The Supreme Court of the United States rules on cases in its shadow docket when it believes an applicant will suffer "irreparable harm" if its request is not immediately granted. Historically, the shadow docket was rarely used for rulings of serious legal or political significance. However, since 2017, it has been increasingly used for consequential rulings, especially for requests by the Department of Justice for emergency stays of lower-court rulings.

The Court usually places consequential cases on the formal merits docket (with a vote granting a writ of certiorari). Rulings from lower courts remain in place until the Supreme Court has held oral arguments and makes a formal decision that includes extensive written opinions from the majority justifying supporting or rejecting lower court rulings as well as dissent from the minority of justices who opposed the decision. This process can take months and is meant to provide comprehensive explanations and ensure a fair process.

In contrast, these shadow docket cases were placed on the emergency docket and decided and implemented rapidly even though they were widely consequential. Some of these rulings were temporary until the Court heard the case in the regular merits docket, usually many months later. But if the Court did not decide to bring the case to the merits docket, it became the final decision, often changing the status quo and confusing lower courts by overturning long-standing precedent without explanation. Some of these cases were decided even before appellate courts had a chance to consider or rule on them. In the 2025 term, for the first time, the Court made more consequential shadow docket decisions than merit docket decisions.

Below is a list of shadow docket rulings that are considered particularly significant because they meet several of these criteria: paused lower-court stays or overturned lower-court decisions appeared to upend long-standing precedent or be inconsistent with previous emergency rulings effectively resolved a case due to real-world deadlines, particularly in death penalty cases had wide consequences received extensive media attention was decided by a split vote indicating a divided Court elicited public dissent from some of the justices were unsigned, leaving it unclear which justices supported it lacked a substantive written decision, leaving the public and lower courts without a clear understanding of the Court's reasoning

These significant decisions are listed by the term year and then grouped by issue area and chronologically. Each entry has the shadow docket case number (with a link to the Supreme Court Order Docket), a shortened case name, the date of the decision, a short summary of that decision and why it was particularly significant, and if known, the vote total and any dissenting opinions.

2006

Voting restrictions 06A375 Purcell v. Gonzalez, October 20, 2006. Allowed a new Arizona voter ID law to remain in effect during the 2006 election by vacating an injunction by the Ninth Circuit.Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006) (per curiam) In subsequent years, the per curium opinion has been frequently cited to justify leaving in place state election rules. Decided unanimously. Justice Stevens filed a concurring opinion.

2013

Voting restrictions 14A336 Husted v. Ohio NAACP, September 29, 2014. Allowed Ohio to cut the number of early voting days from 35 to 28 days including the “Golden Week,” when Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, as well as Sundays when many African-American churches had conducted “Souls to the Polls” drives after services. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor would have denied the application for stay.

2014

Voting restrictions 14A393 Veasey v. Perry, October 18, 2014. Allowed Texas' restrictive voter ID law to remain in effect through the 2014 election. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented.

2015

Environmental protection 15A773 West Virginia v. EPA, February 9, 2016. Stopped the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan. The vote was 5–4. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the application. This was the first time the Court had stayed a regulation before a federal appeals court review. This ruling allowed opponents of the climate change policy to delay its implementation for years. This ruling is widely cited as the starting point for the modern era of the Supreme Court using its shadow docket to influence national policy. This understanding was bolstered by internal Supreme Court memos obtained by a New York Times investigation that concluded that that decision "marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court's modern 'shadow docket,' the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power."

2016

Travel ban 16A1190 Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, (and 16A1911 Trump v. Hawaii), June 26, 2017. Allowed the Trump administration to block foreign nationals from certain countries who lacked a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States." Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas concurred in part and dissented in part.

2017

Travel ban 17A550 Trump v. Hawaii, December 4, 2017. Allowed President Trump to fully ban travelers from several Muslim-majority countries. Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor would have denied the application.

2018

Transgender soldiers 18A625 Trump v. Karnoski and 18A627 Stockman v. Trump, January 22, 2019. Allowed President Trump to ban transgender troops from the military. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the application.

Death penalty 18A815 Dunn v. Ray, February 6, 2019. Dismissed a Muslim prisoner's challenge to an Alabama policy that prevented him from having his imam instead of a Christian chaplain with him as he died. Justices Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor dissented.

