RELIST WATCH

Dockets on maximum overdrive: seventeen new relists involving ten issues

By John Elwood

on Jan 15, 2026

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

This Friday’s conference marks the Supreme Court’s last real chance to grant petitions in time for argument at the court’s April sitting – the last sitting of this term. The court already has an unprecedented 91 relisted cases in contention for those slots. This week it added 17 more relisted cases raising 10 distinct legal issues. Grants could come as soon as Friday.

Three of those cases raise familiar Second Amendment challenges to the felon-in-possession statute – there are literally dozens of such relists that have been pending for weeks. We won’t address those further. In another four of those cases, the Supreme Court previously called for the views of the solicitor general, and requested amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs have now arrived. Because review is especially likely in cases where the court has asked for the federal government’s views, we’ll begin with those.

Federal preemption and generic drugs

Monsanto Co. v. Durnell asks whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims where EPA has repeatedly approved a pesticide label without a cancer warning and federal regulations bar unilateral label changes. A Missouri jury awarded $1.25 million to respondent John Durnell, who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after long-term Roundup use, finding Monsanto liable for failing to warn of cancer risks. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the jury’s decision, holding that Missouri’s strict-liability failure-to-warn standard merely parallels FIFRA’s misbranding prohibition and therefore is not “in addition to or different from” federal labeling requirements. In doing so, it expressly declined to follow the contrary decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Schaffner v. Monsanto, which held that FIFRA preempts identical claims. Several federal courts of appeals had previously reached the same conclusion as the Missouri court.

Monsanto argues that this case presents a clean and deepening circuit split over whether EPA’s label approval and its regulations “lock in” labeling requirements, mandating preemption because federal law makes it impossible to add to the label. Durnell responds that the verdict can be sustained on non-label grounds (noting that there was no prohibition on including warnings in marketing and off-label contexts) and that, in any event, FIFRA’s misbranding standard leaves room for state tort enforcement.

For the second time on this issue, the court called for the views of the solicitor general. The United States now sides with Monsanto that the law is preempted, echoing a position the Justice Department took during the first Trump administration, and urges review. That said, the government took the opposite position several terms ago in Monsanto Co. v. Hardeman. With an entrenched split, and Roundup litigation continuing to generate massive verdicts nationwide, this case squarely tees up a recurring preemption question the court has repeatedly sidestepped – but may find increasingly difficult to ignore. I rate this a very likely grant. (Monsanto has also filed companion petitions raising the same issue in Monsanto Co. v. Salas and Monsanto Co. v. Johnson, but Durnell seems the likeliest vehicle.)

ERISA breach of fiduciary duties

Parker-Hannifin Corp v. Johnson asks whether plaintiffs pleading a breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 – alleging that retirement plan fiduciaries imprudently retained underperforming investments – must show that their chosen performance benchmark is a meaningful comparator for the challenged funds. Plan participants sued Parker-Hannifin, claiming it violated ERISA by sticking with the Northern Trust Focus Funds despite their lackluster returns compared to allegedly similar alternatives, offering higher-cost shares, and failing to monitor funds. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed 2-1, holding that the allegations plausibly suggested imprudence under Hughes v. Northwestern University without requiring apples-to-apples benchmark proof at the pleading stage. Petitioners argue this creates a split with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 7th, 8th, and 10th Circuits, which demand proof that comparators provide meaningful benchmarks, while respondents counter that no true conflict exists and ERISA’s prudence standard doesn’t hinge solely on performance comparisons.

The government, as court-invited amicus, advocates review, arguing both that the courts of appeals are divided and that the 6th Circuit’s decision is erroneous, and it’s necessary for courts to employ “sound” benchmarks to cull meritless lawsuits. But the court’s order inviting the government to file a brief noted that Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in consideration of the petition, suggesting he is recused, and raising the specter that the court could divide 4-4 and be unable to resolve the case.

Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee raises the same issue, although the plaintiff is petitioning because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit required a comparable benchmark. Respondent the Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee argues the case does not implicate a circuit split and doesn’t warrant the court’s review. But it nonetheless says that if the court decides to address the question, the court should grant Anderson as well to ensure that Alito’s recusal doesn’t prevent the court from resolving the case.

Patent infringement and generic drugs

Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., asks whether a generic drugmaker can be hauled into court for inducing (encouraging or facilitating) patent infringement based on its public (that is, not on its label) statements that its product is the “generic version” of a brand-name drug and its citation of the branded drug’s sales figures – even when the generic uses a so-called “skinny label” that appropriately carves out use of the generic version for the patented application. Specifically, Amarin sued after Hikma launched its generic version for severe hypertriglyceridemia (a use for which the patent had expired), claiming Hikma’s press releases and website encouraged off-label use for Amarin’s patented cardiovascular-risk-reduction method. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, finding the allegations plausibly alleged induced infringement.

Hikma petitions, arguing that the Federal Circuit’s test conflicts with the Hatch-Waxman Act’s pathway for generics to reach the market and conflicts with the requirement of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., that plaintiffs plead the defendant has taken “active steps … to encourage direct infringement, such as advertising an infringing use or instructing how to engage in an infringing use.” Amarin opposes, insisting that Hikma seeks fact-bound error correction which is not suitable for the Supreme Court.

The solicitor general’s court-invited amicus brief urges the court to grant and reverse, echoing the position it unsuccessfully took in a similar case in Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC. The solicitor general argues that even the threat of going to discovery here could chill skinny-label use and delay lower-cost drugs. Regular readers of Relist Watch know that this is the court’s second serious look at pharma inducement in three terms, suggesting it may be teetering toward a grant to clarify whether vague marketing puffery crosses the “active inducement” line, especially when state substitution laws already nudge generics into off-label territory. In Teva, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that he would vote to grant review; we’ll know soon whether he’s persuaded three of his colleagues to do the same. At the time, I rated Teva a likely grant. So you can draw your own conclusions.

Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Federation asks whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s expropriation exception strips a foreign state itself of immunity from suit when stolen property is owned or operated by a state instrumentality that engages in commercial activity in the United States, even if the property is not present in this country. The statutory text applies if the property (i) “is present in the United States in connection with a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state,” or (ii) “is owned or operated by an agency or instrumentality of the foreign state and that agency or instrumentality is engaged in a commercial activity in the United States.”

Chabad has spent decades seeking the return of its collection of thousands of sacred religious texts and archival materials seized by Soviet authorities and now held by Russian state archives. Although Chabad obtained a default judgment and massive contempt sanctions after Russia withdrew from the litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ultimately held that the Russian Federation retained sovereign immunity because the collection is located abroad, concluding that only the first FSIA nexus clause (property present in the United States) can abrogate a foreign state’s immunity.

Chabad argues that the decision rewrites the statute by requiring both presence and ownership to be present, and that the D.C. Circuit’s approach effectively nullifies the expropriation exception for claims against foreign states. It argues that there is a circuit split, pointing to decisions of the 9th and 11th Circuits holding the exception satisfied if the second nexus clause to foreign sovereigns is met and notes that the D.C. Circuit itself upheld jurisdiction in this very case years earlier. Tenex-USA, a Russian state-owned company targeted for attachment, responds that there is no true circuit split, that other courts have never squarely decided the question, and that extending jurisdiction based on an instrumentality’s U.S. contacts would contradict the FSIA’s structure and settled principles of sovereign separateness.

In its court-invited amicus brief, the United States now urges review – albeit in a relatively halfhearted way. The government states only that Chabad has “plausibly allege[d] confusion in the lower courts on the question presented,” and acknowledges that the government has in the past downplayed the depth of the split. The government also acknowledges that in the past it has taken the position that the D.C. Circuit’s position is correct and “[i]n the course of preparing this brief, the United States has not determined whether it maintains that position on the merits.” But the government states that the issue is “important” and “clarity as to jurisdictional issues can help to avoid needlessly protracted litigation.” Both Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson would be recused because they served on the D.C. Circuit at the time the case was before that court, but “that would still leave the Court with an odd number of members and thereby avoid the prospect of an equally divided court.”

