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On Monday at 9:30 a.m., the court is expected to release orders from the February 21 conference. At 10:00 a.m., the justices will hear oral argument in U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association. Click to read our preview from Noah Sachs.
On Monday at 11:00 a.m., the justices will hear oral argument in Opati v. Sudan. Click to read our preview from Amy Howe.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, there is a possibility of opinions at 10:00 a.m.

Petitions We’re Watching

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Petitions Relisted for the Next Conference

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
18-349 Patterson v. Walgreen Co. (1) Whether an accommodation that merely lessens or has the potential to eliminate the conflict between work and religious practice is “reasonable” per se, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 4th and 11th Circuits hold; does it instead create a jury question, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 8th and 10th Circuits hold; or must an accommodation fully eliminate the conflict in order to be “reasonable” as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 7th and 9th Circuits hold; (2) whether speculation about possible future burdens is sufficient to meet the employer’s burden in establishing “undue hardship,” as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th, 6th and 11th Circuits hold, or must the employer demonstrate an actual burden, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 8th, 9th and 10th Circuits hold; and (3) whether the portion of TWA v. Hardison opining that “undue hardship” simply means something more than a “de minimis cost” should be disavowed or overruled. CVSG: 12/9/2019.
18-921 Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico v. Feliciano Whether the First Amendment empowers courts to override the chosen legal structure of a religious organization and declare all of its constituent parts a single legal entity subject to joint and several liability. CVSG: 12/6/2019.
18-9674 Andrus v. Texas Whether the standard for assessing ineffective assistance of counsel claims, announced in Strickland v. Washington, fails to protect the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial and the 14th Amendment right to due process when, in death-penalty cases involving flagrantly deficient performance, courts can deny relief following a truncated “no prejudice” analysis that does not account for the evidence amassed in a habeas proceeding and relies on a trial record shaped by trial counsel’s ineffective representation.
19-66 Ricks v. Idaho Contractors Board Whether the Supreme Court should revisit its holding in Employment Division v. Smith that the free exercise clause generally requires no religious exemptions from laws that are neutral and generally applicable.
19-123 Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Whether free exercise plaintiffs can only succeed by proving a particular type of discrimination claim — namely that the government would allow the same conduct by someone who held different religious views — as two circuits have held, or whether courts must consider other evidence that a law is not neutral and generally applicable, as six circuits have held; (2) whether Employment Division v. Smith should be revisited; and (3) whether the government violates the First Amendment by conditioning a religious agency’s ability to participate in the foster care system on taking actions and making statements that directly contradict the agency’s religious beliefs.
19-251 Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra Whether the exacting scrutiny the Supreme Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context – as called for by NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson and its progeny – can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest.
19-255 Thomas More Law Center v. Becerra (1) Whether exacting scrutiny or strict scrutiny applies to disclosure requirements that burden nonelectoral, expressive association rights; and (2) whether California’s disclosure requirement violates charities’ and their donors’ freedom of association and speech facially or as applied to the Thomas More Law Center.
19-296 Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (1) Whether deference under Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, rather than the rule of lenity, takes precedence in the interpretation of statutory language defining an element of various crimes when such language also has administrative applications; (2) whether, if Chevron deference applies and takes priority over the rule of lenity, such deference can be waived in the course of litigation and on appeal; and (3) whether, if Chevron deference applies and cannot be waived, Chevron should be overruled.
19-311 Cannon v. Seay (1) Whether, in review of a state decision under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, when a federal appellate court must determine if double-jeopardy protection bars retrial after a mistrial is granted over a defendant’s objection based upon the absence of a critical prosecution witness, the required strict scrutiny applied to the legal determination of manifest necessity constrains in equal or greater measure the deference universally accorded a trial court’s fact-finding; and (2) whether in granting relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit egregiously failed to apply clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court in Arizona v. Washington and accord deference to the state court’s ruling finding manifest necessity for mistrial when it resolved that omission of a reference to consideration of alternatives in the court’s oral ruling made the ruling fatally insufficient even though the record shows the state court did not act rashly in granting a mistrial, but pursued a cautious approach that included suspending the trial to allow a search for the missing witness prior to considering and granting the state’s mistrial motion.
