Procedures

• STEP 1 (of 4)

  As a class, view the video clip below to learn about the process and importance of oral arguments during a Supreme Court case.

  Supreme Court Oral Arguments (7:42): The justices of the Supreme Court discuss the process and importance of the oral arguments during a Supreme Court case.

  • How long are the oral arguments for most cases in the Supreme Court? Why are they limited to this time?
  • What is most time during an oral argument spent on? Why do you think this is the case?
  • Explain at least three key points that the justices or attorneys shared about the questioning period. What similarities and differences do you notice from these views?
  • Do you think the oral argument process is effective? Explain why it is or how it could be more effective.

• STEP 2 (of 4)

  Direct your students to select a Supreme Court case from below and complete the chart as they listen to the oral arguments. The list of oral arguments will be updated as the Supreme Court term continues.

  Lesson Materials:

  • Handout: Supreme Court Oral Arguments Notetaking Chart (Google Doc).
  • Resource: The U.S. Supreme Court on C-SPAN (Website).
  • Resource: Oyez (Website).
  • Resource: SCOTUSblog (Website).

• 10/2/2023: Pulsifer v. United States (1:40:30).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Must a defendant show he does not meet any of the criteria listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) to qualify for a sentence lower than the statutory minimum?

• 10/3/2023: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited (1:34:28, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the funding scheme for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which receives funding directly from the Federal Reserve, violate the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution?

• 10/4/2023: Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer (1:24:48).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does an ADA “tester” have Article III standing to challenge a hotel’s failure to provide disability accessibility information on its website, even if she has no plans to visit the hotel?

• 10/10/2023: Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC (1:28:12).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Under 18 U.S.C. § 1514A, must a whistleblower prove his employer acted with “retaliatory intent” as part of his case in chief?

• 10/10/2023: Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC (1:11:06).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is a choice-of-law clause in a maritime contract unenforceable if enforcement would conflict with the “strong public policy” of the state whose law is displaced?

• 10/11/2023: Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP (2:05:56, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the South Carolina legislature’s redistricting map, which has the effect of moving tens of thousands of Black voters to a different district, constitute an impermissible racial gerrymander, even if the legislators’ purported intent was merely a political gerrymander?

• 10/30/2023: Culley v. Marshall (1:40:42).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): What test must a district court apply when determining whether and when a post-deprivation hearing is required under the Due Process Clause?

• 10/31/2023: O'Connor-Ratcliff V. Garnier (1:40:54).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does a public official engage in state action subject to the First Amendment by blocking an individual from the official’s personal social media account, which the official uses to communicate about job-related matters with the public?

• 10/31/2023: Lindke v. Freed (1:17:43).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): When does a public official’s social media activity constitute state action subject to the First Amendment?

• 11/1/2023: Vidal v. Elster (1:16:10).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the refusal to register a trademark under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(c) when the mark contains criticism of a government official or public figure violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment?

• 11/6/2023: Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz (1:18:28).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Do the civil-liability provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act unequivocally and unambiguously waive the sovereign immunity of the United States?

• 11/7/2023: United States v. Rahimi (1:33:16, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders, violate the Second Amendment?

• 11/8/2023: Rudisill v. McDonough (1:10:34).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is a veteran who has served two separate and distinct periods of qualifying service under the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post-9/11 GI Bill entitled to receive a total of 48 months of education benefits without first exhausting the Montgomery benefit in order to obtain the more generous Post-9/11 benefit?

• 11/27/2023: Brown v. United States (1:25:17).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the "serious drug offense" definition in the Armed Career Criminal Act incorporate the federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the federal firearm offense?

• 11/28/2023: McElrath v. Georgia (59:42).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibit a second prosecution for a crime of which a defendant was previously acquitted?

• 11/28/2023: Wilkinson v. Garland (1:30:43).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is an agency determination that a given set of established facts does not rise to the statutory standard of “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” a mixed question of law and fact reviewable under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), or instead a discretionary judgment call unreviewable under Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(i)?

• 11/29/2023: SEC v. Jarkesy (2:17:04).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the statutory scheme that empowers the Securities and Exchange Commission violate the Seventh Amendment, the nondelegation doctrine, or Article II of the U.S. Constitution?

