Six significant cases the justices are deciding whether to hear

This petition is scheduled to be considered for the first time at the Nov. 7 conference.

Miranda warnings from child welfare workers

Nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court held that suspects in police custody need to be advised of their right to remain silent and speak with an attorney when being interrogated. But do Miranda warnings also need to be offered anytime a child-protection caseworker speaks with a parent in police custody about issues that the caseworker may be required to report to the police? That’s the question before the court in Densmore v. Colorado, a petition filed by two men who say comments they made to caseworkers without a Miranda warning helped lead to their convictions on murder charges.  

In its ruling against the men, the Colorado Supreme Court acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court has held – in a case involving an IRS investigator – that you don’t have to be a law enforcement officer to engage in work that serves a “predominantly law enforcement purpose,” and therefore, that some non-officers may be required to issue Miranda warnings. But the Colorado Supreme Court determined that child-welfare caseworkers don’t always fit in that category, because their primary purpose in interviews often is working out a care plan for the suspect’s child, not furthering the case against the suspect. The need for a Miranda warning from caseworkers should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, the court concluded. 

This petition is scheduled to be considered for the first time at the Nov. 7 conference.

Religion and COVID-19 vaccination

In Does 1-2 v. Hochul, the court has been asked to return to a question that popped up across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic: What, if anything, do employers owe to workers fired because of religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccines? 

The dispute centers on a New York state mandate that required employees at hospitals and nursing homes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 if, once infected, they could expose patients, residents, or other employees to the virus. The mandate has since been repealed, but a group of unnamed workers who lost their jobs when they refused for religious reasons to be vaccinated are seeking money damages from their former employers. They contend that the employers violated a federal law on religious accommodations in the workplace.

This petition originally was considered during the Sept. 29 conference, and it was then relisted for the two conferences in October. The justices will consider it again on Nov. 7. 

Gun bans for 18-to-20-year-olds 

The court is set to consider four petitions on gun rights that essentially pose the same question: Do laws barring adults under age 21 from purchasing guns violate the Second Amendment? Such laws have been challenged in multiple states since 2022, when the court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that modern-day gun laws need historical analogues if they are to satisfy the Second Amendment. 

These petitions are scheduled to be considered for the first time at the Nov. 14 conference. If the court takes up this issue, it will become the third gun rights question on this term’s oral arguments docket. The justices already have agreed to hear cases on a federal law that prohibits habitual drug users from having a gun and a Hawaii law that prohibits concealed carry permit holders from bringing their guns on private property without the property owner’s express permission.

Football game prayers

In Cambridge Christian School v. Florida High School Athletic Association, the court has been asked to consider whether a private Christian school in Florida should have been allowed to broadcast a brief pregame prayer over a loudspeaker before a championship football game in 2015. The Florida High School Athletic Association did not allow the communal prayer because it was concerned that such a broadcast at one of its events would violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

Several prominent religious freedom organizations – as well as former high school football coach Joseph Kennedy, who won a similar First Amendment case in front of the Supreme Court in 2022 – have filed amicus, or friend-of-the-court, briefs in support of Cambridge Christian School’s petition. In its own filing, the Florida High School Athletic Association urged the court not to take up the school’s “retrospective” claims, contending that the potential ruling would “have minimal impact on anyone else in Florida” because the state has now passed a law allowing all schools participating in FHSAA championship games “to make a pregame statement of their choosing, including a prayer.”

This petition is scheduled to be considered for the first time at the Nov. 14 conference.

Looking ahead

The Supreme Court is expected to add around 30 more cases to this term’s oral argument docket over the next few months. We likely will know if any of these disputes make the cut by the end of November. 

A shorter version of this piece previously appeared in the SCOTUStoday newsletter.