Now on to the non-CVSG cases.

The state-secrets privilege

Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, returns to the court for a second time, now asking whether a court may dismiss claims under the state-secrets privilege only after adjudicating the merits of the government’s defense using the very privileged information the privilege is meant to exclude. After the Supreme Court unanimously held in 2022 that FISA does not displace the state-secrets privilege, the 9th Circuit on remand again reversed the district court’s dismissal of respondents’ religion-based surveillance claims. Although the 9th Circuit agreed that the government properly invoked the privilege and that privileged information would be essential to the government’s defense, it held that dismissal is permissible only if the government first demonstrates – through detailed submissions – that the privileged evidence “clearly shows” a meritorious defense requiring judgment for the government.

The government argues that the 9th Circuit’s approach fundamentally misunderstands the state-secrets doctrine. It maintains that ordinarily, when courts determine that the government has properly invoked that privilege and that the privileged information would be central to further litigation, the rule is that the privileged information must be removed from the case and dismissal is required if the suit would risk disclosure of that information. The government argues that, by requiring courts to use privileged evidence to decide merits questions, the decision effectively nullifies the privilege by forcing the executive to choose between disclosing sensitive information to sustain a defense or forfeiting dismissal altogether. Yassir Fazaga and the other plaintiffs counter that the decision simply prevents dismissal based on speculation and aligns with longstanding D.C. Circuit precedent requiring a showing that a “valid defense” is actually “meritorious and not merely plausible.” Adding an unusual wrinkle, the government alternatively asks the court to grant, vacate, and remand for further consideration in light of “a significant intervening event”: the recent recantation of the FBI informant whose allegations underpin respondents’ claims that the FBI targeted them for surveillance solely because of their religion.

Geofence warrants

Chatrie v. United States asks whether law enforcement’s use of a so-called “geofence warrant” to obtain location-history data from Google violates the Fourth Amendment, and whether suppression is categorically unavailable under the good-faith exception. After a Virginia bank robbery, police obtained a warrant directing Google to provide an anonymized list of devices present near the crime scene during a one-hour window. Officers narrowed that list and – without an additional warrant – obtained information about the movement of certain devices during a two-hour period. Then officers – again without an additional warrant – obtained de-anonymized subscriber information about three devices. One of those devices belonged to petitioner Okello Chatrie. Based on the evidence derived from the geofence warrant, petitioner was convicted of armed robbery. Sitting en banc, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in a one-sentence per curiam, producing nine separate opinions. The court split on whether obtaining the data was a “search” under Carpenter v. United States, but a majority concluded that suppression was unwarranted because officers reasonably relied on a warrant issued amid substantial legal uncertainty.

Chatrie argues that the decision deepens a growing and untenable split over the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of geofence warrants, pointing to the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in United States v. Smith, which deemed such warrants unconstitutional general warrants (although it refused to suppress because the officers relied in good faith on the warrant). He also warns that routine reliance on the good-faith exception threatens to insulate geofence warrants from meaningful Supreme Court review altogether. The government responds that the case is a poor vehicle because suppression would be unavailable regardless of how the Fourth Amendment question is resolved (due to the good-faith exception), and because Google’s recent changes to its data-retention practices may limit the issue’s future significance. Of note, X Corp. – owners of the social media platform previously known as Twitter – have filed an amicus brief supporting Chatrie.

Davis v. United States also purports to raise the issue about the lawfulness of a geofence warrant. But the information uncovered by the geofence warrant concerned not the petitioner Johnnie Leeanozg Davis, but his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s daughter, and the government argues (and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit below held) that Davis lacks standing to challenge a search involving data linked to a third party.

