First Thursday, July 2026

And usually there's a flurry of cases that are decided in June.

They were like really backloaded this year.

And so there were a lot of cases, high profile cases that were decided that week leading into 4th of July weekend.

And so, and lots of news coverage about that.

you're not a lot of coverage about the cases that really directly um concern public safety labor relations i don't think um maybe you maybe you feel differently about it but it really wasn't like a big uh labor term sometimes we have a lot of labor and employment cases that we think are pretty interesting.

And there really wasn't a lot going on.

And so no, no blockbuster labor cases from the Supreme Court.

But there were three decisions that I think every public safety labor professional should know a little bit about.

None of them arose in a traditional labor setting, right? So none involved bargaining, um or arbitration or anything like that yet all three have the potential to influence the way that public employers and public employees make decisions uh and the way that labor lawyers you know litigate the cases that we litigate so the three opinions are united states versus hamani uh margolin versus national association of immigration judges and trump v slaughter and they were all decided uh in june of 2026 so they're relatively hot off the presses uh and you know uh rather than kind of go through what we normally do which is kind of review the case summarize the holding i really want to focus on why these cases matter or should matter or i think they matter to police officers and firefighters and correctional officers and paramedics and union lawyers and you know management lawyers and so that's going to be the focus and the biggest one the biggest case i think by far quite frankly is us versus himani now this is the drugs and guns case and so if you listen to the podcast you know that a few months ago we spent an entire episode talking about drugs and guns and specifically talking about the issue of marijuana and the issue of marijuana use in the workplace by public safety professionals who have to carry guns and the conflict between uh your right to engage in otherwise lawful conduct and your right to bear arms and you do have that right to bear arms and so if you're interested in all the backstory about that you know that was like an hour whole episode it was just in march you can listen to that i am not going through all that again but we covered the arguments the supreme court arguments um in the hamani case you know kind of gave a little bit of a preview and a little bit of prediction of how the case was going to turn out and uh i was right you know and how i thought the case would turn out i didn't go too far out on a limb but let's talk a little bit about it and so you know for most folks money is just like a second amendment gun case but i don't think that that's what makes it interesting you know certainly for us and you know what caught my attention um you know about the case was something a lot more practical and and it was the question of how does this decision affect police officers and correctional officers, and even a few firefighters working in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana, right? These employees occupy a pretty unique position.

Unlike the vast majority of people in our country, carrying a firearm for those folks isn't just a constitutional right.

It's an essential function, arguably, of their job.

And you have to carry a gun to be a police officer and in many places to be a correctional officer.

And even for some firefighters, depending on nature of their role uh they have to carry a firearm and so when we're talking about those you know firearm rights as it relates to uh uh otherwise lawful marijuana conduct that makes himani a public safety labor case right even though on its face it wasn't and so that's why we're talking about it and so that this is a criminal case the defendant was a guy by the name of ali hamani uh he's a texan he's born in texas um from the dallas area uh howdy to our friends down in the dallas area we're here in philadelphia and so i may like you i don't like your football team and that's okay ali hamani i don't know if he was a cowboys fan or not but he lived with his parents and he held a steady job so he probably wasn't a cowboys fan but uh you know he Nothing jumping out about this guy's background that makes you scream criminal.

Lives at home, got a job.

He was suspected and his family suspected of some terrorism related activities.

So not necessarily squeaky clean.

And there was a search warrant executed at the family home sometime in 2022. uh you know uh but this isn't a yeah the investigation wasn't you know about what the supreme court case is about right we had you know basically it was a terrorism investigation uh wasn't a drug investigation wasn't a firearms investigation and you know certainly wasn't something that we would expect to be one of the supreme court's biggest second amendment cases of the you know the last few years uh you know so during the search in 2022 Um, the case notes, you know, say that Hamani was, you know, remarkably cooperative, right? Uh, he voluntarily surrendered his gun.

He had a Glock pistol in the house.

Uh, he directed agents to marijuana that he had on the property.

He agreed to be interviewed.

Um, during his interview, he admitted that he used marijuana.

The quote is about every other day, close quote, right? So, um, now he didn't tell him where the cocaine was.

They found cocaine.

Yeah.

It's not in this case, but you know, that also happened.