The U.S. Supreme Court begins a busy term this week. President Trump's newly appointed justice will see cases involving everything from cell phone privacy to same-sex weddings.
On privacy, justices will decide whether the government needs a warrant to get cell phone data to track a user's movements.
“If the court holds that a warrant is necessary it will make it tougher to collect evidence from people's smart phones,” says Josh Blackman, associate professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. “On the flip side, people have their phones on all the time and it's always recording information, they may not even be aware of this and it's later shared with the government.”
There's also the case of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding.
“It's not simply that they walked into a store and a person refused to serve them or refused to sell them something that's for sale, it's the second step of creating something or being a part of the ceremony,” says Byron Henry, an appellate law attorney.
Sports betting, workers' rights and redistricting also are on the agenda.
“If a party redistricts the state so much so that there's five Republicans and one Democrat in a state with six congressman and yet the overall popular vote is 60-40 Democrat, have you actually nullified a lot those Democrats' votes?” asks Henry.
Meanwhile, this marks the first full term for Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch who replaces the late Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch now sits on the same court with Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked for in the 1990s.
“So far from what we've seen during his brief time on the bench I think he would make Justice Scalia proud,” says Blackman. “It's hard to live up to Scalia who was an absolute legend, but I think Justice Gorsuch will hold his own.”