Petitions of the week

This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from criminalizing threats to commit violence communicated in reckless disregard of the risk of placing another in fear, whether a guilty plea waives a challenge on appeal to the denial of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to represent himself and whether federal law preempts the application of state and local labor laws to the terms and conditions of participation in the federal au pair program.

The petitions of the week are below the jump:

Morgan v. White

19-1023

Issue: Whether, if a petitioner defaults an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim with “some merit,” Martinez v. Ryan allows a federal court to excuse the procedural default without requiring any further showing of prejudice.

Austin v. Illinois

19-1029

Issues: (1) Whether strict First Amendment scrutiny applies to a criminal law that prohibits nonconsensual dissemination of non-obscene nude or sexually oriented visual material; and (2) whether the First Amendment requires a law that prohibits nonconsensual dissemination of non-obscene nude or sexually oriented visual material to impose a requirement of specific intent to harm or harass the individual(s) depicted.

Capron v. Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

19-1031

Issue: Whether federal law preempts the application of state and local labor laws to the terms and conditions of participation in the federal au pair program.

Cantú v. Moody

19-1033

Issue: Whether a plaintiff may pursue a claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics alleging that a federal officer fabricated evidence.

Department of Health and Human Services v. California

19-1038

Issue: Whether the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had statutory authority under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to expand the conscience exemption to the contraceptive-coverage mandate.

Albence v. Ragbir

19-1046

Issues: (1) Whether the respondent, Ravidath Lawrence Ragbir, stated a cognizable constitutional claim regarding the selective enforcement of the immigration laws; and (2) whether the suspension clause guarantees a right to file a habeas petition challenging the revocation of an administrative stay of removal.

Kansas v. Boettger

19-1051

Issue: Whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from criminalizing threats to commit violence communicated in reckless disregard of the risk of placing another in fear.

Dewberry v. United States

19-1052

Issue: Whether a guilty plea waives a challenge on appeal to the denial of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to represent himself.

Hospira Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company

19-1058

Issue: Whether a patentee may recapture subject matter via the doctrine of equivalents under the “tangential relation” exception by arguing that it surrendered more than it needed to during prosecution to avoid a prior-art rejection, even if a claim could reasonably have been drafted that would literally have encompassed the alleged equivalent.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Ltd. v. Eli Lilly and Company

19-1061

Issue: Whether, under Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co.‘s “tangential” exception to prosecution-history estoppel, patent owners may recapture subject matter they could have claimed in prosecution but did not, by arguing that they surrendered more than they needed to during prosecution to address a rejection by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.