Court makes it harder to charge Capitol
riot defendants with obstruction
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court last Friday limited a federal obstruction law that has been used to charge hundreds of Capitol riot defendants as well as former President Donald Trump.
The justices ruled 6-3 that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding, enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp., must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents. Only some of the people who violently attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, fall into that category.
The overwhelming majority of the approximately 1,000 people who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to Capitol riot-related federal crimes were not charged with obstruction and will not be affected by the outcome.
Still, the decision is likely to be used as fodder for claims by Trump and his Republican allies that the Justice Department has treated the Capitol riot defendants unfairly.
It's unclear how the court's decision will affect the case against Trump in Washington, which includes charges other than obstruction. Special counsel Jack Smith has said the charges faced by the former president would not be affected.
Trump's case is on hold while the Supreme Court considers a separate case in which Trump is claiming immunity from prosecution. A decision is expected on today.
Under the ruling issued last Friday, dozens of defendants could seek new sentences, ask to withdraw guilty pleas, or have charges dropped. Most defendants convicted of obstruction were also convicted of another felony so their sentence may not be significantly impacted - if at all.
The high court returned the case of former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer to a lower court to determine if Fischer can be charged with obstruction. Fischer has been indicted for his role in disrupting Congress' certification of Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
Fischer is among about 350 people who have been charged with obstruction. Some pleaded guilty to — or were convicted of — lesser charges.
Republicans, who have cast the Jan. 6 defendants as victims of political persecution, are certain to seize on the ruling to argue the rioters have been unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Trump has embraced Jan. 6 defendants on the campaign trial, and floated pardons for the rioters if he wins in November.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform shortly after the decision, calling the ruling "Big News!" He shared another message that described the ruling as a "massive victory" for "J6 political prisoners."
It's also likely to slow down cases in a court already clogged with Jan. 6 defendants as judges are forced to grapple with how to apply the ruling.
"It's going to be a big mess," said Randall Eliason, a professor at George Washington University Law School and former federal prosecutor in Washington.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's opinion, joined by conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, and by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former federal public defender who also wrote a separate opinion.
Reading the obstruction statute broadly "would also criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists to decades in prison," Roberts wrote.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, along with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Barrett, one of three justices appointed by Trump, wrote that the law clearly encompasses the events of Jan. 6. "The riot forced Congress to suspend the proceeding, delaying it for several hours," she wrote.
She said her colleagues in the majority did "textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach" of the obstruction law.
Roberts, Jackson and Barrett made strikingly different word choices in their opinions. While Roberts described the attack as a "breach of the Capitol," Barrett described the events as a riot and the participants as rioters. Jackson wrote that "an angry mob stormed the United States Capitol."
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was disappointed with the decision, which he said "limits an important federal statute." Still, Garland said the cases against the "vast majority" of people charged in the attack won't be affected.
"January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next," he said. "We will continue to use all available tools to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy."
Roughly 170 Capitol insurrection defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. A number of defendants have had their sentencings delayed until after the justices rule on the matter.
Some rioters have even won early release from prison while the appeal was pending over concerns that they might end up serving longer than they should have if the Supreme Court ruled against the Justice Department. They include Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the Capitol. Seefried was sentenced last year to three years behind bars, but a judge recently ordered that he be released one year into his prison term while awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling.
Seventeen of the 18 trial judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that "statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them."
But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, another Trump appointee, dismissed the charge against Fischer and two other defendants, writing that prosecutors went too far. A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington reinstated the charge before the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.
Alito and Thomas rejected calls that they step aside from the Jan. 6 case because of questions raised about their impartiality.
The U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which has handled Jan. 6 prosecutions, said no one who has been convicted of or charged with obstruction will be completely cleared because of the ruling. Every defendant also has other felony or misdemeanor charges, or both, prosecutors said.
For around 50 people who were convicted, obstruction was the only felony count, prosecutors said. Of those, roughly two dozen who still are serving their sentence are most likely to be affected by the ruling.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes.
–––
Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Rebecca Santana and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court last Friday limited a federal obstruction law that has been used to charge hundreds of Capitol riot defendants as well as former President Donald Trump.
