Sessions v. Morales-Santana

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Sessions v. Morales-Santana

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Conference of June 13, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
15-1191	2d Cir.	Nov 9, 2016 Tr.Aud.	Jun 12, 2017	8-0	Ginsburg	OT 2016

Holding: (1) The gender line Congress drew in Section 1409(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act -- which creates an exception for an unwed U.S.-citizen mother, but not for such a father, to the physical-presence requirement for the transmission of U.S. citizenship to a child born abroad -- is incompatible with the Fifth Amendment's requirement that the government accord to all persons "the equal protection of the laws"; and (2) because the Supreme Court is not equipped to convert Section 1409(c)'s exception into the main rule displacing other relevant provisions of the statute, it falls to Congress to select a uniform prescription that neither favors nor disadvantages any person on the basis of gender.

Judgment: Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, 8-0, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg on June 12, 2017. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part, in which Justice Alito joined. Justice Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Immigration symposium: The future of immigration exceptionalism (David Rubenstein)
Immigration symposium: Prelude to a turning point (Charles Roth)
Opinion analysis: Court rejects gender-based distinctions in citizenship laws (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Searching for a remedy for constitutional violation on citizenship (Amy Howe)
A "view" from the courtroom: The election and U.S. values (Mark Walsh)
Argument preview: Justices to take on citizenship question – again (Amy Howe)
Court to hear major new controversies -- next Term (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Feb 12 2016	Application (15A858) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from February 29, 2016 to March 30, 2016, submitted to Justice Ginsburg.
Feb 16 2016	Application (15A858) granted by Justice Ginsburg extending the time to file until March 30, 2016.
Mar 22 2016	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due April 21, 2016)
Apr 11 2016	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including May 23, 2016.
May 17 2016	Letter dated May 17, 2016, from the Solicitor General received notifying the Court of an error in the petition appendix.
May 23 2016	Brief of respondent Luis Ramon Morales-Santana in opposition filed.
Jun 7 2016	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 23, 2016.
Jun 7 2016	Reply of petitioner Loretta E. Lynch, Attorney General filed. (Distributed)
Jun 27 2016	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 27, 2016.
Jun 28 2016	Petition GRANTED.
Aug 1 2016	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner Loretta E. Lynch, Attorney General.
Aug 4 2016	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 19, 2016.
Aug 4 2016	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including September 26, 2016.
Aug 19 2016	Brief of petitioner Loretta E. Lynch, Attorney General filed.
Sep 2 2016	SET FOR ARGUMENT On Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Sep 7 2016	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for petitioner.
Sep 9 2016	Record has been requested from the U.S.C.A. 2nd Circuit.
Sep 15 2016	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for respondent.
Sep 15 2016	Record received from the U.S.C.A. 2nd Circuit is electronic.
Sep 26 2016	Brief of respondent Luis Ramon Morales-Santana filed.
Sep 28 2016	CIRCULATED
Sep 30 2016	Brief amici curiae of The American Civil Liberties Union, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Oct 3 2016	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner GRANTED.
Oct 3 2016	Brief amici curiae of Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Citizenship, and Remedies Scholars filed. (Distributed).
Oct 3 2016	Brief amici curiae of Professors of History, Political Science, and Law filed. (Distributed)
Oct 3 2016	Brief amici curiae of Equality Now, et al. filed.
Oct 3 2016	Brief amici curiae of The National Immigrant Justice Center, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Oct 3 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Population and Family Scholars filed. (Distributed)
Oct 3 2016	Brief amici curiae of Scholars on Statelessness filed. (Distributed)
Oct 26 2016	Reply of petitioner Loretta E. Lynch, Attorney General filed. (Distributed)
Nov 9 2016	Argued. For petitioner: Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Stephen A. Broome, Los Angeles, Cal.
Nov 15 2016	Record received from the Board of Immigration Appeals is electronic.
Nov 16 2016	Letter from counsel for petitioner received and distributed.
Jun 12 2017	Adjudged to be AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, and case REMANDED. Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part, in which Alito, J., joined. Gorsuch, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Jul 14 2017	JUDGMENT 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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