Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This term, several important questions of criminal law and procedure reached the Supreme Court, ranging from digital privacy and criminal venue to appeal waivers and capital sentencing.
In Chatrie v. United States, the Court held that law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment search when it obtains a person’s cell-phone location history from a company through a geofence warrant.
In Abouammo v. United States, the Court unanimously held that a defendant charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1519 with falsifying a document to obstruct a federal investigation must be tried in the district where the alleged falsification occurred, not in a different district where the investigation was based.
In Hamm v. Smith, the Court dismissed as improvidently granted a capital case concerning whether and how courts may consider multiple IQ scores when evaluating a claim that a defendant is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under the Eighth Amendment.
And in Hunter v. United States, the Court held that appeal waivers are generally enforceable but recognized a “miscarriage of justice” exception for egregious sentencing errors that would bring the judicial system into disrepute.
Join us for a webinar breaking down these decisions, the separate opinions, and what they may mean for the criminal justice system.
Featuring:
Matthew Cavedon, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
(Moderator) Marc Levin, Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
This term, several important questions of criminal law and procedure reached the Supreme Court, ranging from digital privacy and criminal venue to appeal waivers and capital sentencing.
In Chatrie v. United States, the Court held that law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment search when it obtains a person’s cell-phone location history from a company through a geofence warrant.
In Abouammo v. United States, the Court unanimously held that a defendant charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1519 with falsifying a document to obstruct a federal investigation must be tried in the district where the alleged falsification occurred, not in a different district where the investigation was based.
In Hamm v. Smith, the Court dismissed as improvidently granted a capital case concerning whether and how courts may consider multiple IQ scores when evaluating a claim that a defendant is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under the Eighth Amendment.
And in Hunter v. United States, the Court held that appeal waivers are generally enforceable but recognized a “miscarriage of justice” exception for egregious sentencing errors that would bring the judicial system into disrepute.
Join us for a webinar breaking down these decisions, the separate opinions, and what they may mean for the criminal justice system.
Featuring:
Matthew Cavedon, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
(Moderator) Marc Levin, Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
![[LIVE] A Seat at the Sitting - April 2026](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tEg21uQPKbE/mqdefault.jpg "[LIVE] A Seat at the Sitting - April 2026
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below.
• Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission, (April 20) - Corporations & Securities; Issue(s): Whether the SEC may seek equitable disgorgement under 15 U.S.C. 78u(d)(5) and (d)(7) without showing investors suffered pecuniary harm.
• T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., (April 20) - Federalism & Separation of Powers, Standing; Issue(s): Whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which prevents parties who lose in state courts from challenging injuries caused by state-court judgments, can be triggered by a state-court decision that remains subject to further review in state court.
• Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.,(April 21) - Communications & Technology; Issue(s): Whether the Communications Act of 1934 provisions that govern the Federal Communications Commission’s assessment and enforcement of monetary forfeitures are consistent with the Seventh Amendment and Article III.
• Bondi v. Lau, (April 22) - Immigration Law; Issue(s): Whether, to remove a lawful permanent resident who committed an offense listed in Section 1182(a)(2) and was subsequently paroled into the United States, the government must prove that it possessed clear and convincing evidence of the offense at the time of the lawful permanent residents last reentry into the United States.
• Chatrie v. United States, (April 27) - Criminal Law; Issue(s): Whether the execution of a geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
• Monsanto Company v. Durnell, (April 27) - Energy & Environmental Law; Issue(s): Whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.
• Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, (April 28) - International Law & Human Rights; Issue(s): (1) Whether the Alien Tort Statute allows a judicially-implied private right of action for aiding and abetting; and (2) whether the Torture Victim Protection Act allows a judicially-implied private right of action for aiding and abetting.
• Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., (April 29) - Patent Law / Intellectual Property Law; Issue(s): (1) Whether, when a generic drug label fully carves out a patented use, allegations that the generic drugmaker calls its product a “generic version” and cites public information about the branded drug (e.g., sales) are enough to plead induced infringement of the patented use; and (2) whether a complaint states a claim for induced infringement of a patented method if it does not allege any instruction or other statement by the defendant that encourages, or even mentions, the patented use.
• Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, (April 29) - Immigration Law; Issue(s): Whether the Trump administration can end the Temporary Protected Status program for Syrian and Haitian nationals.
Featuring:
• Thomas Berry, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
• James Conde, Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
• James Rogers, Senior Counsel, America First Legal
• Ryan Schermerhorn, Partner, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
• [Moderator] Maria Monaghan, Associate Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Register for the live webinar at https://fedsoc.org/events/a-seat-at-the-sitting-april-2026
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.")
