The U.S. Supreme Court has left in place a court of appeals order that likely will prevent hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida from voting in the November election, National Public Radio reports. In 2018, Floridians voted to amend the state constitution to allow felons to vote. The amendment applied to felons who had completed their parole or probation periods and excluded any convicted of murder or sexual offenses. The legislature subsequently passed a law that conditioned the right to vote on the payment of all fees, fines and restitution. Two felons challenged the law and initially won in the district court, which found that most felons would be too poor to pay the amounts owed, if they could even find out what they owed. Earlier this month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked felons from registering or voting. The felons appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which yesterday refused to lift the order.

Federal inmate Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death this morning after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction by a D.C. judge, the ABA Journal reports. Purkey was originally scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, but U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, for the second time this week, issued a preliminary injunction to delay an execution, citing Purkey’s mental state. In a 5-4 vote this morning, SCOTUS allowed the execution to proceed and Purkey was put to death shortly thereafter. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented, with Sotomayor writing that Purkey has Alzheimer’s disease and does not believe he’s being executed for murder. Breyer, also for the second time this week, called for reexamining the constitutionality of the death penalty. Purkey was sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 16-year-old in 1998. Daniel Lewis Lee was the first federal inmate to be executed this week since 2003. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 today that the Trump administration had legal authority to allow private employers with moral or religious objections to opt out of providing birth control health insurance required under the Affordable Care Act. The majority opinion found that “conscience exemptions” for non-profit and for-profit employers were allowable based on the ACA and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The administration also had asked the justices to weigh in on the appropriateness of nationwide injunctions but the court did not address that issue. In a second decision issued today, the justices found that religious schools are immune from discrimination suits from teachers, expanding the scope of First Amendment safeguards for religious employers. The 7-2 decision broadens the so-called ministerial exception, a First Amendment doctrine that prohibits lawsuits by employees who are considered ministers due to the religious nature of their work. SCOTUSblog reports on both decisions.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear the case of Tennessee death row inmate David Keen, who claims he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled. In a petition filed in January, Keen’s lawyers said tests from 2008 and 2010 prove their client’s intellectual disability but there is no procedural mechanism in Tennessee to reopen the case. Attorneys for the state opposed the petition, arguing that in 1997, Keen presented evidence that included a much higher IQ. Keen was sentenced to death for the 1990 rape and murder of an 8-year-old in Shelby County. WKRN has the story.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a number of issues yesterday. By a vote of 5-4, the justices found that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is unconstitutional. However, they said the agency can still operate so long as the director can be fired at will by the president. By a vote of 5-4, the justices found that a Montana tax incentive program that indirectly helps private religious schools is constitutional. By a vote of 8-1, the justices ruled that online travel agency Booking.com may trademark its domain name finding it distinct enough to qualify for registration. Finally, the justices left in place a lower court decision that rejected environmental groups’ challenge to sections of the wall the Trump administration is building along the U.S. border with Mexico. Read more about these cases from The Hill and the Associated Press.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 yesterday that the government can remove some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge, SCOTUSBlog reports. The ruling dealt with “the narrow legal question” of whether an asylum seeker can file a petition for habeas corpus to review any alleged legal or constitutional errors by an asylum officer. The court found the habeas claim was not applicable in this situation. Expedited removal allows immigration officials to make an immediate decision to remove a person without a hearing if the person is apprehended within 100 miles of a border and are unable to prove they have lived in the country for more than two weeks.

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld legal protections for young immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, also known as DACA, rejecting efforts to end the program, the Tennessean reports. The DACA program provides work permits and social security numbers to immigrants brought into the country without documentation as children or on visas that later expired. President Donald Trump and his administration argued the program was illegal and sought to end DACA entirely, but the high court blocked those efforts in today’s 5-4 ruling. "We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. Here the agency failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients."

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to consider several high-profile cases, including those involving Second Amendment rights and legal protections for the police, the Hill reports. The justices chose not to hear new gun-rights disputes or the doctrine of qualified immunity during its next term. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision to deny the reviews. He was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh in dissenting from the denial of a new Second Amendment dispute. They argued the court should have granted review to one of the cases in order “to clarify that the Second Amendment protects a right to public carry.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 today that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees, The Washington Post reports. Conservative justices Neil M. Gorsuch and John G. Roberts Jr. joined justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in deciding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees. Justice Gorsuch wrote: “When an employer fires an employee because she is homosexual or transgender, two causal factors may be in play — both the individual’s sex and something else (the sex to which the individual is attracted or with which the individual identifies). But Title VII doesn’t care. If an employer would not have discharged an employee but for that individual’s sex, the statute’s causation standard is met, and liability may attach.” Read the opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia here.

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.