2025 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States

As of April 20, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States has handed down seven per curiam opinions during its 2025 term. This term began on October 6, 2025, and will end on October 4, 2026.

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: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson

Pitts v. Mississippi

Full caption:	Jeffrey Clyde Pitts v. Mississippi
Citations:	607 U.S. 1 (2025)
Prior history:	Pitts v. State, 405 So. 3d 1238 (Miss. 2025)
Laws applied:	Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · Justia

607 U.S. 1 (2025)
Decided November 24, 2025.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment requires an individualized finding that a screen is necessary to protect a child from trauma before it can be placed between the child and the defendant during testimony in a criminal trial.

Clark v. Sweeney

Full caption:	Terence Clark v. Jeremiah Antoine Sweeney
Citations:	607 U.S. 7 (2025)
Laws applied:	Principle of party presentation
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · Justia  · SCOTUS Blog

607 U.S. 7 (2025)
Decided November 24, 2025.
The Fourth Circuit erred in granting habeas relief to Sweeney based on a claim of constitutional error that he had never alleged. Sweeney was convicted of multiple crimes in state court. At trial, a juror unlawfully visited the crime scene. That juror reported the findings to the jury. The judge removed that delinquent juror, but the judge didn't call a mistrial and Sweeney's counsel did not voir dire the remaining jurors to assess the effect of the delinquent juror's actions on them. This failure to voir dire formed the basis of a habeas petition in Federal District Court, which denied relief under Strickland v. Washington. Sweeney only raised one issue in federal court, the ineffective assistance of his counsel at trial. Sweeney appealed. The Fourth Circuit granted relief on the basis of multiple errors committed by judge, jury and attorneys. None of those errors was ever raised, and Clark had no opportunity to respond. Therefore, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Circuit violated the party presentation principle.

Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy, LLC

Full caption:	John Doe v. Dynamic Physical Therapy, LLC
Citations:	607 U.S. 11 (2025)
Prior history:	Trial court judgment affirmed, 404 So. 3d 1008 (La. Ct. App., 1st Cir. 2024), writ denied, 407 So. 3d 623 (La. 2025)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · Justia

607 U.S. 11 (2025)
Decided December 8, 2025.
States have no power to create immunity for federal causes of action. Accordingly, the Louisiana Court of Appeal's decision holding that a Louisiana state law barred federal claims against health care providers is reversed.

Klein v. Martin

Full caption:	Christopher Klein, Superintendent, Department of Detention Facilities for Anne Arundel County, et al., Petitioners v. Charles Brandon Martin
Citations:	607 U.S. 213 (2026)
Laws applied:	Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · Justia

607 U.S. 213 (2026)
Decided January 26, 2026.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the award of a new trial under two theories. First, it held that the state court had applied the wrong rule for Brady materiality after a forensic report was not disclosed to the defense before trial. Second, to satisfy the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), it held that every fairminded jurist would have disagreed with the state court's decision that the forensic report was immaterial to the outcome of the trial.

The Supreme Court held that the state court had applied the proper Brady test and that the Fourth Circuit had not sufficiently deferred to the state court under AEDPA because there was enough other evidence suggesting that the defendant would have been convicted regardless of the claimed Brady material. Therefore, the court granted the state's petition for a writ of certiorari and reversed the judgment below.

Justice Jackson would have denied the petition for a writ of certiorari.

Mirabelli v. Bonta

Main article: Mirabelli v. Bonta

Full caption:	Elizabeth Mirabelli, et al. v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, et al.
Citations:	607 U.S. ___ (2026)
Prior history:	Mirabelli v. Olson
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · Justia

607 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided March 2, 2026.
Application to vacate the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's stay granted in part. The Court determined the parent plaintiffs seeking religious exemptions to California's school district policies requiring schools to keep students' gender transitioning information and knowledge confidential are likely to succeed on their Free Exercise and Due Process claims. The Ninth Circuit's procedural objections regarding parent and teacher class certifications were deemed unlikely to prevail. The application to vacate is otherwise denied.

Justices Thomas and Alito would grant the application in full. Justice Sotomayor would deny the application in full. Justice Barrett wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh. Justice Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Jackson.

