The Supreme Court granted cert in a Colorado Catholic preschool exclusion case and a Texas gun possession case for its 2026-27 term, and summarily reversed a D.C. conviction ruling.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear two new cases for its October Term 2026-27 docket: a religious liberty challenge brought by a Catholic preschool excluded from Colorado's state-funded universal preschool program, and a Second Amendment challenge by a Texas man contesting his conviction for unlawful gun possession [1]. The Court also summarily reversed a District of Columbia appellate ruling that had vacated criminal convictions against a teenage driver, drawing written objections from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson [1].
The certiorari grants and summary reversal were announced April 28, 2026, on a single orders list from the Court sitting in Washington [1]. The Colorado case centers on a Catholic preschool operator who argues that exclusion from a generally available state subsidy program discriminates against religious institutions in violation of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause [1]. The Texas case asks the Court to clarify the constitutional limits on sentencing enhancements for firearm possession under the Second Amendment framework established in recent precedent [1].
The Colorado preschool dispute continues a line of church-state cases in which the Court has progressively narrowed the circumstances under which states may exclude religious entities from neutral public benefit programs [1]. The Court's 2017 decision in Trinity Lutheran, its 2020 ruling in Espinoza, and its 2022 decision in Carson each extended the principle that generally available aid programs cannot discriminate on the basis of religious status or use. A ruling in the Colorado case, expected by June 2027, would mark the next significant data point in that trajectory [1].
The summary reversal in the D.C. juvenile-driver case is procedurally notable because the Court acted without full briefing or argument, indicating that a majority viewed the appellate court's reasoning as clearly erroneous [1]. The dissent from Justices Sotomayor and Jackson suggests at least two members of the Court believed the case warranted more deliberate review before reinstatement of the convictions [1].
Briefing in the two newly granted cases will proceed through the summer and fall of 2026, with oral arguments likely scheduled for early 2027 [1]. Legal observers will watch for amicus activity from state governments and religious-liberty organizations in the Colorado matter, and from gun-rights and prosecutors' groups in the Texas case [1].