Law Commons^™

Supreme Court Ruling On The Texas Abortion Law: Beginning To Unravel Roe V Wade, I. Glenn Cohen, Rebecca Reingold, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2021, Texas enacted an abortion statute, SB8, stating “a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child.” SB8’s prohibition applies broadly against anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” The law’s design is unprecedented, enforced solely by private lawsuits, providing damages of $10,000 or more for each abortion. SB8 prohibits government enforcement, with the explicit intent of preventing federal judicial review. SB8 clearly violates current Supreme Court precedent creating a constitutional right to …

The Us Supreme Court’S Rulings On Large Business And Health Care Worker Vaccine Mandates: Ramifications For The Covid-19 Response And The Future Of Federal Public Health Protection, Lawrence O. Gostin, Wendy E. Parmet, Sara Rosenbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On January 13, 2022, the Supreme Court issued 2 landmark rulings on the federal government’s power to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations. The Court curtailed the government’s ability to respond to the pandemic and may have also severely limited the authority of federal agencies to issue health and safety regulations.

In National Federation of Independent Business v Department of Labor, the Court blocked an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) emergency temporary standard (ETS) requiring vaccination, subject to religious or disability accommodations, or weekly testing and masking in businesses with 100 or more employees. In Biden v Missouri, the Court …

House Rules: Congress And The Attorney-Client Privilege, David Rapallo

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2020, the Supreme Court rendered a landmark decision in Trump v. Mazars establishing four factors for determining the validity of congressional subpoenas for a sitting president’s personal papers. In an unanticipated move, Chief Justice John Roberts added that recipients of congressional subpoenas have “long been understood” to retain not only constitutional privileges, but common law privileges developed by judges, including the attorney-client privilege. This was particularly surprising since Trump was not relying on the attorney-client privilege and the Court had never treated this common law privilege as overriding Congress’s Article I power to set its own procedures for conducting …