The justices ruled 6-3 that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding, enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp., must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents. Only some of the people who violently attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, fall into that category.
The overwhelming majority of the approximately 1,000 people who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to Capitol riot-related federal crimes were not charged with obstruction and will not be affected by the outcome.
Still, the decision is likely to be used as fodder for claims by Trump and his Republican allies that the Justice Department has treated the Capitol riot defendants unfairly.
It's unclear how the court's decision will affect the case against Trump in Washington, which includes charges other than obstruction. Special counsel Jack Smith has said the charges faced by the former president would not be affected.
Trump's case is on hold while the Supreme Court considers a separate case in which Trump is claiming immunity from prosecution. A decision is expected on today.
Under the ruling issued last Friday, dozens of defendants could seek new sentences, ask to withdraw guilty pleas, or have charges dropped. Most defendants convicted of obstruction were also convicted of another felony so their sentence may not be significantly impacted - if at all.
The high court returned the case of former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer to a lower court to determine if Fischer can be charged with obstruction. Fischer has been indicted for his role in disrupting Congress' certification of Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
Fischer is among about 350 people who have been charged with obstruction. Some pleaded guilty to — or were convicted of — lesser charges.
Republicans, who have cast the Jan. 6 defendants as victims of political persecution, are certain to seize on the ruling to argue the rioters have been unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Trump has embraced Jan. 6 defendants on the campaign trial, and floated pardons for the rioters if he wins in November.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform shortly after the decision, calling the ruling "Big News!" He shared another message that described the ruling as a "massive victory" for "J6 political prisoners."
It's also likely to slow down cases in a court already clogged with Jan. 6 defendants as judges are forced to grapple with how to apply the ruling.
"It's going to be a big mess," said Randall Eliason, a professor at George Washington University Law School and former federal prosecutor in Washington.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's opinion, joined by conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, and by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former federal public defender who also wrote a separate opinion.
Reading the obstruction statute broadly "would also criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists to decades in prison," Roberts wrote.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, along with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Barrett, one of three justices appointed by Trump, wrote that the law clearly encompasses the events of Jan. 6. "The riot forced Congress to suspend the proceeding, delaying it for several hours," she wrote.
She said her colleagues in the majority did "textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach" of the obstruction law.
Roberts, Jackson and Barrett made strikingly different word choices in their opinions. While Roberts described the attack as a "breach of the Capitol," Barrett described the events as a riot and the participants as rioters. Jackson wrote that "an angry mob stormed the United States Capitol."
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was disappointed with the decision, which he said "limits an important federal statute." Still, Garland said the cases against the "vast majority" of people charged in the attack won't be affected.
"January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next," he said. "We will continue to use all available tools to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy."
Roughly 170 Capitol insurrection defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. A number of defendants have had their sentencings delayed until after the justices rule on the matter.
Some rioters have even won early release from prison while the appeal was pending over concerns that they might end up serving longer than they should have if the Supreme Court ruled against the Justice Department. They include Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the Capitol. Seefried was sentenced last year to three years behind bars, but a judge recently ordered that he be released one year into his prison term while awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling.
Seventeen of the 18 trial judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that "statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them."
But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, another Trump appointee, dismissed the charge against Fischer and two other defendants, writing that prosecutors went too far. A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington reinstated the charge before the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.
Alito and Thomas rejected calls that they step aside from the Jan. 6 case because of questions raised about their impartiality.
The U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which has handled Jan. 6 prosecutions, said no one who has been convicted of or charged with obstruction will be completely cleared because of the ruling. Every defendant also has other felony or misdemeanor charges, or both, prosecutors said.
For around 50 people who were convicted, obstruction was the only felony count, prosecutors said. Of those, roughly two dozen who still are serving their sentence are most likely to be affected by the ruling.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes.
–––
Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Rebecca Santana and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
Justices rule in major homelessness case
that outdoor sleeping bans are OK
By Lindsay Whitehurst
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places last Friday, overturning a California appeals court ruling that found such laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment when shelter space is lacking.
The case is the high court's most significant on the issue in decades and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.
In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court found that outdoor sleeping bans don't violate the Eighth Amendment.
