Civil liberty issues dominated the Supreme Court in 2014, a year that included rulings that protected or enhanced free speech, religious and privacy rights but featured few bombshell decisions of the kind that overshadowed recent terms.
But with the justices under increasing pressure to take up the hot-button issue of gay marriage in the New Year, the court’s 2014-15 term is poised to be historic.
In the year’s most high-profile case, the court gave a nod to religious and corporate freedoms as it struck down a key provision of the Affordable Care Act.
The 5-4 decision said that businesses can use religious beliefs to opt out of an Obamacare requirement that employers cover birth control for employees. It was a significant victory for those challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s healthcare law. And it was the first time the high court has said businesses can hold religious views under federal law.
The plaintiffs — Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores with 13,000 full-time employees, and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a small Mennonite furniture manufacturer — said they were amenable to providing most of the mandated forms of contraception. But they oppose emergency contraceptives such as the morning-after pill, arguing that life begins at conception and that destroying a fertilized egg in the uterus is tantamount to abortion.
The decision, while significant, was limited to the contraception mandate, with the justices saying that businesses cannot opt out of Obamacare entirely on religious grounds.
In another case that expanded religious freedoms, a divided Supreme Court opened the door to more public prayer at government-sponsored events, ruling that meetings in the town of Greece, N.Y., may begin with a Christian invocation.
Opponents argued the prayers had been overwhelmingly Christian and instead should be replaced by nonsectarian prayers or a moment of silence. But the high court’s five conservative-leaning justices agreed the prayers are in keeping with the nation’s traditions.
“Legislative prayer lends gravity to public business, reminds lawmakers to transcend petty differences in pursuit of a higher purpose and expresses a common aspiration to a just and peaceful society,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in writing for the majority.
In perhaps the year’s biggest First Amendment-related case, the Supreme Court struck down the overall limits that wealthy donors can contribute to political campaigns, handing a big victory to anti-regulation conservatives who saw the caps as a serious restriction of free speech rights.
Federal law previously held that, during a two-year election cycle, individuals could not give more than $48,600 to all candidates for federal office and no more than $74,600 to national party committees that make contributions to candidates.
Critics said removing the caps will lead to big-money donors gaining even more influence over elections than they already have, a scenario they say would lead to corruption.
But in their 5-4 ruling in McCutcheon v. the Federal Election Commission, the justices said Americans have the right to contribute the legal maximum — $2,600 — to an unlimited number of candidates for congressional and presidential races, political parties, and political action committees.
Another significant free speech decision was the court’s striking down of a Massachusetts law that set 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics, saying it violated the First Amendment rights of protesters.
The unanimous McCullen v. Coakley decision was a victory for anti-abortion activists and even some liberal groups who feared that the law, if upheld, could make it more difficult for striking workers to picket outside their workplaces.
Massachusetts instituted its 2007 buffer zone law after several abortion clinics in the state complained that protesters, activists and others repeatedly were blocking — and sometimes harassing — patients as they entered their facilities.
Some supporters of the law argued that the case wasn’t really about free speech because the ban only limited the location of the speech and wasn’t intended to target specific topics of speech or to silence anyone.
But the justices said that protecting free speech is paramount and that such buffer zones — even if they they only moderately infringe on a person’s right to be heard — are unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court also gave privacy rights in the digital age a big victory, unanimously ruling that police can’t search the cellphones of people they arrest without a warrant.
The justices said that because cellphones potentially contain vast amounts of personal information unrelated to a person’s arrest, they should be off-limits to a police search without a warrant.
The case pitted privacy advocates and defense lawyers against law enforcement and the federal government, who argued that cellphone searches immediately after an arrest are vital to ensure evidence isn’t tampered with or destroyed.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the solution for police was “accordingly simple: Get a warrant.”
In another unanimous decision that was a sharp rebuke of the Obama administration, the court said the president exceeded his authority when he appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board during a congressional recess in 2012.
Presidents can circumvent required Senate approval of nominations if the chamber is in recess, a move Obama deemed necessary because Republicans repeatedly were blocking his nominees to the NLRB.
But the justices said the Constitution’s recess appointments clause gives Congress — not the president — the power to decide when it is in recess, and that there was no recess when Obama acted.
Looking ahead to 2015, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new Obamacare challenge in a case that threatens subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums.
At issue is the wording of the healthcare law. An appeals court ruled in July that the law’s language specifically limits insurance tax credits to consumers who live in states that have set up their own insurance markets, known as exchanges.
The Obama administration says the law’s intent was that the federal government would step in and run exchanges in states that declined to participate.
Thirty-four states have opted not to create their own exchanges.
The high court also is poised to rule on national gay marriage rights after a series of lower court decisions and high court orders this autumn set the issue on a fast track.
When the justices opened their 2014-15 term in early October, significant cases involving gay marriage were conspicuously absent from the docket. But a month later, a federal appeals court upheld anti-gay marriage laws in four states, making it difficult for the Supreme Court to sidestep the issue much longer.
Advocates on both sides, as well as many states, are eager for the court to settle the issue once and for all, heightening expectations a ruling will come before the court’s term ends in late June.
Gay-marriage opponents say they expect the conservative-leaning bench to rule in their favor, while supporters say legal momentum is on their side.
Just how the nine justices will rule is difficult to say, as the Roberts court has become increasingly unpredictable. But many legal experts say they expect a decision in line with the nation’s growing legal and cultural acceptance of gay marriage.