See also: Mahmoud v. Taylor

The court's opinion was based on substantive due process. Ian Millhiser wrote "Mirabelli is one of the most consequential constitutional decisions the Roberts Court has ever handed down" and "the height of judicial hypocrisy".

Zorn v. Linton

Full caption:	Jacob P. Zorn v. Shela M. Linton
Citations:	607 U.S. ___ (2026)
Prior history:	Linton v. Zorn, 135 F. 4th 19 (CA2 2025)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion

607 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided March 23, 2026.
Because the Second Circuit failed to identify a case where an officer using a routine wristlock on a protester after issuing a verbal warning, without more, was held to have violated the Constitution, Sergeant Jacob Zorn was entitled to qualified immunity; the Second Circuit’s contrary conclusion was erroneous.

Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

District of Columbia v. R.W.

Full caption:	District of Columbia v. R.W.
Citations:	608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Prior history:	In re R.W., 334 A.3d 593 (D.C. 2025)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion

608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided April 20, 2026.
Because the officer in this case clearly had reasonable suspicion to stop R.W., the judgment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded. Justice Sotomayor would deny the petition for a writ of certiorari. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion.

Hamm v. Smith

"Hamm v. Smith" redirects here. For the 2024 case, see 2024 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States § Hamm v. Smith.

Full caption:	John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections v. Joseph Clifton Smith
Citations:	608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion  · oral argument

608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Argued December 10, 2025.
Decided May 21, 2026.
Joseph Clifton Smith was convicted in Alabama for capital murder after a 1997 robbery and sentenced to death. Smith filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the death sentence, claiming to have an intellectual disability. Smith scored 75, 74, 72, 78, and 74 on five full-scale IQ tests, while a score of 70 or lower is considered as evidence of intellectual disability in Alabama, making one ineligible for execution. Smith's claim was granted by the Southern District of Alabama which vacated the death sentence. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district's ruling.

The case first reached the Supreme Court in the 2024 term. In a per curiam opinion, the court summarily reversed and remanded the case without granting certiorari. Justices Thomas and Gorsuch wrote a dissent to the denial of certiorari.

During the 2025 term, the case was appealed again and the court granted certiorari while limiting the question to what the cumulative effects of IQ tests should be when evaluating an Atkins claim. After argument, the court dismissed the case as improvidently granted.

A concurrence to the dismissal order written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and joined by Jackson, said the case was not appropriate to use to have the court evaluate the scientific basis of IQ tests. Thomas and Alito wrote separate dissents. Thomas joined Alito's dissent in full, while Roberts and Gorsuch joined Parts I, III, & IV.

Margolin v. NAIJ

Full caption:	Daren K. Margolin, Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review v. National Association of Immigration Judges
Citations:	608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion

608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided May 26, 2026.
Reversed because the Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded based on an issue the parties had not raised, violating the principle of party presentation.

Justice Thomas concurred, joined by Justice Barrett.

Whitton v. Dixon

Full caption:	Gary Richard Whitton v. Ricky D. Dixon, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections
Citations:	608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion

608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided June 1, 2026.
Appellate courts cannot consider evidence that was not presented at trial when making a harmless error determination about how the jury would have been affected by evidence that was admitted at trial.

Decision of the Eleventh Circuit vacated and remanded because the appellate court considered post-conviction evidence not presented at trial.

Justice Thomas dissented, partially joined by Justice Alito.

McCarthy v. Hernandez

Full caption:	Kevin McCarthy, Superintendent, Elmira Correctional Facility v. Pedro Hernandez
Citations:	608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Full text of the opinion:	official slip opinion

608 U.S. ___ (2026)
Decided June 22, 2026.
No clearly established federal law requires the trial court to instruct the jury about the rule from Justice Kennedy's concurrence to Missouri v. Seibert, so federal habeas relief is not available under AEDPA.

State's petition for a writ of certiorari granted. Decision of the Second Circuit reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.

Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson would have denied the petition for a writ of certiorari.

References

• "2025 Term Opinions of the Court". Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved January 7, 2026.