Petitions of the week
on Feb 14, 2020 at 9:53 am
This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether a plasma donation center is a “place of public accommodation” subject to the requirements of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, whether laws mandating membership in a state bar association are subject to the same “exacting” First Amendment scrutiny that the Supreme Court prescribed for mandatory public-sector union fees in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, and whether the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. foreclose a state-law negligence action making a “leader” of a protest demonstration personally liable in damages for injuries inflicted by an unidentified person’s violent act there.
The petitions of the week are below the jump:
Northern Trust Corp. v. Banks
19-440
Issue: Whether, for purposes of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998, a trust beneficiary alleges misconduct “in connection with” the purchase or sale of a covered security when the beneficiary alleges that the trustee used trust assets to buy and sell the trustee’s own proprietary securities rather than competitors’ securities and did so for the trustee’s own pecuniary gain.
Huskisson v. United States
19-527
Issues: (1) Whether the independent-source exception to the exclusionary rule, like all other exclusionary rule exceptions, takes into account the flagrancy and deliberate nature of the underlying Fourth Amendment violation; and (2) whether the First Step Act of 2018, which lowered the mandatory minimum for many drug offenses and retroactively applies “to any offense that was committed before [December 21, 2018], if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of” that day, applies to cases still on direct appeal.
Silguero v. CSL Plasma Inc.
19-603
Issue: Whether a plasma donation center is a “place of public accommodation” subject to the requirements of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Fleck v. Wetch
19-670
Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the respondent in this case. This listing occurs without regard to the likelihood that certiorari will be granted.
Issues: (1) Whether laws mandating membership in a state bar association are subject to the same “exacting” First Amendment scrutiny that the Supreme Court prescribed for mandatory public-sector union fees in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31; and (2) whether it violates the First Amendment to presume that an attorney is willing to pay for a bar association’s “non-chargeable” political and ideological speech, unless and until that attorney takes steps to opt out.
Mckesson v. Doe
19-730
Issue: Whether the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. foreclose a state-law negligence action making a “leader” of a protest demonstration personally liable in damages for injuries inflicted by an unidentified person’s violent act there, when it is undisputed that the leader neither authorized, directed nor ratified the perpetrator’s act, nor engaged in or incited violence of any kind.
Macias v. Nichols
19-794
Issues: (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit departed from the Supreme Court’s qualified-immunity decisions by finding the officers violated a clearly-established right without acknowledging the governing standard, defining the right specifically or identifying a case involving similar facts; and (2) whether the 9th Circuit’s rule that “civil disputes cannot give rise to probable cause” is overly broad, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has suggested, and inconsistent with District of Columbia v. Wesby.
Guam v. Davis
19-827
Issue: Whether the 15th Amendment permits Guam to invite only “native inhabitants of Guam” to participate in a potential political-status plebiscite that would yield only a nonbinding, symbolic expression of self-determination preferences.
Jarchow v. State Bar of Wisconsin
19-831
Issue: Whether Lathrop v. Donohue and Keller v. State Bar of California should be overruled and “integrated bar” arrangements like Wisconsin’s invalidated under the First Amendment.
Eastern Oregon Mining Association v. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
19-839
Issue: Whether the Clean Water Act regulates activities that simply move preexisting material, such as rock, sand and gravel, within a “navigable water.”
Gustus v. United States
19-939
Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioner in this case. This listing occurs without regard to the likelihood that certiorari will be granted.
Issue: Whether 18 U.S.C. § 111, which criminalizes “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees” of the federal government, is a specific-intent or general-intent offense.