19-333 Arlene’s Flowers Inc. v. Washington (1) Whether a state violates a floral designer’s First Amendment rights to free exercise and free speech by forcing her to take part in and create custom floral art celebrating same-sex weddings or by acting based on hostility toward her religious beliefs; and (2) whether the free exercise clause’s prohibition on religious hostility applies to the executive branch.
19-402 Baldwin v. U.S. (1) Whether National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services should be overruled; and (2) whether a federal agency’s statutory construction should receive any deference when it contradicts a court’s precedent and disregards traditional tools of statutory interpretation, such as the common-law presumption canon.
19-411 Reed v. Texas (1) How a court should consider under the Brady materiality standard the impact of a key trial witness's assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination and refusal to testify when confronted with the suppressed exculpatory evidence; (2) when expert testimony relied on by the state in a criminal trial is later shown to be scientifically invalid, what is the appropriate standard to assess whether the state’s use of the testimony violated due process; and (3) whether the conviction or execution of a person who is actually innocent of a crime violates the U. S. Constitution.
19-672 The Rams Football Company, LLC v. St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority Whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits a court to refuse to enforce the terms of an arbitration agreement assigning questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator if those terms would be enforceable under ordinary state-law contract principles in a non-arbitration context.
22O150 Arizona v. California

Petitions We’re Watching for the Next Conference

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
19-841 U.S. House of Representatives v. Texas (1) Whether the individual and state plaintiffs (the respondents here) possess Article III standing to challenge the constitutionality of Section 5000A(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA); (2) whether Section 5000A, as amended, exceeds Congress’ constitutional authority; and (3) whether, if Section 5000A is invalid, the provision is severable from the remainder of the act.
19-840 California v. Texas (1) Whether the individual and state plaintiffs in this case have established Article III standing to challenge the minimum-coverage provision in Section 5000A(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA); (2) whether reducing the amount specified in Section 5000A(c) to zero rendered the minimum-coverage provision unconstitutional; and (3) if so, whether the minimum-coverage provision is severable from the rest of the ACA.
19-619 Cisco Systems Inc. v. SRI Int'l Inc. Whether patent claims that recite only the abstract idea of collecting and analyzing data are patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International.
19-609 Shepherd v. Studdard (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit erred in finding that a case involving a shooting-through-doorway tactical scenario squarely governed a situation in which deputies faced a knife-wielding suspect on open ground; (2) whether Deputy Kyle Lane’s lack of knowledge created a triable issue of fact as to whether Edmond Studdard was walking; and (3) whether Deputies Erin Shepherd and Terry Reed's mistaken perception of the distance between themselves and a knife-wielding suspect during a 30-second encounter strips them of qualified immunity.
19-603 Silguero v. CSL Plasma Inc. Whether a plasma donation center is a “place of public accommodation” subject to the requirements of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
19-569 Ayestas v. Davis (1) Whether “prevailing professional norms” required counsel in a capital case to investigate potential mitigation evidence, including red flags for mental health and substance abuse, before the Supreme Court decided Wiggins v. Smith, Rompilla v. Beard and Porter v. McCollum—as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 10th Circuits have held, in conflict with the decision below; and (2) whether, under 18 U.S.C. § 3599(f), a reasonable attorney would regard the pursuit of services to investigate a capital defendant’s mental health as “sufficiently important” under Ayestas v. Davis, when it is plausible that the failure to investigate that aspect of petitioner’s background on state postconviction review could, given substantial authority recognizing counsel’s duty to do so, excuse the procedural default of an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim.
19-564 Michigan v. Beck Whether, when imposing a sentence within the statutory range for the offense of conviction, due process permits a sentencing court to consider conduct underlying an acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence.
19-547 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club Whether Exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act, by incorporating the deliberative process privilege, protects against compelled disclosure of a federal agency’s draft documents that were prepared as part of a formal interagency consultation process under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and that concerned a proposed agency action that was later modified in the consultation process.
