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U.S. Supreme Court Cases Pending and Decided

Supreme Court Building, taken on October 15, 2005

During this hour of River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with legal analysts Todd Pettys, H. Blair and Joan V. White Chair in Civil Litigation and law professor at the University of Iowa, and Tony Gaughan, Professor of Law and Drake University Law School about prominent cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Along with some other courts news, here are some of the cases they discuss:

Benisek v. Lamone and Gill v Whitford  – Both are gerrymandering cases.

Janus v. AFSCME – Regarding the legality of requiring public employees to pay fees to unions they refuse to join.

Carpenter v. U.S. – Whether there can be warrantless seizures of cell-phone records to track a phone user's movements. 

Masterpiece Cakeshop – A cake baker refused to make cakes for gay weddings and claims free speech is at issue.

Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky – Constitutionality of Minnesota's ban on all political apparel at polling places.

Dunn v. Madison – Whether it is unconstitutional to execute someone who cannot remember the crime in this case, due to a stroke suffered by the prisoner. 

South Dakota v. Wayfair – Whether states can require an out-of-state seller to collect sales taxes for goods sold to that state's residents.

Sveen v. Melin – Some states including Iowa have laws that if your spouse is the beneficiary of your life insurance policy, and you then get divorced, the beneficiary designation is automatically canceled.  Do these laws violate the constitution?

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River