does not cross state lines or interact with vehicles that do.After the opinion announcements, the justices met in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review.Orders from Thursday’s conference are expected on Monday at 9:30 a.m.The court has indicated that it may announce opinions on Thursday, June 4, at 10 a.m.We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30 a.m.Morning Reads Court Orders Customs Chief to Address Compliance on Refunding Tariffs Tony Romm, The New York Times On Wednesday, the Court of International Trade “ordered Rodney S.Scott, the head of U.S.Customs and Border Protection, to appear at a hearing next month on the Trump administration’s handling of roughly $166 billion in tariff refunds,” according to The New York Times.“The unexpected demand ...hinted at a judge’s ongoing concern that the government has not fully complied with a directive to return all of the money amassed under duties that were declared illegal by the Supreme Court earlier this year.” Supreme Court May Upend Congress Power Over Trump’s Iran War: Republicans Mandy Taheri, Newsweek As conflict continues in Iran, “Republicans defending President Donald Trump’s military actions” are contending that “a growing fight over the War Powers Resolution could ultimately land before the Supreme Court,” according to Newsweek.“The 1973 War Powers Resolution allows Congress to direct the president to withdraw U.S.forces from hostilities not authorized by lawmakers.” In recent weeks, it has been raised by Democrats as a way to end military strikes against Iran, which were not authorized by Congress.Members of the Trump administration have described the resolution as unconstitutional.Newsweek noted that “[i]f the administration did try to bring a lawsuit over the War Powers Resolution to the Supreme Court, the court would first have to decide whether to hear the case.Historically, courts have often avoided ruling” in such disputes “by saying they are political questions better resolved by Congress and the president, or by finding lawmakers lacked standing to sue.” A Low-Profile Supreme Court Ruling Stands to Change How Cities Build John Surico, Bloomberg One year ago, in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v.Eagle County, Colorado, the court “blunt[ed]” the powers of the National Environmental Policy Act, which “requires federal agencies to perform environmental impact statements (EIS) or environmental assessments (EA) to gauge the so-called upstream or downstream impacts of any project before work begins,” by limiting the scope of the environmental review required to satisfy it.Today, “cities and states interested in infrastructure projects are still trying to figure out” what the decision means for those projects, according to Bloomberg, but some experts believe they’ll face less government red tape than they did in the past.“Now we just want to tell the world: ‘You’ve been wanting to build.Now you can actually do it,’” said Sarah Feinberg, who served as an administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration under President Barack Obama.Samuel Alito’s Son Has Been Quietly Working for Trump’s Treasury Department Jose Pagliery, NOTUS Justice Samuel Alito’s son, Philip Alito, “quietly landed a political appointee job as a lawyer in the Treasury Department early last year … posing a potential conflict of interest,” including in challenges to the Trump administration’s new anti-weaponization fund, according to NOTUS, which cited “four former government officials.” “Alito has been working as an attorney with the Treasury’s office of the general counsel, which provides legal and policy advice to Secretary Scott Bessent.” In a statement to NOTUS, the Treasury Department said that “Philip Alito is currently detailed from the U.S.Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia ...and his portfolio covers a broad range of topics.As a matter of both professional and personal judgment, Phil does not counsel on any matters reasonably expected before the Supreme Court.” Similarly, Patricia McCabe, the Supreme Court’s public information officer, told NOTUS in a statement that Philip Alito “has not worked on any matter related to the tariffs imposed by the federal government.As a result, Justice Alito has not recused in those cases.” On Site Justice Barrett targeted in “swatting” incident By Amy Howe Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of a “swatting” incident – a false call reporting gunshots intended to provoke a response from law enforcement officials – on Wednesday night, according to a report on social media that was later confirmed by police in Fairfax County, Virginia, in a statement to the National Review.Supreme Court sides with death row inmate in challenge to racial discrimination in jury selection By Amy Howe The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a Mississippi man’s conviction and death sentence.By a vote of 5-4, the court in Pitchford v.Cain agreed with Terry Pitchford that the judge at his 2006 trial had not properly analyzed whether the prosecutor in Pitchford’s case violated the Constitution’s ban on racial discrimination in jury selection.How often do courts actually cite emergency docket orders?By Taraleigh Davis Taraleigh Davis analyzed the “precedential weight” of the Supreme Court’s emergency docket orders.She found that 53% of 475 substantive emergency applications filed between 2000 and 2024 have been cited by at least one federal court as of October 2025, and contended that a “precedent system is developing through practice, case by case, citation by citation, without the transparency that normally accompanies precedent-setting.” Justice Joseph Story 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