19-541 Lambert v. Brown (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred by failing to address whether a reasonable officer in Detective Michael Lambert’s position would have objectively believed his conduct, in deciding what information to include or not to include in the affidavit, was lawful in light of clearly established law; and (2) whether the 9th Circuit erred by failing to address whether the plaintiffs made a substantial showing of deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth by Lambert.
19-527 Huskisson v. U.S. (1) Whether the independent-source exception to the exclusionary rule, like all other exclusionary rule exceptions, takes into account the flagrancy and deliberate nature of the underlying Fourth Amendment violation; and (2) whether the First Step Act of 2018, which lowered the mandatory minimum for many drug offenses and retroactively applies “to any offense that was committed before [December 21, 2018], if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of” that day, applies to cases still on direct appeal.
19-494 Morgan v. Washington Whether a government official who would like to seize someone’s personal property, and has both probable cause and the time to obtain a warrant, must bring his probable cause to a magistrate to obtain a warrant or may, under the plain-view exception, send a fellow officer to take the property.
19-487 Culp v. Raoul Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms requires Illinois to allow qualified non-residents to apply for an Illinois concealed-carry license.
19-475 Karingithi v. Barr (1) Whether the government may commence removal proceedings by serving a noncitizen with a “notice to appear” that fails to specify the hearing’s time and place; and (2) whether deference under Auer v. Robbins allows an executive agency to interpret a regulation in a way that conflicts with a congressional statute.
19-447 Puntenney v. Iowa Utilities Board (1) Whether a state’s exercise of eminent domain satisfies the “public use” requirement of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause if the only benefits experienced within that state are incidental; and (2) whether a state can satisfy the “public use” requirement of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause merely by labeling the taking with a traditional category of public use, without engaging in the “public purpose” analysis outlined by Kelo v. City of New London.
19-440 Northern Trust Corp. v. Banks Whether, for purposes of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998, a trust beneficiary alleges misconduct “in connection with” the purchase or sale of a covered security when the beneficiary alleges that the trustee used trust assets to buy and sell the trustee’s own proprietary securities rather than competitors’ securities and did so for the trustee’s own pecuniary gain.
19-433 Sutherland v. U.S. (1) Whether, when a defendant makes false statements to a United States Attorney’s Office in an effort to persuade that office to decline prosecution, the objective institutional relationship of that office with the grand jury satisfies the “nexus” required for obstruction or attempted obstruction of a grand jury proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), regardless of whether the defendant subjectively knew, understood or believed the false documents would be given to the grand jury; and (2) whether, when a prosecutor commits misconduct in summation by misstating evidence relevant to an essential element of the offense, but the defendant fails to object, the fact that the district court provided the jury a standard instruction that “arguments are not evidence” necessarily precludes reversal on appeal for plain error based on the prosecutor’s misconduct.
19-347 AER Advisors Inc. v. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Whether the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U.S.C. § 5318(g)(3)(A), confers (a) absolute immunity for any disclosure or (b) immunity only if the disclosure is an objectively “possible criminal violation,” is made in good faith, or is not fraudulent; and (2) whether in a diversity case, the transferee court, which is receiving jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) (i.e., only because of witness convenience), must apply the law of the transferor court (including federal law allowing for an immunity defense), or the law of its own court.
19-284 Mercado-Ramirez v. Barr (1) Whether the phrase “crime involving moral turpitude” in the Immigration and Nationality Act is void for vagueness; and (2) whether an agency may apply its new rule retroactively to a noncitizen who pleaded guilty relying on the agency’s previous rule.
19-282 Olivas-Motta v. Barr (1) Whether an agency exercising its policy-making authority under Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council may apply a new rule retroactively to a noncitizen who pleaded guilty in reliance on its previous rule; and (2) whether the phrase “crime involving moral turpitude” is void for vagueness.
19-107 Asaro v. U.S. Whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments prohibit a federal court from basing a criminal defendant’s sentence on conduct underlying a charge of which the defendant was acquitted by a jury.