• 12/4/2023: Harrington v. Purdue Pharma (1:44:21).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the Bankruptcy Code authorize a court to approve, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, a release that extinguishes claims held by non-debtors against non-debtor third parties, without the claimants’ consent?

• 12/5/2023: Moore v. United States (2:05:05).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the 16th Amendment authorize Congress to tax unrealized sums without apportionment among the states?

• 12/6/2023: Muldrow v. St. Louis (1:37:04).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit discrimination in transfer decisions absent a separate court determination that the transfer decision caused a signification disadvantage?

• 1/8/2024: Campos-Chaves v. Garland (1:40:30).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the government provides adequate notice under 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a) when it serves an initial notice document that does not include the “time and place” of proceedings followed by an additional document containing that information?

• 1/8/2024: FBI v. Fikre (1:22:06).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Are respondent’s claims challenging his placement on the No Fly List moot, given that he was removed from the No Fly List in 2016 and the government provided a sworn declaration stating that he “will not be placed on the No Fly List in the future based on the currently available information”?

• 1/9/2024: Sheetz v. County of Eldorado, California (1:29:08).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is a monetary exaction imposed by a local government as a condition for a building permit exempt from the “essential nexus” and “rough proportionality” requirements established in Nollan v. Cal. Coastal Comm’n and Dolan v. City of Tigard, simply because the exaction is authorized by local legislation?

• 1/9/2024: United States Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC (1:02:53).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Must the U.S. Trustee issue refunds for the extra fees paid by debtors in certain districts to address the lack of uniformity identified in Siegel v. Fitzgerald?

• 1/10/2024: Smith v. Arizona (1:29:07).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment permit the prosecution in a criminal trial to present testimony by a substitute expert conveying the testimonial statements of a nontestifying forensic analyst?

• 1/16/2024: Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. v. Moab Partners, L.P. (1:06:12).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): May a failure to make a disclosure required under Item 303 of SEC Regulation S-K support a private claim under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, even in the absence of an otherwise misleading statement?

• 1/16/2024: Devillier v. Texas (1:12:30).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): May a party sue a state directly under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment?

• 1/17/2024: Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce (2:12:16, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key questions in case (as listed on Oyez.org): 1. Should Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council be overruled? 2. Does statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency?

• 1/17/2024: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (1:16:56, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key questions in case (as listed on Oyez.org): 1. Does the Magnuson-Stevens Act authorize the National Marine Fisheries Service to promulgate a rule that would require industry to pay for at-sea monitoring programs? 2. Should the Court overrule Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council or at least clarify whether statutory silence on controversial powers creates an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency?

• 2/8/2024: Trump v. Anderson (2:09:38, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment disqualify Donald Trump from holding the office of President of the United States and thus from appearing on Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot?

• 2/20/2024: Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1:10:30).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does a plaintiff’s claim under the Administrative Procedure Act “first accrue” under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) when an agency issues a rule, or when the rule first causes harm to the plaintiff?

• 2/20/2024: Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries (1:00:52).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): To be exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, must a class of workers that is actively engaged in interstate transportation also be employed by a company in the transportation industry?

• 2/21/2024: Ohio v. EPA (1:30:29).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Should the Court stay the EPA’s federal emissions reduction rule, the Good Neighbor Plan, and are the emissions controls imposed by the rule reasonable regardless of the number of states subject to the rule?

• 2/21/2024: Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy (53:54).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Under the discovery accrual rule applied by the circuit courts and the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations for civil actions, 17 U.S.C. § 507(b), may a copyright plaintiff recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before the filing of a lawsuit?

• 2/26/2024: Moody v. NetChoice (2:23:22, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Do Florida S.B. 7072’s content-moderation restrictions comply with the First Amendment, and do the law’s individualized-explanation requirements comply with the First Amendment?

• 2/26/2024: NetChoice v. Paxton (1:21:05, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Do Texas HB 20’s provisions prohibiting social media platforms from censoring users’ content and imposing stringent disclosure requirements violate the First Amendment?

• 2/27/2024: McIntosh v. United States (49:48).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): May a district court enter a criminal forfeiture order when the time limit specified in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure has already passed?

• 2/27/2024: Cantero v. Bank of America (1:48:23).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the National Bank Act preempt the application of state escrow-interest laws to national banks?

• 2/28/2024: Garland v. Cargil (1:31:35, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is a bump stock device a “machinegun” as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b)?

