Petitions of the week

Kentucky man says police violated Fourth Amendment by searching his backpack during arrest

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

The Fourth Amendment generally bars police from searching people or their property without a warrant. The Supreme Court has made an exception for searches made during an arrest. But although that exception applies to arrestees themselves, it only extends to their nearby possessions if there is a risk they can reach into them to grab a weapon or destroy evidence. This week, we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, whether a backpack that is outside the reach of a person in handcuffs falls within the warrant exception.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, April 19

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• DEI ‘lives on’ after Supreme Court ruling, but critics see an opening (Julian Mark, The Washington Post)
• Gun makers urge US Supreme Court to hear appeal in Mexico’s lawsuit (Nate Raymond, Reuters)
• Supreme Court to hear biggest homeless rights case in decades (Claire Thornton, USA Today)
• Blatt to Set Supreme Court Record for Women With 50th Argument (Lydia Wheeler, Bloomberg Law)
• U.S. Supreme Court sides in Richmond veteran in GI benefits case (Charlotte Rene Woods, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, April 18

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read:

• Supreme Court makes it easier to sue for job discrimination over forced transfers (Mark Sherman, The Associated Press)
• The Supreme Court Asks What Enron Has to Do with January 6th—and Trump (Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker)
• Will the Supreme Court’s GI Bill ruling mean more money for vets? (Leo Shane III, Military Times)
• The Gaping Hole In Supreme Court Rules For Tracking Links Between Litigants And Influence Groups (Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept)
• Fetal Personhood Fight Underlies Supreme Court Abortion Case (Lydia Wheeler, Bloomberg Law)

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Wednesday, April 17

The court expects to issue one or more opinions this morning in argued cases from the current term. Following the opinion announcements, the court will hear oral arguments in Thornell v. Jones. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read:

• Supreme Court gives skeptical eye to key statute used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters (Nina Totenberg, NPR)
• Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s arguments over obstruction charge used against January 6 rioters (John Fritze, Marshall Cohen, Tierney Sneed, & Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN)
• Justice Clarence Thomas misses Supreme Court arguments (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• Supreme Court, in an emergency order, lets Idaho enforce ban on transgender care (Maureen Groppe, USA Today)
• Supreme Court Poised to Cut Back Scope of Anti-Corruption Law (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices limit securities liability for omission of material facts

As securities cases go, Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. v. Moab Partners is a simple one. The case involves Rule 10b-5 of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among other things, that rule creates a private cause of action whenever a company omits material facts in connection with a securities transaction, if that omission would render any “statements made” by the company misleading.

The issue in the case is what to do about an omission that does not make anything that the company has said misleading. Here, for example, the company (Macquarie Infrastructure) had an obligation under a different SEC regulation to disclose material information about the company in its periodic filings with the SEC. Specifically, one of Maquarie’s principal assets is storage terminals for fuel oil, and a United Nations rule related to climate change is phasing out fuel oil with a high-sulfur content, for which some of those terminals were designed. Because the other SEC rule (Item 303 of the SEC’s Regulation S-K) required the firm to disclose material information, investors (including Moab partners) sued Macquarie arguing that its failure to disclose information required by Item 303 violated Rule 10b-5. The lower court agreed, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s succinct opinion for a unanimous court disagreed.