TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jun 1, 2020

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Friday to intervene in challenges brought by churches in southern California and the Chicago area against stay-at-home orders issued by their states as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The churches had asked the justices to lift restrictions on crowd capacity in time for them to hold services this past weekend. The court issued a “terse” order in the Illinois case that referred to new guidance issued by the state earlier that week. The decision in the California case was more closely divided with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote and authoring the opinion denying relief. Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, penned a dissenting opinion. SCOTUSBlog has more details.