Birchfield v. North Dakota

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Birchfield v. North Dakota

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Conference of June 13, 2019

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-1468	N.D.	Apr 20, 2016 Tr.Aud.	Jun 23, 2016	7-1	Alito	OT 2015

Holding: The Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving but not warrantless blood tests.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 7-1, in an opinion by Justice Alito on June 23, 2016. Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Ginsburg joined. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion.

A “view” from the Courtroom: Alito dissents on affirmative action, a deadlock on immigration, and more (Mark Walsh)
Opinion analysis: States prevail on breath (but not blood) tests without a warrant (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Criminal penalties for refusal to take a Breathalyzer test in jeopardy? (Amy Howe)
Argument preview: Warrantless DUI tests and the Fourth Amendment (Amy Howe)
Court to rule on drunk-driving tests (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
May 1 2015	Application (14A1122) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from May 13, 2015 to July 10, 2015, submitted to Justice Alito.
May 5 2015	Application (14A1122) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until June 12, 2015.
Jun 12 2015	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due July 16, 2015)
Jul 15 2015	Waiver of right of respondent North Dakota to respond filed.
Jul 29 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 28, 2015.
Aug 10 2015	Response Requested . (Due September 9, 2015)
Sep 16 2015	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including September 24, 2015.
Sep 24 2015	Brief of respondent North Dakota in opposition filed.
Oct 14 2015	Reply of petitioner Danny Birchfield filed.
Nov 17 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 4, 2015.
Dec 7 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 11, 2015.
Dec 11 2015	Petition GRANTED The petitions for writs of certiorari in No. 14-1470 and No. 14-1507 are granted. The cases are consolidated and a total of one hour is allotted for oral argument.
Jan 26 2016	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioners' briefs on the merits is extended to and including February 4, 2016. VIDED
Jan 26 2016	The time to file respondents' briefs on the merits is extended to and including March 15, 2016. VIDED
Feb 4 2016	Brief of petitioner Danny Birchfield filed.
Feb 4 2016	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner Danny Birchfield. VIDED.
Feb 8 2016	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Indiana Tech Law School Amicus Project in support of neither party. VIDED.
Feb 9 2016	Brief amicus curiae of DUI Defense Lawyers Association filed. VIDED.
Feb 11 2016	Brief amici curiae of Downsize DC Foundation, et al. filed. VIDED.
Feb 11 2016	Brief amicus curiae of American Civil Liberties Union filed. VIDED.
Feb 11 2016	Brief amici curiae of The National College for DUI Defense, and The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed. VIDED.
Feb 29 2016	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner GRANTED. VIDED
Feb 29 2016	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Indiana Tech Law School Amicus Project in support of neither party GRANTED. VIDED
Mar 4 2016	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, April 20, 2016. VIDED
Mar 14 2016	Record requested from the Supreme Court of North Dakota.
Mar 15 2016	CIRCULATED.
Mar 15 2016	Brief of respondent North Dakota filed. (Distributed)
Mar 16 2016	Brief amicus curiae of The California District Attorneys Association filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2016	Brief amicus curiae of United States filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2016	Brief amici curiae of New Jersey and Seventeen Other States filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2016	Brief amici curiae of The Council of State Governments, et al. filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2016	Motion of the Solicitor General for enlargement of time for oral argument, for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed. VIDED.
Mar 22 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Mothers Against Drunk Driving filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Mar 22 2016	Brief amici curiae of The National District Attorneys Association, et al. filed. VIDED. (Distributed)
Apr 4 2016	Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae, for enlargement of time for oral argument, and for divided argument GRANTED. and the time is divided as follows: 35 minutes for petitioners, 15 minutes for respondent North Dakota, 10 minutes for respondent Minnesota, and 10 minutes for the Solicitor General. VIDED
Apr 13 2016	Reply of petitioner Danny Birchfield filed. (Distributed.)
Apr 20 2016	Argued. For petitioners: Charles A. Rothfeld, Washington, D. C. For respondents in Nos. 14-1468 & 14-1507: Thomas R. McCarthy, Arlington, Va. For respondent in 14-1470: Kathryn Keena, Assistant Dakota County Attorney, Hastings, Minn. For United States as amicus curiae in support of respondents: Ian H. Gershengorn, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. VIDED.
Jun 23 2016	Judgment in No. 14-1468 REVERSED and case REMANDED. Judgment in No. 14-1470 AFFIRMED. Judgment in No. 14-1507 VACATED AND REMANDED. Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Breyer, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.
Jul 25 2016	JUDGMENT ISSUED
Jul 25 2016	MANDATE ISSUED

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The Supreme Court will release orders from the June 13 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's "Relist Watch" compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their June 20 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Quarles v. United States Michigan’s third-degree home-invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than generic burglary for purposes of qualifying for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
- Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the Outer Continental Shelf.
- Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service The federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
- Azar v. Allina Health Services Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.
- Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis The charge-filing precondition to suit set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a jurisdictional requirement.
- Mont v. United States Pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction tolls a supervised-release term under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e), even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited.
- Taggart v. Lorenzen A creditor may be held in civil contempt for violating a bankruptcy court’s discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Jordan v. City of Darien, Georgia Whether the existence of probable cause defeats a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim as a matter of law.
- Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (1) Whether Oregon violated the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment by compelling the Kleins to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ritual in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs; (2) whether the Supreme Court should overrule Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and (3) whether the Supreme Court should reaffirm Smith’s hybrid-rights doctrine, applying strict scrutiny to free exercise claims that implicate other fundamental rights, and resolve the circuit split over the doctrine’s precedential status.
- McGee v. McFadden (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred when it found no constitutional error when the state failed to disclose Brady evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch, until the post-trial hearing for a motion for a new trial; (2) whether the state and federal courts’ decisions were contrary to Giglio v. United States, United States v. Bagley, Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois when the state failed to disclose material impeachment evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch who testified that petitioner confessed to him; and (3) whether the state and federal courts erred in finding that trial counsel rendered effective assistance of counsel when he failed to interview Michael Jones and call him as a witness.
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Cases argued	69
Cases decided	42
Summary reversals	5
Merits cases granted to date	73

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