# 2016 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2016 term, which began October 3, 2016 and concluded October 1, 2017.
Because per curiam decisions are issued from the Court as an institution, these opinions all lack the attribution of authorship or joining votes to specific justices. All justices on the Court at the time the decision was handed down are assumed to have participated and concurred unless otherwise noted.

## Court membership

Chief Justice: John Roberts
Associate Justices: Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch (confirmed April 7, 2017)

## Bosse v. Oklahoma

580 U.S. ___ Decided October 11, 2016. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma vacated and remanded.
The Oklahoma court erred in ruling that Payne v. Tennessee (1991) "implicitly overruled" Booth v. Maryland (1987) in regards to the victim's family members' testimony of the defendant(s) and opinion(s) of the sentence. Payne did not specifically state this, and only the Supreme Court can overrule its own precedent.
Thomas filed a concurrence, joined by Alito, writing that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals erred by ruling that Payne overruled Booth in its entirety and that the Supreme Court's decision does not affect the analytical foundations of either Booth or Payne.

## White v. Pauly

580 U.S. ___ Decided January 9, 2017. Tenth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Ginsburg filed a concurrence.

## Rippo v. Baker

580 U.S. ___ Decided March 6, 2017. Supreme Court of Nevada vacated and remanded.

## North Carolina v. Covington

581 U.S. ___ Decided June 5, 2017. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina remedial order vacated and remanded.

## Virginia v. LeBlanc

582 U.S. ___ Decided June 12, 2017. Fourth Circuit reversed.
Ginsburg filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

## Jenkins v. Hutton

582 U.S. ___ Decided June 19, 2017. Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded.

## Hernandez v. Mesa

582 U.S. ___ Decided June 26, 2017. Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded.
Thomas filed a dissent. Breyer filed a dissent, joined by Ginsburg. Gorsuch did not participate in the consideration or decision of the case.

## Pavan v. Smith

582 U.S. ___; 137 S. Ct. 2075; 198 L. Ed. 2d 636 Decided June 26, 2017. This case concerns two lesbian couples, Leigh and Jana Jacobs and Terrah and Marisa Pavan. The Jacobses were married in Iowa in 2010, and the Pavans were married in New Hampshire in 2011. Both couples conceived children through anonymous sperm donors, and those children were both born in Arkansas in 2015. When they filled out the birth certificates, both couples listed both partners' names, but the State of Arkansas accepted only the birth mothers' names. Arkansas state law required that the birth mother's name be listed on the form, and that the husband of the birth mother be listed on the form as the father, including in cases of artificial insemination by anonymous sperm donor. Both couples sued the State of Arkansas, alleging that the birth certificate law violated the Constitution. The trial court agreed, but the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that the statute was about the biological relationship between a mother and a child, and thus did not violate the precedent set in Obergefell v. Hodges. The United States Supreme Court summarily reversed that decision and remanded it, stating that the reasoning of the Arkansas Supreme Court denies married gay couples the benefits that are inherent in marriage, thus violating Obergefell.
Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Thomas and Alito. In it, he argued that this case warranted more than summary reversal, because Obergefell was solely about marriage and this statute, while tangentially related, was a different issue.

## Trump. v. International Refugee Assistance Project

582 U.S. ___ Decided June 26, 2017. Certiorari to the Fourth and Ninth Circuits granted; applications to stay injunctions granted in part.
Thomas filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Alito and Gorsuch.