Supreme Court Term 2025-2026
We’re breaking down the cases we've asked the court to consider this term.
Latest Case Updates
Updated September 10, 2026
Ongoing
Updated September 8, 2026
Closed
Updated August 31, 2026
Ongoing
Updated August 31, 2026
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Florida
Sep 2026
National Security
+2 Issues
CAIR-Foundation, Inc and CAIR Florida, Inc. v. DeSantis et al.
The ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their partners represent CAIR and CAIR-Florida in two federal lawsuits challenging Governor DeSantis’s unconstitutional and baseless designation of the nonprofits as “terrorist.” The lawsuits allege violations of CAIR and CAIR-Florida’s rights under the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Massachusetts
Sep 2026
Voting Rights
League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump
On March 31, 2026, President Trump issued a sweeping Executive Order titled "Ensuring Citizen Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," seeking once again to seize control of election administration from Congress and the states. The Order directs federal agencies to compile lists of U.S. citizens and transmit them to states before every election, directs the U.S. Postal Service -- an independent agency established by Congress -- to create a list of "approved" mail voters, and instructs USPS to refuse to deliver ballots from voters not on that federally created list. If implemented, the Order would threaten the ability of millions of eligible citizens to cast their ballots, particularly military members, overseas citizens, the elderly, recently naturalized citizens, and voters with disabilities who rely on mail voting.
Court Case
Sep 2026
National Security
Human Rights
FOIA Case Seeking the Trump Administration’s Legal Justification for Deadly Boat Strikes
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) authored a legal opinion that reportedly claims to justify the Trump administration’s illegal lethal strikes on civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Media reports indicate that, in addition to claiming that the strikes are lawful acts in an alleged “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels, the OLC opinion also purports to immunize personnel who authorized or took part in the strikes from future criminal prosecution. Because the public deserves to know how our government is justifying these illegal strikes, and why they think the people who carried them out should not be held accountable, the ACLU is seeking immediate release of the OLC legal opinion and related documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.
Oregon Supreme Court
Aug 2026
LGBTQ Rights
Prisoners' Rights
Zyst v. Miller
Following the Oregon Department of Corrections’ unconstitutional treatment of a transgender prisoner, a habeas court ordered her removal from segregated housing, an individualized gender-affirming care assessment, a psychiatric evaluation, and identification of an appropriate cellmate. However, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the psychiatric-evaluation and cellmate orders, finding them “too attenuated” to qualify as habeas relief. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Oregon, joined an amicus brief by the law firm Sugerman Dahab arguing that habeas courts have broad discretion to remedy violations and resulting harms. The brief explains that the Court of Appeals’ “close connection” test unduly constricts habeas relief, and which should be construed to encompass not only the need to halt ongoing constitutional violations, but also the need to mitigate various harms that may arise from those violations.
Arizona
Jul 2026
Prisoners' Rights
Jensen v. Thornell
UPDATE: On July 17, 2026, U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver issued an order formally appointing a receiver to assume control and management of health care provided to more than 25,000 people incarcerated in Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR) prisons, in a long-running lawsuit against the state prison system brought by the Prison Law Office, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Arizona, and Disability Rights Arizona. More details here.
New Hampshire
Jul 2026
Voting Rights
Coalition for Open Democracy v. Scanlan
This lawsuit challenges HB 1569, a new law that will make New Hampshire the only state to require every person to produce documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote for both state and federal elections. It also challenges HB 1569’s elimination a preexisting protection for voters—namely, an affidavit option that allowed voters who faced surprise challenges to their eligibility at the polls to swear to their qualifications and cast a ballot. Accordingly, HB 1569 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution by placing substantial burdens on New Hampshirites at all stages of the voting process, and will arbitrarily disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands of qualified voters.
U.S. Supreme Court
May 2026
Voting Rights
Racial Justice
Allen v. Milligan
Whether Alabama’s congressional districts violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because they discriminate against Black voters. We succeeded in winning a new map for 2024 elections which, for the first time, has two congressional district that provide Black voters a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing despite multiple attempts by Alabama to stop us at the Supreme Court. Despite this win, Alabama is still defending its discriminatory map, and a trial was held in February 2025 to determine the map for the rest of the decade.
In May 2025, a federal court ruled that Alabama's 2023 congressional map both violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and was enacted by the Alabama Legislature with racially discriminatory intent.
U.S. Supreme Court
Apr 2026
Voting Rights
Louisiana v. Callais (Callais v. Landry)
Whether the congressional map Louisiana adopted to cure a Voting Rights Act violation in Robinson v. Ardoin is itself unlawful as a gerrymander.
Tennessee Supreme Court
Apr 2026
Capital Punishment
Tony Von Carruthers v. State of Tennessee
Tennessee plans to execute Tony Carruthers on May 21 even though they refuse to run a simple fingerprint comparison and DNA testing that could prove what Tony has been arguing for 30 years - that he is innocent of this crime and that Tennessee convicted and sentenced the wrong man to death.
