Hobby Lobby and executive power: Gorsuch’s key rulings
(CNN)President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court has supporters and opponents alike digging into Gorsuch’s record during his decade-long tenure on the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Some of his most notable opinions hit on the issues of religious liberty and the question how much deference courts should give to government agencies — an area that could impact everything from environmental law and federal drug policy to highway safety and food inspection standards.
Here are five of Gorsuch’s most notable cases:
Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius
One of the most striking and potentially controversial features of Gorsuch’s jurisprudence is his overarching commitment to religious freedom as both a constitutional and statutory right — even in contexts in which the Supreme Court had previously been less sympathetic to such claims.
As a result, the Fourth Amendment is likely to be one of the contexts in which Gorsuch may well be the swing vote between two four-justice blocks. And if his dissenting opinion in this case is any guide, he may well continue Scalia’s more libertarian tradition on searches and seizures. At issue was whether police officers were allowed to enter the area around the defendant’s home (the “curtilage”) before knocking on his door (usually, the answer is yes) if, as in that case, the defendant had prominently posted no-trespassing signs all over his property.
Although the majority held that the answer was yes, Gorsuch dissented. According to him, a property owner had the right to revoke the “implied license” of allowing potential visitors at least up to his front door, there was no precedent justifying the government’s effort to “upend the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment or centuries of common law recognizing that homeowners may revoke by word or deed the licenses they themselves extend.”
In that regard, he expanded upon the Supreme Court’s own guidance in a 2013 opinion written for a 5-4 Court by… you guessed it… Antonin Scalia.
Steve Vladeck is a CNN contributor and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law.
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