Supreme Court case decided in the 2024-25 term in which the justices, by a 6-3 vote, stripped district-court judges of the power to issue nationwide injunctions—the tool lower courts had used to block the most aggressive policies of Donald Trump (and of Democratic presidents before him). Justice Amy Coney Barrett held together the majority. The ruling was one of 15 emergency-docket applications resolved during the term, 12 of which went Trump's way.
The decision is expected to have lasting consequences for challenges to executive power. Critics, including Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, found "no rhyme or reason" in the court's emergency rulings other than "enabling lawless behaviour by the Trump administration". For Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the court's decisions seemed "animated by a virtually boundless conception of executive power—and of the power of the Supreme Court".
The emergency docket—also known as the "shadow docket"—has become the primary venue for defining the contours of presidential power, often provisionally and without a word of reasoning. In a related case, Trump v Wilcox, the six-justice majority temporarily allowed Trump to remove the heads of two federal agencies even though the order acknowledged the sackings were "prohibited by statute", on the ground that the government "faces greater risk of harm" than the removed officers.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.