As the Supreme Court justices head into their summer recess, the country's highest court has already assembled a docket packed with major constitutional disputes for its 2026–27 term. 

The cases touch many of the same issues that dominated the court’s most recent term, including the Second Amendment, religious liberty, parental rights, criminal procedure, executive power, and election law – while other high-profile petitions are still waiting in the wings.

Guns: The Court Takes on So-Called “Assault Weapons”

The most closely watched addition came just as the term wrapped up. Days after striking down a Hawaii law that barred concealed-carry permit holders from bringing guns onto private property without explicit owner permission, the justices announced that they will decide whether the Second Amendment protects the right to own AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles. 

The court will hear two cases together: an Illinois challenge to Cook County’s ban on semiautomatic rifles brought by Cutberto Viramontes, and a challenge by gun owners and gun-rights groups to a similar Connecticut law passed after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.

Three justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – signaled interest in the AR-15 question last year, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the constitutionality of AR-15 bans was a question that the court would need to answer “soon, in the next Term or two.”

The cases are expected to be argued this fall and could produce the court’s most consequential Second Amendment decision since New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. 

Notably, the court passed on a separate cluster of pending challenges to large-capacity magazine restrictions.

Religious Liberty: A Preschool Case With Far-Reaching Implications 

The court also agreed to hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, a challenge brought by a Catholic preschool in Littleton, Colorado, after the school was excluded from the state’s universal preschool program because it would not agree to comply with requirements prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity without a religious exemption.

Beyond the dispute itself, the case has attracted attention because several justices have suggested it could provide an opportunity to reconsider – or even overrule – Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the landmark decision that limited Free Exercise Clause challenges to generally applicable laws.

The justices also granted review in Grand v. City of University Heights, an Ohio-based case involving a homeowner who says city officials violated his constitutional rights by requiring a permit before he could host a neighborhood prayer group in his home.

Parental Rights and Transgender Minors

The court will also hear International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, which asks whether parents may challenge Washington laws that permit licensed youth shelters to provide mental-health services including gender-transition-related care – to runaway minors without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents.

The case extends the court’s recent involvement in disputes over gender identity and minors following its decisions addressing state restrictions on transgender medical treatments and participation in female sports.

Criminal Law

The justices will also hear a closely watched criminal-law case from Florida examining whether the Constitution permits non-unanimous jury recommendations to support death sentences or other serious criminal judgments under the Sixth Amendment.

The case could further define the scope of the jury-trial right following the court’s modern Sixth Amendment decisions and clarify how states may structure criminal verdicts and sentencing procedures. The ruling could have significant implications for criminal prosecutions beyond Florida.

Voting Rights

Election law made the docket too. In Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, the justices will consider Arizona’s requirement that voter-registration applicants show proof of citizenship, and whether a federal law allows states to purge noncitizens from voting rolls within 90 days of a federal election. 

Separately, the court has asked the Trump administration to weigh in on a pair of related Pennsylvania cases challenging a requirement that mail-in voters handwrite the date on their ballots. This request signals that review could follow, but the Court has not agreed to hear the cases yet.

Executive Power and Civil Rights

The court also picked up Nielsen v. Watanabe, which asks whether a federal prisoner may bring an implied damages claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents over alleged deliberate indifference to his medical needs after being beaten by other inmates.

The court has steadily narrowed Bivens in recent years, and some court watchers believe this case could provide an opportunity for the justices to overrule the 1971 precedent outright rather than continue limiting it incrementally.

The Rest of the Docket

The court has also agreed to hear several significant statutory and commercial disputes, including:

• Apple Inc. v. Epic Games, addressing how clear a court order must be before a party may be held in civil contempt for violating it. 
• RiseandShine Corp. v. PepsiCo, asking whether a trademark’s “inherent strength” is a legal question for judges or a factual question for juries. 
• Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission, involving the proper measure of “just compensation” when private property is condemned under the federal Natural Gas Act. 
• Wassily v. Blanche, concerning whether noncitizens whose asylum status has been terminated remain eligible to adjust to lawful permanent resident status. 

Another High-Stakes Term Ahead

Most of the newly granted cases will be argued beginning in October, with decisions expected through the spring and early summer of 2027.

Additional petitions involving nationwide injunctions, administrative power and other politically charged issues remain pending, meaning the docket could grow even more consequential before arguments begin.

After a term that produced landmark decisions on birthright citizenship, presidential removal authority, and transgender athletes, the Supreme Court appears poised to remain at the center of many of the nation's most consequential constitutional and political disputes throughout the 2026–27 term.