Featured Petitions

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
19A905 Wolf v. Cook County
19A785 Department of Homeland Security v. New York
19-7689 Sutton v. Tennessee Whether Tennessee decisions to apply the facially-vague prior violent felony aggravating circumstance, not handed down until after Sutton committed his capital offense, provided Sutton the fair notice required under Johnson v. United States and the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.
19-1020 Bikundi v. U.S. (1) Whether a district court granting an ends-of-justice continuance under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 violates the requirement that the court set forth its reasons for “such continuance” when it sets forth adequate reasons only for earlier continuances; (2) whether, at the sentencing of a fraud defendant whose conduct the district court found included both “pervasive” fraud and legitimate activities, the government retains the burden of proving the specific scope of the fraudulent conduct that results in loss under the Sentencing Guidelines, restitution and forfeiture.
19-1019 Texas v. California (1) Whether the unconstitutional individual mandate to purchase minimum essential coverage is severable from the remainder of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; and (2) whether the district court properly declared the ACA invalid in its entirety and unenforceable anywhere.
19-1012 General Electric Co. v. United Technologies Corp. Whether competitive harm alone suffices to confer Article III standing to appeal an inter partes review determination, or whether an appellant must also show concrete plans for future activity that creates a substantial risk of a future patent infringement action.
19-1009 Altera Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1) Whether the Treasury Department’s regulation requiring related companies (such as parents and subsidiaries) to share the cost of stock-based employee compensation is arbitrary and capricious and thus invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act; (2) whether, under Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corp., the regulation may be upheld on a rationale that the agency never advanced during rulemaking; and (3) whether a procedurally defective regulation may be upheld under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. on the ground that the agency has offered a “permissible” interpretation of the statute in litigation.
19-995 Murray v. Mayo Clinic Whether the “motivating factor” standard is most consistent with the plain language and purposes of the statute, and congressional intent, and therefore the appropriate standard to be applied under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which forbids discrimination “on the basis of” disability, but does not specifically set forth the standard to be applied in determining causation.
19-992 Skipper v. Byrd Whether the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel includes the right to a plea offer that was never made.
19-974 Schmitt v. LaRose Whether the First Amendment and strict scrutiny apply to subject-matter restrictions on ballot initiatives.
19-968 Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski Whether a government’s post-filing change of an unconstitutional policy moots nominal-damages claims that vindicate the government’s past, completed violation of a plaintiff’s constitutional right.
19-967 Wood v. Missouri Whether the Constitution requires that a jury, rather than a judge, weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances to determine whether a defendant may be sentenced to death.
19-963 Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. Whether a provision in an arbitration agreement that exempts certain claims from arbitration negates an otherwise clear and unmistakable delegation of questions of arbitrability to an arbitrator.
19-959 TAMKO Building Products Inc. v. Williams Whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits state courts to craft state principles of agency law that uniquely disfavor arbitration (in the guise of uniquely protecting jury-trial rights) and use those principles to refuse to enforce arbitration agreements.
19-956 Craig v. O’Kelley (1) Whether a panel decision decided nine days before the relevant conduct in question constitutes clearly established law to deprive government officers of qualified immunity; (2) whether timing constitutes an extraordinary circumstance as articulated by Harlow v. Fitzgerald, such that a police officer may nonetheless be entitled to qualified immunity despite the law being clearly established nine days earlier; and (3) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit erred in holding that a general principal of law announced in Moore v. Pederson firmly established with the requisite degree of particularity that the officers violated clearly established law in the particular circumstances they faced.
19-953 Farrar v. Williams Whether the due process clause is violated when the prosecution relies on material, perjured testimony to secure a conviction but did not know the testimony was perjured until after the trial, as six courts have held, or whether the prosecution’s contemporaneous knowledge of the perjured testimony is required, as eight courts have held.
19-949 Wisconsin Department of Revenue v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. Whether a state violates Subsection (b)(4) of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 by exempting intangible personal property of non-railroads from its personal property tax, but not exempting such property for a limited group of taxpayers that includes railroads.