18A985 Murphy v. Collier, March 28, 2019. Allowed a death row inmate to have his Buddhist spiritual advisor with him in the death chamber and prevented his execution until Texas prison officials changed their policy. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh dissented.

18A1238 Price v. Dunn, May 30, 2019. In a late night decision, refused to allow a death row inmate to be executed by nitrogen gas instead of lethal injection. Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented.

Border wall 19A60 Trump v. Sierra Club, July 26, 2019. Allowed President Trump to redirect $2.5 billion in military funds to build part of a wall on the southern border with Mexico. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the application. Justice Breyer dissented in part.

Immigration 19A230 Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary, September 11, 2019. Allowed the "transit rule" to stay in place. This rule blocked asylum for anyone who passed through another country before they reached the US southern border. Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissented.

2019

Immigration 19A960 Wolf v. Innovation Law Lab, March 11, 2020. Allowed the Trump administration to continue enforcing its Migrant Protection Protocols, also called the "Remain in Mexico" policy, that prevented asylum seekers from entering the US while waiting for a hearing in US immigration court. Justice Sotomayor would have denied the application.

Voting and preventing the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic 19A1016 Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, April 6, 2020. On the day before the April 7 election, refused to extend the deadline for absentee voting by six days despite the pandemic that had scared voters away from in-person voting. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented.

19A60 Sierra Club v. Trump, July 31, 2020. Allowed the Trump administration to continue constructing a border wall along the US southern border. Justice Breyer dissented. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan would not have granted the application.

Death penalty 20A8 Barr v. Lee, July 14, 2020. Vacated a preliminary injunction. The ruling provided a brief explanation of the Court's majority thinking in execution cases (it is important to stop unjustified delays). Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented.

Voting restrictions 19A1071 Raysor v. DeSantis, July 16, 2020. Allowed Florida to bar almost a million people with felony convictions from voting unless they have paid court fines and fees (also called the "pay-to-vote system"). Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan dissented.

2020

Election procedures 20A55 Andino v. Middleton, October 5, 2020. Allowed South Carolina to require that another individual must witness a voter's signature on an absentee ballot envelope despite the danger during the COVID-19 pandemic. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted the application in full. Justice Kavanaugh concurred. 20A54 Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, October 19, 2020. Rejected Republican effort right before the election to end a Pennsylvania policy to count mail-in votes that were mailed on or before Election Day and received after election day. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would have granted the application.

20A67 Merrill v. People First of Alabama, October 21, 2020. Stopped Alabama counties from implementing curbside voting for voters with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan dissented in part.

Census 20A62 Ross v. National Urban League, October 13, 2020. Forced the Census Bureau to stop collecting census data despite delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, clearing the way for President Trump to try to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the numbers used to reallocate congressional seats. Justice Sotomayor dissented.

Religious freedom and preventing the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic 20A87 Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, November 25, 2020. Prevented occupancy limits on religious services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh filed concurring opinions. Chief Justice Roberts filed a dissenting opinion. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan filed a separate dissenting opinion. 20A136 South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom ("South Bay II"), February 5, 2021. Stopped the statewide COVID-19 prohibition on indoor worship services (but not other public gatherings) and went beyond any decisions made in lower courts. The justices published multiple opinions.

20A138 Gateway City Church v. Newsom, February 26, 2021. Stopped another prohibition against indoor worship services citing as precedent the shadow docket decision in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom. Justices Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor dissented.

20A151 Tandon v. Newsom, April 9, 2021. Stopped COVID-related restrictions on in-home Bible study and prayer meetings. The Court rebuked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for not following four prior Supreme Court shadow docket orders involving California COVID-19 restrictions thus declaring giving shadow docket rulings precedential value. Chief Justice Roberts would deny the application. Justices Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor dissented.

Death penalty 20A134 United States v. Higgs, January 15, 2021. Denied a death row inmate's request for reconsideration. The Court took the unprecedented step of granting certiorari before judgment and summarily reversed a district court opinion without explanation. 20A128 Dunn v. Smith, February 11, 2021. Denied a death row inmate's request to have his pastor in the execution chamber. This decision appears to be inconsistent with earlier free-exercise-of-religion rulings. The justices published multiple conflicting opinions.

Immigration