• 2/28/2024: Coinbase v. Suski (43:40).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): When parties enter into an arbitration agreement with a delegation clause, does an arbitrator or a court decide whether that arbitration agreement is narrowed by a later contract that is silent as to arbitration and delegation?

• 3/18/2024: Murthy v. Missouri (1:43:22, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Did the federal government’s request that private social media companies take steps to prevent the dissemination of purported misinformation transform those companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and thus violate users’ First Amendment rights?

• 3/18/2024: NRA v. Vullo (1:15:00).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does a New York regulator’s discouragement of companies from doing business with the National Rifle Association after the Parkland school shooting constitute coercion in violation of the First Amendment?

• 3/19/2024: Diaz v. United States (1:25:13).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Under Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b), may a governmental expert witness testify that couriers know they are carrying drugs and that drug-trafficking organizations do not entrust large quantities of drugs to unknowing transporters to prove that the defendant knew she was carrying illegal drugs?

• 3/19/2024: Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc. (1:13:14).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is an insurer with financial responsibility for a bankruptcy claim a “party in interest” that may object to a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code?

• 3/20/2024: Gonzalez v. Trevino (1:26:24).

  Key questions in case (as listed on Oyez.org): 1. Can the probable-cause exception in Nieves v. Barlett be satisfied by objective evidence other than specific examples of arrests that never happened? 2. Is Nieves limited to individual claims against arresting officers for split-second arrests?

• 3/20/2024: Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado (1:09:06).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): May a court enter a consent decree among Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado regarding the Rio Grande Compact without the consent of the United States, who intervened in the action?

• 3/25/2024: Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe (1:26:58).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Must the Indian Health Service pay “contract support costs” not only to support IHS-funded activities, but also to support the tribe’s expenditure of income collected from third parties?

• 3/25/2024: Harrow v. Department of Defense (51:24).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Is the 60-day filing deadline in 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A) jurisdictional and thus not subject to equitable tolling?

• 3/26/2024: FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (1:33:50, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key questions in case (as listed on Oyez.org): 1. Do respondents have Article III standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s 2016 and 2021 actions with respect to mifepristone’s approved conditions of use? 2. Were the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 approvals of mifepristone arbitrary and capricious? 3. Did the district court properly grant preliminary relief?

• 3/27/2024: Erlinger v. United States (1:33:59).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does the Constitution require a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt to find that a defendant’s prior convictions were “committed on occasions different from one another,” as is necessary to impose an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act?

• 3/27/2024: Connelly v. United States (54:05).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Should the proceeds of a life insurance policy taken out by a closely held corporation on a shareholder in order to facilitate the redemption of the shareholder’s stock be considered a corporate asset when calculating the value of the shareholder’s shares for purposes of the federal estate tax?

• 4/15/2024: Snyder v. United States (1:39:03).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B) criminalize gratuities, i.e., payments in recognition of actions a state or local official has already taken or committed to take, without any quid pro quo agreement to take those actions?

• 4/15/2024: Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, Ohio (59:07).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): May a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim proceed as to a baseless criminal charge so long as other charges brought alongside the baseless charge are supported by probable cause?

• 4/16/2024: Fischer v. United States (1:40:49, with featured sections highlighted).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence?

• 4/17/2024: Thornell v. Jones (TBD).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): What is the proper methodology for assessing prejudice, for purposes of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim?

• 4/25/2024: Trump v. United States (TBD).

  Key question in case (as listed on Oyez.org): Does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office, and if so, to what extent?

• STEP 3 (of 4)

  As a class, discuss the main arguments on both sides in the case, and explain its significance to the United States.

• STEP 4 (of 4)

  Choose an activity from C-SPAN Classroom's Deliberations site to engage your students in a structured student-centered analysis of the case.

• OPTIONAL EXTENSION

  Since 2009, C-SPAN has released a survey on public opinion regarding the Supreme Court whenever there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

  The following lesson extension has students analyze the findings of the 2022 Supreme Court survey conducted by Pierrepont and compare the data to previous surveys conducted by PSB in 2018, and 2017, and 2015, using charts and other resources to examine public perceptions of the Supreme Court and draw conclusions about current trends.

  Access the lesson extension and materials here: Public Perceptions of the Supreme Court.