19-941 Raulerson v. Warden Whether the Supreme Court’s unanimous holding in Cooper v. Oklahoma clearly established that Georgia could not impose the burden of requiring proof of intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt, particularly when state supreme courts in Indiana, Tennessee and other states recognized that Cooper would not allow their states to require a defendant to prove intellectual disability even by a lower standard of clear and convincing evidence.
19-939 Gustus v. U.S. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 111, which criminalizes “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees” of the federal government, is a specific-intent or general-intent offense.
19-935 Leeper v. Hamilton County Coal, LLC (1) Whether courts should distinguish between “terminations” and “layoffs” under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by applying an objective standard that examines the employees’ reasonable expectation of recall at the time of the employment cessation, based on the employer’s written and oral communications, policies and practices, industry standards, and other factors; and (2) whether “a reduction in hours of work of more than 50 percent during each month of any 6- month period” under the WARN Act includes months in which the employee suffers a 100 percent reduction in hours.
19-930 CIC Services, LLC v. Internal Revenue Service Whether the Anti-Injunction Act’s bar on lawsuits for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of taxes also bars challenges to unlawful regulatory mandates issued by administrative agencies that are not taxes.
19-924 Indiana v. Ruiz Whether, when analyzing whether a station-house interview is a custodial interrogation under Miranda v. Arizona, the ordinary security features and layout of a police station weigh in favor of a determination that the interview was “custodial.”
19-917 Joslyn Manufacturing Co. v. Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. Whether the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act's six-year statute of limitations for “remedial” work is triggered, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held below, only when the construction of a permanent solution for environmental contamination meets a threshold level of comprehensiveness.
19-914 Credit Bureau Center, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission Whether the second proviso of Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, providing that the Federal Trade Commission “may seek” a permanent injunction, is an independent grant of authority to “file suit” seeking implied consumer redress remedies circumventing the elaborate enforcement scheme set by Congress.
19-910 K.G.S. v. Facebook Inc. Whether, under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, virtual contacts can establish specific personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant under the effects-based test of Calder v. Jones, when the relevant online activity is equally accessible nationwide but its content focuses on the forum state and the tortfeasor has knowingly caused the plaintiff to suffer reputational and emotional harm in the forum state, a question left open by the Supreme Court’s decision in Walden v. Fiore.
19-897 Albence v. Chavez Whether the detention of an alien who is subject to a reinstated removal order and who is pursuing withholding or deferral of removal is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1231, or instead by 8 U.S.C. § 1226.
19-896 Albence v. Arteaga-Martinez Whether an alien who is detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 is entitled by statute, after six months of detention, to a bond hearing at which the government must prove to an immigration judge by clear and convincing evidence that the alien is a flight risk or a danger to the community.
19-893 Waronker v. Hempstead Union Free School District (1) Whether the First Amendment protects speech by a public official that is required by law and that reports and exposes corruption; and (2) whether speech by a public official reporting misconduct to external government officials, outside the chain of command, is protected by the First Amendment, as held by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th, 9th and 10th Circuits, or whether such speech is unprotected under Garcetti v. Ceballos as held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in this case and by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th and District of Columbia Circuits.
19-878 Gentile v. Securities and Exchange Commission Whether the five-year statute of limitations in 28 U.S.C. § 2462 applies to “obey the law” injunctions and penny-stock-industry bars pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(1) and (6).
19-875 OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho Whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts a state from invalidating an arbitration agreement as substantively unconscionable on the ground that it provides procedural protections akin to civil litigation, rather than to the streamlined administrative proceeding that would be available under state law in the absence of the agreement.
19-868 Miner v. Picatti Whether a court may decline, in an excessive-force case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, to address an argument that, on the facts taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, officials did not violate the plaintiff ’s clearly established constitutional rights, based solely on its determination that genuine disputes of fact exist.
19-867 Wexford Health v. Garrett Whether, if a prisoner fails to exhaust administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit, Section 1997e(a) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act mandates dismissal of the unexhausted claims, or the prisoner may cure his failure to exhaust by filing an amended complaint after his release from prison.
