Send us Fan Mail

The Court held that Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy,” as applied to a licensed counselor providing only talk therapy, likely violates the First Amendment because it regulates speech based on content and viewpoint. Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch concluded that the law does not merely regulate professional conduct but directly restricts what the counselor may say to clients—permitting affirming discussions of a client’s sexual orientation or gender identity while prohibiting speech that seeks to change them. Such viewpoint-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional and must satisfy strict scrutiny, not the deferential rational-basis review applied by the lower courts. The Court rejected the idea that “professional speech” receives lesser protection and found that Colorado’s law does not fall within any recognized exception (such as regulating conduct, commercial disclosures, or historically unprotected categories of speech). Because the Tenth Circuit applied the wrong level of scrutiny, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Send us Fan Mail

The Supreme Court held that the Sentencing Reform Act does not permit courts to automatically extend a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defendant absconds, reversing the Ninth Circuit’s rule that treated time on the run as “tolled.” Isabel Rico’s supervised release had been set to expire in 2021, but after she absconded and later committed a state drug offense in 2022, the Ninth Circuit allowed the district court to treat that offense as a federal supervised‑release violation by deeming her term extended until her arrest in 2023. The Court rejected that approach, explaining that Congress provided specific mechanisms for extending, tolling, or revoking supervised release—and none authorize automatic extension for abscondment, which risks exceeding statutory maximums and contradicts the Act’s detailed structure. The government’s textual, precedential, and common‑law arguments failed to justify such a rule, and policy concerns about gaps in §3583(i)’s warrant requirement must be addressed by Congress, not judicial invention. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court; Justice Alito dissented.

Send us Fan Mail

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.