Western cities had argued that the ruling made it harder to manage outdoor encampments in public spaces, but homeless advocates said punishing people who need a place to sleep would criminalize homelessness.
In California, which is home to one-third of the country's homeless population, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said the decision gives state and local officials authority to clear "unsafe encampments" from the streets while acting with compassion. "This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years," he said.
Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged those concerns in the opinion he wrote for the majority.
"Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it," he wrote. "A handful of federal judges cannot begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."
He suggested that people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could raise that as a "necessity defense," if they are ticketed or otherwise punished for violating a camping ban.
Homeless advocates, on the other hand, have said that allowing cities to punish people who have no other place to sleep would ultimately make the crisis worse. Cities had been allowed to regulate encampments under a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling but couldn't completely bar people from sleeping outdoors.
"Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading from the bench a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues. "Homelessness is a reality for so many Americans."
Punishing people for something they can't control, like homelessness, is cruel and unusual, she said. She warned that striking down Eighth Amendment arguments against camping bans likely won't end the fights over the ordinances in court.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, criticized the majority ruling, saying cities shouldn't "attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail." The only way to truly address it, she said, is to connect people with housing and services.
The case came from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which appealed a ruling striking down local ordinances that fined people $295 for sleeping outside after tents began crowding public parks. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over the nine Western states, has held since 2018 that such bans violate the Eighth Amendment in areas where there aren't enough shelter beds.
Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press that the city will not immediately start enforcing those local ordinances fining people for sleeping outside and that the city council will need to review the decision and determine the next steps.
"This lawsuit was about whether cities have a right to enforce camping restrictions in public spaces, and I'm relieved that Grants Pass will be able to reclaim our city parks for recreation," said Bristol, who serves in a nonpartisan position. "Homelessness is a complex issue, and our community has been trying to find solutions."
Attorney Theane Evangelis, who represented Grants Pass before the high court, applauded the ruling, saying the 9th Circuit decision had "tied the hands of local governments."
"Years from now, I hope that we will look back on today's watershed ruling as the turning point in America's homelessness crisis," she said.
In Portland, meanwhile, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said the effect of the ruling would likely be muted since the state has separate legal limits on how cities can manage encampments. Seattle officials also expected a limited impact.
An attorney for homeless people who live in Grants Pass bemoaned the decision.
"We are disappointed that a majority of the court has decided that our Constitution allows a city to punish its homeless residents simply for sleeping outside with a blanket to survive the cold when there is nowhere else for them to go," said Ed Johnson, director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center.
Last Friday's ruling comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12% last year to its highest reported level, as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more people.
More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using a yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. A lack of access to mental health and addiction resources can contribute to the crisis. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected by homelessness, advocates said.
Nearly half of people without housing sleep outside, federal data shows.
Derrick Belgarde, executive director of the nonprofit Chief Seattle Club, said some people may simply choose to sleep outside. Before his organization was started, members of the local Native American community weren't using shelters because they didn't feel safe in them or feel as though they belonged.
"I think it's going to cause a lot of pain, a lot of misery to deny people the right to safety, to feel safe, to feel a sense of belonging. It's going to be devastating for a lot of people," said Belgarde, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
The 9th Circuit decision had governed nine states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
–––
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington, D.C., John Antczak in Los Angeles, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Adam Beam in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this story.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places last Friday, overturning a California appeals court ruling that found such laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment when shelter space is lacking.
The case is the high court's most significant on the issue in decades and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.
In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court found that outdoor sleeping bans don't violate the Eighth Amendment.
Western cities had argued that the ruling made it harder to manage outdoor encampments in public spaces, but homeless advocates said punishing people who need a place to sleep would criminalize homelessness.
In California, which is home to one-third of the country's homeless population, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said the decision gives state and local officials authority to clear "unsafe encampments" from the streets while acting with compassion. "This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years," he said.
Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged those concerns in the opinion he wrote for the majority.
"Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it," he wrote. "A handful of federal judges cannot begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."
He suggested that people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could raise that as a "necessity defense," if they are ticketed or otherwise punished for violating a camping ban.
Homeless advocates, on the other hand, have said that allowing cities to punish people who have no other place to sleep would ultimately make the crisis worse. Cities had been allowed to regulate encampments under a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling but couldn't completely bar people from sleeping outdoors.
"Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading from the bench a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues. "Homelessness is a reality for so many Americans."
Punishing people for something they can't control, like homelessness, is cruel and unusual, she said. She warned that striking down Eighth Amendment arguments against camping bans likely won't end the fights over the ordinances in court.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, criticized the majority ruling, saying cities shouldn't "attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail." The only way to truly address it, she said, is to connect people with housing and services.
The case came from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which appealed a ruling striking down local ordinances that fined people $295 for sleeping outside after tents began crowding public parks. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over the nine Western states, has held since 2018 that such bans violate the Eighth Amendment in areas where there aren't enough shelter beds.
Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press that the city will not immediately start enforcing those local ordinances fining people for sleeping outside and that the city council will need to review the decision and determine the next steps.
"This lawsuit was about whether cities have a right to enforce camping restrictions in public spaces, and I'm relieved that Grants Pass will be able to reclaim our city parks for recreation," said Bristol, who serves in a nonpartisan position. "Homelessness is a complex issue, and our community has been trying to find solutions."
Attorney Theane Evangelis, who represented Grants Pass before the high court, applauded the ruling, saying the 9th Circuit decision had "tied the hands of local governments."
"Years from now, I hope that we will look back on today's watershed ruling as the turning point in America's homelessness crisis," she said.
In Portland, meanwhile, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said the effect of the ruling would likely be muted since the state has separate legal limits on how cities can manage encampments. Seattle officials also expected a limited impact.
An attorney for homeless people who live in Grants Pass bemoaned the decision.
"We are disappointed that a majority of the court has decided that our Constitution allows a city to punish its homeless residents simply for sleeping outside with a blanket to survive the cold when there is nowhere else for them to go," said Ed Johnson, director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center.
Last Friday's ruling comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12% last year to its highest reported level, as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more people.
More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using a yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. A lack of access to mental health and addiction resources can contribute to the crisis. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected by homelessness, advocates said.
Nearly half of people without housing sleep outside, federal data shows.
Derrick Belgarde, executive director of the nonprofit Chief Seattle Club, said some people may simply choose to sleep outside. Before his organization was started, members of the local Native American community weren't using shelters because they didn't feel safe in them or feel as though they belonged.
"I think it's going to cause a lot of pain, a lot of misery to deny people the right to safety, to feel safe, to feel a sense of belonging. It's going to be devastating for a lot of people," said Belgarde, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
The 9th Circuit decision had governed nine states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
–––
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington, D.C., John Antczak in Los Angeles, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Adam Beam in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this story.
Court weakens federal regulators,
overturning decades-old Chevron decision
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court last Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.
The court's six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.
The case was the conservative-dominated court's clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.
Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court's ruling. The Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an "unwarranted shock to the legal system."
The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren't crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.
"Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
Roberts wrote that the decision does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron decision.
But in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the assurance rings hollow. "The majority is sanguine; I am not so much," she wrote.
Kagan called the latest decision "yet another example of the Court's resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary." Just a day earlier, the same lineup of justices stripped the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool used in fighting fraud.
The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.
Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen's appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump's presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.
The court's conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration's initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.
The justices hadn't invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.
Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.
"Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.
But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.
They were in last Friday's majority, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Roberts' opinion took direct aim at what Stevens wrote 40 years ago. "That depends, of course, on what the 'field' is. If it is legal interpretation, that has been, 'emphatically,' 'the province and duty of the judicial department' for at least 221 years," Roberts wrote, quoting from the Marbury v. Madison decision that established the Supreme Court as the last word in interpreting laws and the Constitution.
Kagan, though, said that in getting rid of Chevron "gives courts control over matters they know nothing about." She read a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom to emphasize her disagreement with the majority.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kagan in dissent.
Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges applied it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the court said last Friday, adopting the opponents arguments.
Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. "Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews," Bright said in a statement.
Reacting to the decision, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling "is yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards. Republican-backed special interests have repeatedly turned to the Supreme Court to block common-sense rules that keep us safe, protect our health and environment, safeguard our financial system, and support American consumers and workers."
