Big Issues Still Awaiting Supreme Court Rulings

Some of the big issues still unresolved in the Supreme Court consist of the religious rights of corporations, the speech rights of abortion protesters and the privacy rights of people under arrest which the court can only attend to after decisions in all the cases it has heard since October are handed down, according to The Associated Press.

The justices handed down three rulings Monday and will decide more of the 14 remaining cases on Thursday, but there are still many more cases remaining, the AP reported.

Contraceptive coverage issues are still unresolved as corporations claim the right to exercise religious objections to covering women's contraceptives under their employee health insurance plans, despite the new health law's requirement that birth control be among a range of no-cost preventive services included in health plans, according to the AP.

Abortion opponents are challenging as a violation of their speech rights a Massachusetts law mandating a 35-foot protest-free zone on public sidewalks outside abortion clinics, the AP reported.

In regards to cell phone cases, there are two cases weighing the power of police to search the cellphones of people they place under arrest without first obtaining a warrant from a judge, according to the AP.

A federal appeals court said President Barack Obama misused the Constitution's recess power when he temporarily filled positions on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012, a decision has not been released, the AP reported.

Other cases include broadcasters who are fighting Internet startup Aereo's practice of taking television their programming for free and providing it to subscribers who can then watch on smartphones and other portable devices, according to the AP.

A big one against greenhouse gases is on the Supreme Court's list as industry groups assert that environmental regulators overstepped their bounds by trying to apply a provision of the Clean Air Act to control emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants and factories, the AP reported.

This case is unlikely to affect the recent proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to slash carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by nearly one-third by 2030; that plan involves a different part of the same law, according to the AP.