As mentioned previously, the Supreme Court saw a busy March in terms of opinions being handed down. This second batch features a per curiam decision (with three dissenters), one unanimous decision, and two 8-1 decisions. The cases cover qualified immunity, copyright infringement, criminal procedure/supervised release, and the First Amendment in the context of therapy.
And the Court's already issued a couple of decisions in April with more to come. So, we'll get right to the rest of March:
March 2026 Decisions — Part Two
Date: March 23, 2026
Author: Per Curiam
Split: 6-3
Dissent: Sotomayor
Appeal From: 2nd Circuit
Basic Facts:
On the Governor’s inauguration day in Vermont, protesters staged a sit-in at the state capitol. When the capitol closed for the day, police officers told them that they would be arrested for trespassing. They refused to leave. As officers removed the protesters one by one, Sergeant Jacob Zorn asked Shela Linton to stand up and warned her that he would eventually have to use force to remove her. She refused to stand. Zorn took Linton’s arm, put it behind her back, placed pressure on her wrist, and lifted her to her feet. Linton sued Zorn for using excessive force, claiming that the arrest left her with arm injuries and psychological disorders. The Second Circuit held that Zorn was not entitled to qualified immunity. We reverse.
Issue:
Whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity where no clearly established precedent prohibits the specific use of force employed during a protester’s arrest.
Holding: Reversed.
Because the Second Circuit failed to identify a case where an officer taking similar actions in similar circumstances ‘was held to have violated’ the Constitution, Zorn was entitled to qualified immunity.
Skinny: Benefit of the doubt (and immunity) goes to the cop.
Cox Communications Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment
Date: March 25, 2026
Author: Thomas
Split: 9-0
Dissent: N/A
Appeal From: 4th Circuit
Basic Facts:
Cox Communications, Inc., is an Internet service provider serving approximately six million subscribers, each associated with a unique Internet Protocol address. Internet service providers like Cox have limited knowledge about how their services are used; they know which IP address corresponds to which subscriber account but cannot distinguish individual users or directly control how services are used. Cox contractually prohibits subscribers from using their connection to post, copy, transmit, or disseminate content that infringes copyrights.
Sony Music Entertainment and other major music copyright owners enlisted MarkMonitor to track copyright infringement across the Internet. MarkMonitor’s software detects when copyrighted works are illegally uploaded or downloaded and traces the activity to particular IP addresses. During the roughly two-year period at issue, MarkMonitor sent Cox 163,148 notices identifying IP addresses of Cox subscribers associated with infringement.
Sony sued Cox in Federal District Court, advancing two theories of secondary copyright liability. First, Sony alleged that Cox contributed to its users’ infringement by continuing to provide Internet service to subscribers whose IP addresses Cox knew were associated with infringement. Second, Sony alleged that Cox was vicariously liable for its users’ infringement. The jury found in favor of Sony on both theories, found Cox’s infringement willful, and awarded $1 billion in statutory damages. The District Court denied Cox’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law in relevant part. The Fourth Circuit affirmed as to contributory liability, reasoning that supplying a product with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights is exactly the sort of culpable conduct sufficient for contributory infringement. The Fourth Circuit reversed as to vicarious liability. This Court granted Cox’s petition for certiorari as to contributory liability.
Issue:
Whether an internet service provider can be held contributorily liable for copyright infringement based solely on providing service to users it knows are infringing.
Holding: Reversed and remanded.
The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement, which can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement; Cox neither induced its users’ infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement; accordingly, Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement of Sony’s copyrights.
Skinny: Just knowing about it isn't enough; no intent ➡️ no liability.
Added Note: This is a big win for internet service providers.
Date: March 25, 2026
Author: Gorsuch
Split: 8-1
Dissent: Alito
Appeal From: 9th Circuit
Basic Facts:
A criminal defendant, on supervised release from federal prison, must comply with various conditions—both mandatory (commit no more crimes, see 18 U. S. C. §3583(d)) and discretionary (commonly, ‘report to a probation officer as directed’ and ‘notify the probation officer promptly of any change in address,’ §§3563(b)(15), (17)). Violating a prescribed condition may result in the revocation of supervised release and a return to prison, §3583(e)(3), as well as an additional ‘term of supervised release after imprisonment,’ §3583(h).