Deference to Sentencing Guidelines commentary

In the 1993 case of Stinson v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s explanatory commentary on the Sentencing Guidelines “is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline.” Poore v. United States asks whether, after Kisor v. Wilkie (which required a showing of genuine ambiguity before agency interpretations of regulations warranted deference) and Loper Bright v. Raimondo (which abolished deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes) courts may continue to reflexively defer under Stinson to the Sentencing Commission’s commentary when interpreting the Guidelines – particularly where that commentary expands an unambiguous guideline and increases a defendant’s sentence. Petitioner Raymond Poore received an enhanced sentence after the district court deferred to commentary treating inchoate offenses (such as being a party to a crime) as “crime[s] of violence,” notwithstanding the acknowledgment that the Guideline text itself unambiguously excluded such offenses. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit then affirmed, deeming itself bound by circuit precedent applying Stinson, and concluding that neither Kisor nor Loper Bright clearly displaced that framework.

Poore argues that Stinson rests on a deference regime that has been fundamentally undermined: Kisor requires courts to find genuine ambiguity before deferring to an agency’s interpretation of its own rules, and Loper Bright reinforces the judiciary’s duty to exercise independent judgment – especially in criminal cases, where the rule of lenity applies (the rule that ambiguities in criminal law should be interpreted in favor of the defendant). He argues that there is an entrenched six to six circuit split, with half the circuits refusing to defer to Guidelines commentary absent genuine ambiguity and the other half continuing to treat commentary as binding.

The government argues that this case is a poor vehicle, asserting that it is is moot because Poore has completed serving his sentence and has identified no collateral consequences. It also downplays the split’s importance in light of recent Guidelines amendments, and characterizes the decision below as a routine application of circuit precedent. The government notes that the court has repeatedly and recently denied review on other cases presenting this issue, which I know only too well – the court denied my (perfectly good!) petition raising this same issue back in 2021. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

State taxation of Indians on reservation land

Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission asks whether Oklahoma can tax the income of a Muscogee (Creek) Nation member who works on tribal land held in trust and who lives on private property within the historic Creek territory recognized as a reservation in McGirt v. Oklahoma – or if federal law preempts such taxation absent explicit congressional consent. That tribal member, Alicia Stroble, a casino worker, sought a refund for state income taxes, arguing McGirt upended Oklahoma’s taxing authority. The state supreme court disagreed, holding McGirt didn’t abrogate longstanding tax statutes. Stroble petitions, arguing the decision below is inconsistent with decades of Supreme Court precedent “prohibiting States from imposing taxes on Indians who live and work within their Tribes’ Indian country absent express authorization from Congress,” and creates a conflict with other courts of appeals that have applied that precedent. Oklahoma opposes, agreeing that the issue is “undeniably important,” but arguing that review is not warranted because the decision below is correct and further review would create harmful uncertainty. Stroble’s reply again blasts the decision as conflicting with “[a]n unbroken line of this Court’s precedents.”

Whether “totality” means “totality”

District of Columbia v. R.W. addresses whether courts evaluating reasonable suspicion for a stop under Terry v. Ohio may exclude facts known to an officer before weighing the totality of the circumstances. Responding to a wee-hours dispatch telling police to be on the lookout for a suspicious or stolen vehicle at a particular address, a D.C. officer saw two passengers flee from the only occupied car in a small parking lot at that address and then saw the driver attempt to back out with a rear door still open. The car was indeed stolen and 15-year-old R.W., its driver, was adjudicated delinquent. The D.C. Court of Appeals suppressed evidence from the stop, holding that the dispatch had to be excluded from the analysis (because the information was of unknown reliability), as did the passengers’ flight (because there was purportedly no reason to attribute it to the vehicle’s driver), and that the remaining facts were insufficient to justify a seizure.

