The U.S. Supreme Court enters the final weeks of its current term with a docket that reads like a checklist of the issues Americans care most about, and fight hardest over. Gun rights, transgender athletes in women's sports, immigration enforcement, religious liberty behind prison walls, and a death penalty dispute all await resolution before the justices leave Washington for the summer.
The court's 6-3 conservative majority will shape the outcomes. And on several of the biggest questions, the Trump administration is on the field, defending federal gun statutes, backing state laws that protect women's sports, and pressing forward on immigration enforcement that lower courts have tried to block.
Reuters reported June 7 that the justices are expected to wrap up their nine-month term around the end of the month, with rulings still pending in at least half a dozen consequential cases. The term has already drawn attention for disputes over tariffs and the firing of regulatory officials. But the cases still on the docket cut closer to the daily lives of ordinary Americans, gun owners, parents, athletes, and immigrants alike.
The court heard arguments in January over a Hawaii law that restricts the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public. Under the statute, a person needs the property owner's "express authorization" to bring a handgun onto such property. Four other states have similar laws on the books.
Hayley Lawrence, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law and a gun control advocate, predicted the court will strike down Hawaii's law. She told Reuters:
"It seems to me Hawaii is going to lose 6-3."
Lawrence also said the ruling could shed further light on the legal framework the court adopted in its landmark 2022 decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established a historical-tradition test for evaluating whether firearms regulations pass Second Amendment muster. That framework has generated confusion in lower courts, and gun rights groups have been eager for the justices to clarify its boundaries.
The second gun case is more unusual. The court heard arguments in March over a federal criminal statute, part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, that bars anyone who is an "unlawful user" of any controlled substance from possessing firearms or ammunition. The same broader law also bars felons and fugitives from gun ownership.
A Texas man who said he uses marijuana several times a week brought the challenge. The Trump administration is defending the statute. The same provision was invoked in 2023 charges against Hunter Biden, the son of then-President Joe Biden. Biden later pardoned his son.
University of Chicago law professor Darrell Miller said the justices appear skeptical of the drug-user provision but worry about the ripple effects of striking it down. As he put it:
"The court is deciding a drug case but they have one eye on the felony possession statute."
That tension, between protecting individual gun rights and preserving the broader structure of federal firearms law, could make the ruling one of the most closely watched of the term.
The justices are also set to decide the legality of laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams at public schools, including universities. The Trump administration backs both states.
During January arguments, conservative justices signaled they are likely to uphold the laws. Sports law attorney William Bock, who supports the measures, told Reuters the public is broadly on one side of this issue:
"There is vast consensus on this issue. Seventy to 80 percent of the public doesn't understand why people are fighting about this."
Sasha Buchert, an attorney at the LGBT legal rights group Lambda Legal who represents one of the plaintiffs, expressed hope for a ruling striking down the laws, saying the arguments "went much better" than expected. But the court's recent track record suggests otherwise.
The justices have moved decisively on related questions in recent months. The court upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in a 6-3 ruling. In March, it blocked a series of California laws that could have limited sharing information with parents about the gender identity of transgender public school students without the child's permission. That same month, in an 8-1 decision, the court rejected a Colorado law banning psychotherapists from using "conversion" talk therapy intended to change an LGBT minor's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Trump administration has also pursued policies barring transgender people from using their gender identities on passports and prohibiting transgender federal workers from using bathrooms that do not match their biological sex. Last year, the court allowed the administration's ban on transgender military service to take effect while a legal challenge played out.
The pattern is clear. On question after question involving transgender policy, the court's conservative majority has sided with states and the federal government when they draw lines based on biological sex. A ruling upholding Idaho and West Virginia would extend that pattern into school athletics, where the consequences for female competitors are most immediate and most visible.
Two major immigration cases also await decisions in the coming weeks. The court is due to rule on President Trump's efforts to restrict birthright citizenship and on the administration's effort to strip Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
Both cases test whether the executive branch can enforce immigration law as written, or whether lower courts can continue blocking enforcement through nationwide injunctions. For the hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose legal status hangs in the balance, the rulings will be concrete and immediate. For the broader debate over border security and lawful immigration, they will set the terms for the rest of Trump's term.
Not every pending case carries the same political charge, but two others deserve attention.
In a religious-rights dispute, a Rastafarian man sued Louisiana prison officials under a federal law protecting incarcerated people from religious discrimination. He alleged that guards shaved him bald in violation of his religious beliefs. The case tests how far the government must go to accommodate sincere religious practice, even behind bars.
And in May, the court kept in place a judicial finding that a man convicted of a 1997 murder in Alabama was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty under existing Supreme Court precedent. The ruling spared the man from execution.
The Supreme Court's 2020 decision extending workplace discrimination protections to gay and transgender employees showed that the justices are willing to move in unexpected directions. But the trajectory since then, especially under the current 6-3 conservative majority, has been far more favorable to gun owners, parents, states defending women's sports, and the executive branch's authority to enforce immigration law.
The cases still pending this term will not resolve every fight in American public life. But they will answer specific, concrete questions that elected officials and lower courts have struggled with for years. Can Hawaii effectively ban handgun carry on commercial property? Can the federal government strip gun rights from marijuana users? Can states protect female athletes from competing against biological males? Can the president enforce immigration law without a federal judge in every circuit second-guessing him?
The answers arrive this month. And for millions of Americans, gun owners, parents, athletes, taxpayers, and legal immigrants, the stakes are not abstract.
When the court's majority follows the Constitution where it leads, the results tend to look a lot like common sense. That shouldn't be remarkable. But in Washington, it still is.