After petitioner Isabel Rico violated the terms of her supervised release conditions, the judge revoked her release and ordered her to serve two months of additional imprisonment and a new 42-month term of supervised release set to expire in 2021. When released the second time, Ms. Rico again violated her conditions by changing her residence without notifying her probation officer. A warrant issued for her arrest, but federal authorities did not locate her until January 2023. As relevant here, during her abscondment, Ms. Rico committed a state law drug offense in January 2022, which resulted in a conviction. Back in federal district court, the judge treated Ms. Rico’s drug offense as a Grade A violation of her supervised release conditions and sentenced her to 16 months of incarceration followed by two more years of supervised release. Ms. Rico appealed, arguing that the district court lacked authority to treat her drug offense as a supervised release violation because that offense occurred after her supervised term expired in June 2021. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, describing Ms. Rico’s abscondment as having ‘tolled’ the clock so that her term continued to run until federal authorities caught up with her in 2023. Because of that, the Ninth Circuit held, Ms. Rico’s January 2022 drug offense could count as a violation of her federal supervised release.
Issue:
Whether a defendant’s supervised release term is automatically extended when the defendant absconds, allowing later conduct to count as a violation.
Holding: Reversed and remanded.
The Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize a rule automatically extending a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defendant absconds.
Skinny: Absconding neither stops nor extends the clock — unless/until Congress specifies otherwise.
Corollary: It's not up to courts to create tolling rules — that's for the legislature.
Date: March 31, 2026
Author: Gorsuch
Split: 8-1
Dissent: Jackson
Appeal From: 10th Circuit
Basic Facts:
Kaley Chiles holds a master’s degree in clinical mental health and a state counseling license in Colorado. Ms. Chiles does not begin counseling with any predetermined goals; instead, she sits down with clients, discusses their goals, and then formulates methods of counseling that will most benefit them, seeking throughout to respect her clients’ fundamental right of self-determination. On matters of sexuality and gender, Ms. Chiles’s clients, including young people, often have different goals: Some are content with their sexual orientation and gender identity and want help with social issues or family relationships, while others hope to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies. With all those clients, Ms. Chiles seeks to help them reach their stated objectives. And she employs only talk therapy.
In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in ‘conversion therapy’ with minors, Colo. Rev. Stat. §12–245–224(1)(t)(V), defining the term to include ‘any practice or treatment . . . that attempts . . . to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,’ as well as any ‘effor[t] to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex,’ §12–245–202(3.5)(a). Yet the law explicitly allows counselors to provide ‘[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for . . . identity exploration and development,’ §12–245–202(3.5)(b)(I), and to assist persons ‘undergoing gender transition,’ §12–245–202(3.5)(b)(II). Ms. Chiles filed suit in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction, raising a First Amendment challenge to the law as it applies to her talk therapy.
Both the district court and the Tenth Circuit determined that Ms. Chiles had Article III standing to pursue her as-applied pre-enforcement challenge. On the merits, however, both courts denied Ms. Chiles’s request for a preliminary injunction, reasoning that Colorado’s law is best understood as regulating professional conduct and that it regulates speech only incidentally, thus triggering no more than rational-basis review under the First Amendment. This Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit conflict over how the First Amendment interacts with laws like Colorado’s when those laws are applied to talk therapy.
Issue:
Whether a state law restricting certain counseling practices constitutes viewpoint-based regulation of speech subject to heightened First Amendment scrutiny.
Holding: Reversed and remanded.
Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, as applied to Ms. Chiles’s talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.
Skinny: States can license professionals, but not their viewpoints.
ALSO SEE: SCOTUS Deals Major Blow to Colorado Conversion Therapy Ban
You can check out prior installments of The Skinny on SCOTUS series here.