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1,751 Court Cases
Arizona Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
Richer v. Fontes (Amicus)
Will nearly 100,000 Arizona voters who have long been registered as “full ballot” voters who can vote in all federal, state, and local elections in Arizona be penalized and disenfranchised from voting due to a technical error by the State of Arizona discovered on the eve of the November 2024 election?
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Arizona Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
Richer v. Fontes (Amicus)
Will nearly 100,000 Arizona voters who have long been registered as “full ballot” voters who can vote in all federal, state, and local elections in Arizona be penalized and disenfranchised from voting due to a technical error by the State of Arizona discovered on the eve of the November 2024 election?
Texas
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
America First Policy Institute v. Biden
The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, are representing the rights of voters by intervening in a lawsuit that seeks to make it harder for Americans across the country to register to vote, including in the upcoming 2024 election. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at promoting access to voter registration and election information to eligible voters on a nonpartisan basis. Now, on the eve of the 2024 election, a small group of political candidates and election administrators seek to block the executive order, based on speculation and unfounded claims of election manipulation and noncitizen voting. The ACLU and its partners are fighting to preserve the ability of eligible Americans to register to vote, in accordance with federal law.
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Texas
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
America First Policy Institute v. Biden
The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, are representing the rights of voters by intervening in a lawsuit that seeks to make it harder for Americans across the country to register to vote, including in the upcoming 2024 election. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at promoting access to voter registration and election information to eligible voters on a nonpartisan basis. Now, on the eve of the 2024 election, a small group of political candidates and election administrators seek to block the executive order, based on speculation and unfounded claims of election manipulation and noncitizen voting. The ACLU and its partners are fighting to preserve the ability of eligible Americans to register to vote, in accordance with federal law.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
Black Political Empowerment Project v. Schmidt
A statewide coalition of nonpartisan community organizations sued state and county officials, asserting that the practice of disenfranchising voters for failure to handwrite the date on the outer return envelope of their mail ballot packet, despite the lack of any purpose or use for the handwritten date, violates the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause.
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Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Voting Rights
Black Political Empowerment Project v. Schmidt
A statewide coalition of nonpartisan community organizations sued state and county officials, asserting that the practice of disenfranchising voters for failure to handwrite the date on the outer return envelope of their mail ballot packet, despite the lack of any purpose or use for the handwritten date, violates the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free and Equal Elections Clause.
Nevada
Sep 2024
Reproductive Freedom
Silver State Hope Fund v. Nevada Department of Health and Human Services
Silver State Hope Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Nevada prevailed in their challenge to Nevada’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion as sex-based discrimination in violation of the state constitution's Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Filed in September 2024, the court's written order — which is not subject to additional challenge — concludes the case and requires the state’s Medicaid program to cover abortion care. Following this ruling, the state will begin to take steps to extend coverage to abortion. The case was the first legal challenge under the ERA, which Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved in 2022. Nevada joins 18 other states that cover abortion under their state Medicaid program.
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Nevada
Sep 2024
Reproductive Freedom
Silver State Hope Fund v. Nevada Department of Health and Human Services
Silver State Hope Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Nevada prevailed in their challenge to Nevada’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion as sex-based discrimination in violation of the state constitution's Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Filed in September 2024, the court's written order — which is not subject to additional challenge — concludes the case and requires the state’s Medicaid program to cover abortion care. Following this ruling, the state will begin to take steps to extend coverage to abortion. The case was the first legal challenge under the ERA, which Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved in 2022. Nevada joins 18 other states that cover abortion under their state Medicaid program.
U.S. Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Racial Justice
Carpenter v. United States
This case concerns the First Step Act of 2018, in which Congress made major reductions to the mandatory minimum sentences for certain federal drug and firearm offenses. These changes result in sentences many decades shorter than were required under the previous laws. The question in this case was whether people who were initially sentenced prior to enactment of the First Step Act, but whose sentences were vacated and remanded for resentencing after enactment of the law, can benefit from its major reductions in applicable mandatory minimums. For defendants like Mr. Carpenter, who was originally sentenced to a draconian 116 years in prison as a result of the pre-First Step Act mandatory minimums, applying the First Step Act can mean the difference between dying in prison and having the opportunity to eventually go free. Unfortunately, although there is a split among federal courts of appeals on this question, the Supreme Court denied cert in this case in February 2024.
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U.S. Supreme Court
Sep 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Racial Justice
Carpenter v. United States
This case concerns the First Step Act of 2018, in which Congress made major reductions to the mandatory minimum sentences for certain federal drug and firearm offenses. These changes result in sentences many decades shorter than were required under the previous laws. The question in this case was whether people who were initially sentenced prior to enactment of the First Step Act, but whose sentences were vacated and remanded for resentencing after enactment of the law, can benefit from its major reductions in applicable mandatory minimums. For defendants like Mr. Carpenter, who was originally sentenced to a draconian 116 years in prison as a result of the pre-First Step Act mandatory minimums, applying the First Step Act can mean the difference between dying in prison and having the opportunity to eventually go free. Unfortunately, although there is a split among federal courts of appeals on this question, the Supreme Court denied cert in this case in February 2024.