Seeking review, D.C. characterizes the court of appeals’ argument as an “isolationist approach,” improperly excluding factors before assessing the totality of the evidence. D.C. argues that the decision squarely conflicts with the Supreme Court’s repeated rejection of a piecemeal Fourth Amendment analysis and deepens a split with multiple federal circuits and state courts that require consideration of all circumstances known to the officer. Twenty-eight states and the National Fraternal Order of Police support review, warning that the ruling undermines officer safety and creates untenable confusion – particularly in D.C., where local and federal courts apply divergent standards. The other side counters that the case is factbound, that the court below properly required articulable support for vague dispatches and guilt-by-association inferences, and that no true split exists. Perhaps sensing that this case is sufficiently factbound to be an unusual candidate for Supreme Court review, D.C. argues in its reply that “[t]he legal error here was sufficiently straightforward to justify summary reversal [an unsigned opinion reversing the lower court].” That may be under consideration.

Another “lost cause”

Lastly, we have a case that falls into a category I have uncharitably dubbed “lost causes.” These are cases that have been relisted even though no brief has been filed in response to the cert petition, when the court has not granted review without first calling for such a brief. In Diehl v. United States, self-represented federal prisoner David A. Diehl argues that his conviction violated the ex post facto clause prohibiting retroactive punishment, although he never raised that argument below. We’ll see if Diehl gets any traction. While there is one “lost cause” that has stuck around a while, the Supreme Court has dispatched most of them promptly.

That – finally – is all for this week. Honestly, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to continue if the relists keep coming at the rate they have since December.

New Relists

Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., 24-889

Issues: (1) Whether, when a generic drug label fully carves out a patented use, allegations that the generic drugmaker calls its product a “generic version” and cites public information about the branded drug (e.g., sales) are enough to plead induced infringement of the patented use; and (2) whether a complaint states a claim for induced infringement of a patented method if it does not allege any instruction or other statement by the defendant that encourages, or even mentions, the patented use. CVSG: 12/05/2025

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Federation, 24-909

Issue: Whether a “foreign state” lacks immunity from U.S. jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act if either U.S.-nexus test in 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3) is met, or instead a “foreign state” loses its immunity only if the first U.S.-nexus test is met – i.e., if the expropriated property, or property exchanged for it, is found in the United States.
CVSG: 12/09/2025

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Parker-Hannifin Corp v. Johnson, 24-1030

Issue: Whether pleading an imprudent-investment claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, based on how the investment’s returns compared to some performance benchmark, requires allegations showing that the benchmark is a sound basis for comparison for that investment. CVSG: 12/09/2025

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, 24-1068

Issue: Whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a state-law failure-to-warn claim where the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly concluded that the warning is not required and the warning cannot be added to a product without EPA approval. CVSG: 12/01/2025

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Monsanto Co. v. Salas, 24-1097

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Monsanto Co. v. Johnson, 24-1098

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Chatrie v. United States, 25-112

Issue: (1) Whether the execution of a geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment; and (2) whether the exclusionary rule should apply to the evidence derived from a geofence warrant.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Poore v. United States, 25-227

Issue: Whether the limits on agency deference announced in Kisor v. Wilkie and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo constrain the deference courts may accord the Sentencing Commission’s interpretation of its own rules via commentary.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

District of Columbia v. R.W., 25-248

Issue: (1) Whether a court assessing the existence of reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment may exclude a fact known to the officer, or instead must assess all the evidence when weighing the totality of the circumstances; and (2) whether, under the totality-of-the-circumstances test, the officer in this case had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 25-382

Issue: Whether Oklahoma may tax the income of a Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen who lives and works within the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation that McGirt v. Oklahoma held remains Indian country.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, 25-430

Issue: Whether dismissal of a claim after assertion of the state-secrets privilege requires a district court to adjudicate the merits of the claim using the privileged information where the privileged information is relevant to a defense.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Comm., 25-498

Issue: Whether, for claims predicated on fund underperformance, pleading that an Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary failed to use the requisite “care, skill, prudence, or diligence” under the circumstances and thus breached ERISA’s duty of prudence when investing plan assets requires alleging a “meaningful benchmark.”