19-864 Beers v. Barr Whether the government may permanently deny a mentally healthy, responsible and law-abiding citizen of the United States the opportunity to recover his Second Amendment rights solely because of a long-ago involuntary commitment.
19-863 Niz-Chavez v. Barr Whether, to serve notice in accordance with 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a) and trigger the stop-time rule, the government must serve a specific document that includes all the information identified in Section 1229(a), or whether the government can serve that information over the course of as many documents and as much time as it chooses.
19-859 Force v. Facebook Inc. (1) Whether Section 230(c)(1) of Title 47 of the U.S. Code is a limitation on the definition of a publisher under certain other prohibitions, or a broad grant of immunity to covered publishers; and (2) whether “publisher” in Section 230(c)(1) is limited to the exercise of traditional editorial functions, such as deciding to accept or reject a submission.
19-857 GPI Distributors Inc. v. Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Whether the due process and equal protection clauses prohibit states from imposing substantial financial burdens on indigent parties seeking judicial review (as at least six states have held), or whether states effectively deprive low-income litigants of access to the judicial system (as at least five states have held)—even when the court access in question represents the party’s first opportunity to obtain meaningful judicial review of an involuntary property taking.
19-849 Dyroff v. Ultimate Software Group Inc. (1) Whether Section 230(c)(1) of Title 47 of the U.S. Code is a limitation on the definition of a publisher under certain other prohibitions, or a broad grant of immunity to covered publishers; and (2) whether “publisher” in Section 230(c)(1) is limited to the exercise of traditional editorial functions, such as deciding to accept or reject a submission.
19-847 Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine Whether it violates the First Amendment to designate a labor union to represent and speak for public-sector employees who object to its advocacy on their behalf.
19-839 Eastern Oregon Mining Association v. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Whether the Clean Water Act regulates activities that simply move preexisting material, such as rock, sand and gravel, within a “navigable water.”
19-831 Jarchow v. State Bar of Wisconsin Whether Lathrop v. Donohue and Keller v. State Bar of California should be overruled and “integrated bar” arrangements like Wisconsin’s invalidated under the First Amendment.
19-827 Guam v. Davis Whether the 15th Amendment permits Guam to invite only “native inhabitants of Guam” to participate in a potential political-status plebiscite that would yield only a nonbinding, symbolic expression of self-determination preferences.
19-825 Federal Trade Commission v. Credit Bureau Center, LLC Whether Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes district courts to enter an injunction that orders the return of unlawfully obtained funds.
19-816 Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether an abortion clinic may assert third-party standing on behalf of its hypothetical minor patients to challenge a statute requiring parental notice before abortion; and (2) whether Indiana may, consistent with the 14th Amendment, generally require lawyers for unemancipated minors to notify parents of court-authorized abortions, subject to judicial bypass upon a finding that such notice would be against the minor’s best interests.
19-815 Phoenix v. Regions Bank Whether the regulations issued by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and then by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, permissibly construe the “applicants” protected from discrimination by Equal Credit Opportunity Act to encompass guarantors.
19-807 Bank Melli v. Bennett (1) Whether the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act requires that the respondent, Michael Bennett, actually own the assets at issue, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held and as the United States has repeatedly urged, or whether the statute instead permits execution even absent ownership, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held below; and (2) whether TRIA permits plaintiffs to execute judgments against a foreign sovereign’s juridically separate instrumentalities, contrary to the presumption of separate status established by the Supreme Court’s precedents and the nation’s treaty obligations.
19-797 City of St. Louis, Missouri v. Meier (1) Whether a municipality, whose officers issued a “wanted” report supported by probable cause to believe that an automobile was an instrumentality or evidence of a crime, resulting in the seizure of an automobile by officers of another jurisdiction, can be held liable for a violation of the Fourth and 14th Amendments, in an action by the vehicle’s owner under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for seizure of the automobile; and (2) whether the “rigorous standards” of causation and culpability governing municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 permit such liability against a municipality to be predicated on the conduct of a non-governmental actor in retaining property seized by police, on the basis of the non-governmental actor’s own policy or custom of enforcing “wanted” bulletins from law enforcement agencies, without any other connection with the municipality against which the Section 1983 action is brought.