Federal agencies and the Justice Department had already begun reducing their reliance on the Chevron decision in crafting and defending new regulations.
Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.
"The Supreme Court is pushing the nation into uncharted waters as it seizes it seizes power from our elected branches of government to advance its deregulatory agenda," Sambhav Sankar, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said after the ruling. "The conservative justices are aggressively reshaping the foundations of our government so that the President and Congress have less power to protect the public, and corporations have more power to challenge regulations in search of profits. This ruling threatens the legitimacy of hundreds of regulations that keep us safe, protect our homes and
environment, and create a level playing field for businesses to compete on."
Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.
The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.
In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.
The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court last Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.
The court's six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.
The case was the conservative-dominated court's clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.
Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court's ruling. The Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an "unwarranted shock to the legal system."
The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren't crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.
"Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
Roberts wrote that the decision does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron decision.
But in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the assurance rings hollow. "The majority is sanguine; I am not so much," she wrote.
Kagan called the latest decision "yet another example of the Court's resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary." Just a day earlier, the same lineup of justices stripped the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool used in fighting fraud.
The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.
Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen's appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump's presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.
The court's conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration's initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.
The justices hadn't invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.
Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.
"Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.
But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.
They were in last Friday's majority, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Roberts' opinion took direct aim at what Stevens wrote 40 years ago. "That depends, of course, on what the 'field' is. If it is legal interpretation, that has been, 'emphatically,' 'the province and duty of the judicial department' for at least 221 years," Roberts wrote, quoting from the Marbury v. Madison decision that established the Supreme Court as the last word in interpreting laws and the Constitution.
Kagan, though, said that in getting rid of Chevron "gives courts control over matters they know nothing about." She read a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom to emphasize her disagreement with the majority.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kagan in dissent.
Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges applied it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the court said last Friday, adopting the opponents arguments.
Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. "Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews," Bright said in a statement.
Reacting to the decision, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling "is yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards. Republican-backed special interests have repeatedly turned to the Supreme Court to block common-sense rules that keep us safe, protect our health and environment, safeguard our financial system, and support American consumers and workers."
Federal agencies and the Justice Department had already begun reducing their reliance on the Chevron decision in crafting and defending new regulations.
Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.
"The Supreme Court is pushing the nation into uncharted waters as it seizes it seizes power from our elected branches of government to advance its deregulatory agenda," Sambhav Sankar, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said after the ruling. "The conservative justices are aggressively reshaping the foundations of our government so that the President and Congress have less power to protect the public, and corporations have more power to challenge regulations in search of profits. This ruling threatens the legitimacy of hundreds of regulations that keep us safe, protect our homes and
environment, and create a level playing field for businesses to compete on."
Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.
The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.
In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.
The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.
Steve Bannon's bid to delay prison sentence rejected
By Lindsay Whitehurst
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court last Friday rejected a bid to delay a prison sentence for longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon as he appeals his conviction for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Bannon filed an emergency appeal after a judge ordered him to report to prison July 1 for a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. The court previously denied a similar request from another Trump aide.
The appeal was originally directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees such requests from Washington. He referred it to the full court.
The court rejected it without explanation, as is typical. There were no noted dissents.
Defense attorneys have argued the case raises issues that should be examined by the Supreme Court, including Bannon's previous lawyer's belief that the subpoena was invalid because former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege. Prosecutors, though, say Bannon had left the White House years before and Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the committee.
A jury found Bannon guilty nearly two years ago of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and a second for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in the Republican ex-president's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols allowed Bannon to stay free while he appealed but recently ordered him to report to prison after an appeals court panel upheld his contempt of Congress convictions. The panel later rejected Bannon's bid to avoid reporting to prison.
Bannon is expected to appeal his conviction to the full appeals court, and Republican House leaders have put their support behind stepping in to assert the Jan. 6 committee was improperly created, effectively trying to deem the subpoena Bannon received as illegitimate.
Another Trump aide, trade adviser Peter Navarro, has also been convicted of contempt of Congress. He reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence after the Supreme Court refused his bid to delay the sentence.
Bannon is also facing criminal charges in New York state court alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges, and that trial has been postponed until at least the end of September.
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Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this story.
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