So Ordered

The Court holds that a defendant charged under 18 U. S. C. § 1519 — which makes it a crime to knowingly falsify a document with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation — must be tried in the district where the falsification occurred, not in a district where the investigation was located. Because falsifying a document is the only conduct the statute proscribes, that act fixes venue; the statute's intent requirement is a mens rea element and does not move the trial to wherever the contemplated obstruction might be felt. CASE: Abouammo v. United States AUTHOR: Kagan, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-11 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-5146_e29f.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that Section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act does not give private parties an implied right to sue for rescission of contracts that allegedly violate the Act. The provision is a mandate telling courts how to exercise their remedial power once parties are before them — not a grant of a right to sue — and Congress entrusted enforcement of the Act primarily to the Securities and Exchange Commission. CASE: FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-11 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-345_i42k.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that a political candidate has Article III standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election. Congressman Michael Bost may therefore pursue his suit against Illinois's practice of counting mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day — without having to show that the rule risks costing him the election, a significant vote threshold, or money. CASE: Bost v. Illinois Bd. of Elections AUTHOR: Roberts, J. DECIDED: 2026-01-14 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us1r05_e2q3.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds unanimously that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, courts of appeals must review the immigration agency's determination that a given set of undisputed facts does not rise to the level of "persecution" under the deferential substantial-evidence standard — not de novo. The agency's persecution determination, both its factual findings and its application of the statute to those findings, is conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary. CASE: Urias-Orellana v. Bondi AUTHOR: Jackson, J. DECIDED: 2026-03-04 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/607us2r19_3e04.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that a federal prisoner who collaterally attacks the validity of his conviction must proceed through the habeas statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2255, and cannot use a motion for compassionate release under 18 U. S. C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) as a substitute. The supposed invalidity of a conviction is not among the "extraordinary and compelling reasons" that justify compassionate release; channeling such claims into § 2255 keeps the two statutes in harmony and stops prisoners from evading § 2255's strict procedural limits. CASE: Fernandez v. United States AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-05-28 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-556_8m58.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. Because tariffs are a branch of the taxing power that Article I of the Constitution assigns to Congress alone, the President must identify clear congressional authorization to impose them — and IEEPA's grant of authority to "regulate . . . importation," which never mentions tariffs or duties, does not supply it. CASE: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump AUTHOR: Roberts, J. DECIDED: 2026-02-20 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_new_3135.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that the Securities and Exchange Commission need not prove that investors suffered a pecuniary loss before it may obtain a disgorgement award against a securities-law violator. Under traditional equitable principles, a court may strip a wrongdoer of the gains attributable to his unlawful conduct even when his victims cannot show any measurable financial harm, so a finding of pecuniary loss is not a precondition to disgorgement. CASE: Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission AUTHOR: Gorsuch, J. DECIDED: 2026-06-04 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-466_5i26.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that when Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive — as it did with the First Step Act's change to the "stacked" mandatory minimums of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) — the resulting disparity between a prisoner's existing sentence and the shorter one he would receive today cannot be an "extraordinary and compelling" reason warranting a sentence reduction under the compassionate-release statute, § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). To the extent the Sentencing Commission's 2023 policy statement counsels otherwise, it is invalid. CASE: Rutherford v. United States AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-05-28 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-820_97be.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that under Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, a plaintiff need not show the defendant trafficked in the plaintiff's particular property interest; using the underlying confiscated physical property is enough. Four cruise lines that embarked passengers from docks in the Port of Havana between 2016 and 2019 used 'property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government,' even though Havana Docks Corporation's time-limited concession in those docks would have expired in 2004. CASE: Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. AUTHOR: Thomas, J. DECIDED: 2026-05-21 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-983_c07d.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that a worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey can qualify for the Federal Arbitration Act's Section 1 exemption — which excludes from the Act contracts of employment of transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce — without ever crossing state lines or interacting with a vehicle that does. CASE: Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock AUTHOR: Gorsuch, J. DECIDED: 2026-05-28 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-935_k53m.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that a state common-law negligent-hiring claim against a transportation broker is not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, because the Act's safety exception preserves state authority to regulate motor-vehicle safety — including the ordinary-care duty owed by those who choose which carrier will move goods on the highway. CASE: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC AUTHOR: Barrett, J. DECIDED: 2026-05-14 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1238_1b7d.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that New Jersey's investigatory subpoena demanding First Choice Women's Resource Centers' donor information inflicts a present, ongoing injury to the group's First Amendment associational rights, giving it Article III standing to press its federal challenge. CASE: First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Davenport AUTHOR: Gorsuch, J. DECIDED: 2026-04-29 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-781_pok0.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

The Court holds that because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create a second majority-minority congressional district, no compelling interest justified the State's use of race in drawing its new map, making that map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. CASE: Louisiana v. Callais AUTHOR: Alito, J. DECIDED: 2026-04-29 OPINION: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_new_jifl.pdf AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.

An introduction to So Ordered: why it exists, how each episode is produced, and an up-front, complete disclosure that every voice on the podcast is AI-generated. AI DISCLOSURE: The voices in this podcast are AI-generated. The narration is produced by a machine-learning voice synthesis model. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to any individual. The text being read is the majority opinion as published by the Supreme Court of the United States with light adaptations to improve readability.