19-795 Voorhees v. U.S. Whether the principle that criminal statutes must contain a mens rea element, with the exception of strict liability offenses, applies to criminal prosecutions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, when the underlying statute at issue, 10 U.S.C. § 933, contains no mens rea element and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces held below that only a general intent is required using an objective, versus subjective, standard, i.e., negligence, and thus that no mens rea element need be instructed to the jury, even when the “conduct” alleged to be criminal is facially noncriminal.
19-794 Macias v. Nichols (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit departed from the Supreme Court’s qualified-immunity decisions by finding the officers violated a clearly-established right without acknowledging the governing standard, defining the right specifically or identifying a case involving similar facts; and (2) whether the 9th Circuit’s rule that “civil disputes cannot give rise to probable cause” is overly broad, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has suggested, and inconsistent with District of Columbia v. Wesby.
19-793 Institute for Free Speech v. Becerra (1) Whether a state official’s demand for all significant donors to a nonprofit organization, as a precondition to engaging in constitutionally protected speech, constitutes a First Amendment injury; and (2) whether official demands for membership or donor information outside the electoral context should be reviewed under strict or exacting scrutiny.
19-779 Pierre-Paul v. Barr (1) Whether a notice to appear must specify the time and place of a noncitizen’s removal proceedings; (2) whether, assuming that a notice to appear must include the time and place of a noncitizen’s removal proceedings, serving the noncitizen with a subsequent notice of hearing containing the time-and-place information can cure a defective notice to appear that lacked that information; and (3) whether filing a valid notice to appear or other charging document in the immigration court is a prerequisite to that court’s obtaining subject-matter jurisdiction over a noncitizen’s removal proceedings.
19-764 Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization (1) Whether the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority consented to personal jurisdiction when they chose to maintain facilities within the United States after the date specified in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1992; and (2) whether the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause bars federal courts from exercising jurisdiction authorized by Congress over a defendant whose criminal conduct harms a U.S. citizen outside of the United States.
19-753 Hunter v. Cole Whether, if the barrel of a gun is not yet pointed directly at an officer, clearly established federal law prohibits police officers from firing to stop a person armed with a firearm from moving a deadly weapon toward an officer if the officer has not both shouted a warning and also waited to determine whether the imminent threat to life has subsided after the warning; and (2) whether a police officer who inaccurately reports his perceptions of events during a dynamic shooting encounter violates clearly established rights under the 14th Amendment.
19-743 Hill v. Whole Woman’s Health Alliance (1) Whether a corporation that has been denied a state license to open a new abortion clinic may assert the 14th Amendment rights of hypothetical future patients as the basis for challenging the licensing requirement and the license denial; and (2) whether a federal court may order a state agency to issue an abortion-clinic license as a remedy for an “as applied” undue-burden challenge to state implementation of its licensing laws.
19-741 Klieman v. Palestinian Authority (1) Whether the Palestinian Authority-Palestinian Liberation Organization has the right to raise a due process defense under the Fifth Amendment—a defense that the Supreme Court has ruled unavailable to U.S. state sovereigns and that many courts have ruled unavailable to foreign sovereigns—while simultaneously asserting its status as a foreign sovereign in a case against the United States at the International Court of Justice, which handicaps Congress’ constitutional powers; (2) whether a court can override Congress’ intent to subject the PA-PLO under the Anti-Terrorism Act to civil litigation in U.S. courts, despite Congress’ constitutional authority to amend the jurisdiction of federal courts and protect Americans from acts of PA-PLO terrorism; and (3) whether the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, which allows criminal prosecution of a terrorist who murders a U.S. citizen, as well any person or entity that supported the crime, would nonetheless bar a lawsuit by the victim’s family to impose civil liability on the same actors under the same U.S. Code section.