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Davis v. United States, 25-5189

Issues: (1) whether review is warranted to resolve disagreement among the circuits about the reasonableness of geofence warrants; (2) whether the record as a whole demonstrates improper collusion between federal and state law enforcement to make Davis’s arrest by state officers subject to the federal presentment requirements set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) and Rule 5(a), Fed. R. Crim. P.; (3) whether Davis’s motion for judgment of acquittal should have been granted on the three carjacking counts for want of sufficient evidence that Davis had the intent to kill or seriously injure anyone.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Sanchez v. United States, 25-6153

Issues: (1)Whether § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment facially; (2) whether § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment as applied to individuals with convictions for offenses that did not involve the misuse of firearms or establish a credible threat of such misuse.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Wilson v. United States, 25-6187

Issue: Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Williams v. United States, 25-6189

Issue: Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)’s lifetime ban on firearm possession for all individuals previously convicted of a felony violates the Second Amendment, either facially or as applied to the Petitioner.

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Diehl v. United States, 25-6278

Issues: (1) Whether the Fifth Circuit had subject matter jurisdiction on direct appeal to consider an ex post facto constitutional argument that was never raised; (2) whether the full ex post facto clause applies where the offense occurred prior to United States v. Booker in light of Peugh v. United States; (3) whether Diehl presented facts showing fraud on the court for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 60(d)(3).

(Relisted after the Jan. 9 conference.)

Returning Relists

Smith v. Scott, 24-1099

Issues: (1) Whether, viewing the facts from the officers’ perspective at the time, the officers acted reasonably under the Fourth Amendment by using bodyweight pressure to restrain a potentially armed and actively resisting individual only until handcuffing could be accomplished; and (2) whether the panel erred in denying qualified immunity where no case clearly established that pre-handcuffing bodyweight pressure violates the Fourth Amendment.

(Relisted after the Sept. 29, Oct. 10, Oct. 17, Nov. 7, Nov. 14, Nov. 21, Dec. 5, Dec. 12 and Jan. 9 conferences.)

Klein v. Martin, 25-51

Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit violated the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act‘s deferential standard by overturning a state-court decision based on the supposed lack of “nuance” and “exhaustiveness” in the court’s written opinion, rather than the reasonableness of its legal conclusion.

(Relisted after the Sept. 29, Oct. 10, Oct. 17, Nov. 7, Nov. 14, Nov. 21, Dec. 5, Dec. 12 and Jan. 9 conferences.)

Indiana, ex rel. Howell v. Circuit Court of Indiana, Wells County, 25-5557

Issues: (1)Whether petitioner made a sufficient factual showing to establish “good cause” for discovering actual judicial bias by showing that the trial judge had made specific allegations as to how his case was affected; (2) whether the Indiana Supreme Court erred in holding that every Indiana Post-Conviction Remedies Rule 1, Section 12 motion constitutes a prohibited “second or successive” petition as a matter of law; (3) whether a prosecutor’s failure to correct testimony of a witness that he knew to be false was used to obtain a conviction, even though other testimony regarding the witness’s credibility was introduced.

(Relisted after the Nov. 7, Nov. 14, Nov. 21, Dec. 5, Dec. 12 and Jan. 9 conferences.)

Allen v. Guzman, 25-5879

Issues: Whether petitioner has a state-created liberty in the appointment of counsel under the newly enacted California Racial Justice Act Penal Gode Section 1473(e), which provides that “the court shall appoint counsel, if the petitioner cannot afford counsel. “

(Relisted after the Nov. 14, Nov. 21, Dec. 5, Dec. 12 and Jan. 9 conferences.)

Vincent v. Bondi, 24-1155

Issue: Whether the Second Amendment allows the federal government to permanently disarm Petitioner, who has one seventeen-year-old nonviolent felony conviction for trying to pass a bad check.