On November 12, 2016, Winston Hencely spotted someone approaching the Veterans Day 5K race at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan who seemed out of place. As Hencely reached out to question him, he felt a bulky explosive vest. Seconds later, Ahmad Nayeb, a former Taliban member hired as a laborer by a Fluor Corporation subcontractor, then detonated the bomb. Six people died, and seventeen were injured. According to an Army investigation, Fluor’s “complacency and lack of reasonable supervision” were “the primary contributing factor[s]” to the attack. Yet when Hencely sued Fluor under South Carolina tort law for negligent supervision, both the district court and the Fourth Circuit dismissed Hencely’s claims on the grounds of federal preemption before he could present them to a jury. This dismissal raises a fundamental question about the scope of preemption in military contexts. Preemption, under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, occurs when federal law overrides conflicting state law, preventing states from regulating in areas where federal authority is supreme or where state law would interfere with federal objectives.

On December 5, 2025, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Trump v. Barbara. The case questions whether Executive Order No. 14160, issued by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, complies with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment and 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), which codifies that clause.

When it comes to international disputes handled by U.S courts, perhaps nothing gets more complicated than Duran v. United States. The controversy traces back to 1972, when former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos hid $40 million worth of funds in a New York bank account. Today, two parties are seeking to claim these stolen assets: the Philippine Government and 9,539 victims of Marcos’ authoritarian regime, jointly represented by lead plaintiff Jose Duran. The victims endured political imprisonment, torture, military suppression, and other inhumane government measures.

In October 2025, the United States confronted the longest federal government shutdown in its history. When the fiscal year began on October 1, Congress had not enacted regular appropriations. President Donald Trump insisted on major federal workforce cuts and refused to sign spending bills, while Senate Democrats conditioned their votes on extending health-insurance subsidies. With no compromise by the October 1 deadline, a lapse in appropriations triggered the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal officers from “obligating or expending federal funds in excess of the amount available in an appropriation.” Most federal agencies furloughed employees and suspended services; the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) exhausted its $4.6 billion contingency reserve for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) but announced on October 20 that it lacked enough funds to pay November benefits for roughly 42 million recipients.

On October 20, 2025, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Hemani. The case questions the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the federal statute that makes it a felony for anyone who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess, ship, or transport a firearm. Interestingly, this is the very same law that Hunter Biden was convicted under in June of 2024 in Delaware. Biden was found guilty of three counts arising from his 2018 purchase of a revolver, during which he allegedly lied on the ATF Form 4473 by denying unlawful drug use. The prosecution argued that, at the time, he was using and addicted to crack cocaine, violating §922(g)(3). While Biden raised a Second Amendment defense, the district court rejected his facial challenge to the statute, citing an existing Eighth Circuit precedent upholding the statute to be a relevant historical analogue to firearms restrictions.

On November 2nd, 2025, President Donald Trump expressed on NBC’s 60 Minutes that “tariffs are incredible because they really give us great national security and great wealth.” The national security part is perhaps arguable, but the family-owned Learning Resources Ltd., as well as countless other American businesses, did not experience great wealth—quite the contrary. After Trump imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025, which involved a “baseline” tariff of 10% on almost all imports into the U.S, over half (57%) of U.S. companies surveyed by KPMG reported declining gross margins as a direct result of these tariffs. Small and mid-sized businesses were hit especially hard because, unlike large firms with abundant inventories, they are more vulnerable to cost shocks and supply chain disruptions. With such daunting economic consequences, how did Trump justify his policies? He imposed his tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, which grants President authority during times of emergency. In this specific instance, the two emergencies are the U.S. trade deficit and the inflow of fentanyl and opioids, which he called “country-killing emergencies.” However, it is uncertain whether Trump’s tariffs fit the conditions of IEEPA as the recent Supreme Court oral arguments demonstrate. 

In August 2021, Thomas Keathley was seriously injured in a car collision in Mississippi. He sued the driver’s employer, Buddy Ayers Construction (BAC) for negligence. But Keathley never saw his day in court—not because he lacked evidence, but because he had failed to disclose the pending lawsuit in his Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceedings, a process in which individual debtors propose a three-to-five-year plan to repay creditors while retaining their property under court supervision. The Fifth Circuit dismissed his case entirely under the doctrine of judicial estoppel, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Fall 2025 upon Keathley’s appeal. The question now before the Court could reshape how strictly federal courts police the intersection of bankruptcy disclosure duties and substantive litigation rights.

In 2008, Michael Bowe was charged, and convicted, with conspiracy to commit a Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 1951) robbery, attempted Hobbs Act robbery, and use of a firearm in a violent crime. In 2009, Bowe pleaded guilty to all charges and received a 288-month sentence, 120 of which are associated with the conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), a federal mandate law for a minimum time served for carrying a firearm during a violent crime. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. United States that the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA)—mandating a minimum of 15 years for convictions of those committing a violent crime with 3 or more prior convictions for violent felonies—had an unconstitutionally vague residual clause. The residual clause, defined in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), defined a “violent felony” as one involving “conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” which was determined to be too vague to give notice to what constitutes a violent felony and thus 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) was struck down. Spurred by the growing question of what qualifies as a violent crime or felony, Bowe began his appeal process in 2016, arguing that Johnson v. United States serves as precedent to which his crimes are no longer classified as “crimes of violence” necessary for his firearm conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).