19-735 Tong v. Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority (1) Whether a political subdivision of a state has standing to sue its creator state under the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution; and (2) whether the Federal Aviation Act preempts a state law limiting the length of an airport runway, thereby depriving a state from determining the size and nature of a local airport.
19-723 White v. U.S. Whether the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause forbids the civil-commitment trial of an incompetent person whose prior conduct is disputed.
19-718 King v. Brownback Whether a law enforcement officer’s membership in a joint state-federal police task force managed, in part, by a federal agency precludes him or her from acting “under color of state law” for purposes of Section 1983.
19-710 Connecticut Fine Wine and Spirits, LLC v. Seagull Whether Section 1 of the Sherman Act preempts state laws facilitating unsupervised private price-fixing, such as Connecticut's—which requires private beer, wine and liquor wholesalers to “post” their prices in advance so that all competing wholesalers can match them, to “hold” those prices for a month and to refrain from offering quantity discounts to retailers; the wholesalers in this scheme determine not only the case prices paid by retailers, but also the minimum bottle prices paid by consumers.
19-704 Wilson v. Cook County, Illinois (1) Whether the Second Amendment allows a local government to prohibit law-abiding residents from possessing and protecting themselves and their families with a class of rifles and ammunition magazines that are “in common use at [this] time” and are not “dangerous and unusual”; and (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit’s method of analyzing Second Amendment issues – a three-part test which asks whether (1) a regulation bans weapons that were common at the time of ratification or (2) those that have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia and (3) whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense – is consistent with the Supreme Court’s holding in District of Columbia v. Heller.
19-688 Wells Fargo & Co. v. City of Miami, Florida Whether proximate cause in private litigation about the Fair Housing Act requires more than a “logical bond” between the alleged statutory violation and the plaintiff’s injury.
19-676 Zadeh v. Robinson Whether the Supreme Court should recalibrate or reverse the doctrine of qualified immunity.
19-675 Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, Florida Whether, under the Supreme Court’s decisions in this and other proximate-cause cases, the Fair Housing Act’s proximate-cause element requires more than just some “logical bond” between a statutory violation and the claimed injury.
19-670 Fleck v. Wetch (1) Whether laws mandating membership in a state bar association are subject to the same “exacting” First Amendment scrutiny that the Supreme Court prescribed for mandatory public-sector union fees in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31; and (2) whether it violates the First Amendment to presume that an attorney is willing to pay for a bar association’s “non-chargeable” political and ideological speech, unless and until that attorney takes steps to opt out.
19-659 Salgado v. U.S. (1) Under what circumstances a civil forfeiture claimant “substantially prevail[s]” under 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1); and (2) whether, in civil forfeiture lawsuits, when a district court has ordered the United States to return the seized money and the lawsuit will never be refiled, it is an abuse of discretion for the dismissal to be without prejudice.
19-645 Arizona v. Nunez-Diaz (1) Whether the respondent, Hector Sebastion Nunez-Diaz, is categorically barred from establishing prejudice under Strickland v. Washington for a Padilla v. Kentucky / Lee v. United States claim because, as an unauthorized alien, he is without any legal right to remain in the United States; and (2) whether the Arizona Supreme Court erred in finding Strickland prejudice, where inter alia there was no evidence that the respondent had a viable defense either to the criminal charges or deportation.
19-633 Avery v. U.S. Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1) applies to federal prisoners seeking relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
19-608 Elster v. City of Seattle, Washington (1) Whether a levy that forces property owners to fund other individuals’ campaign donations implicates the First Amendment’s compelled-subsidy doctrine; and (2) whether a compelled subsidy of speech should be examined under rational-basis review, as the decision below concluded, or whether a higher standard of review is appropriate.
19-607 Woodcrest Homes Inc. v. Carousel Farms Metropolitan District Whether the Fifth Amendment’s restriction of eminent domain to “public use[s]” is satisfied even if a condemnation is undertaken “for the purpose of conferring a private benefit on a particular private party.”
19-605 Arizona v. Martin Whether, when a jury expressly states it is “unable to agree” on a defendant’s guilt for a greater offense and convicts the defendant of a lesser offense, and the defendant successfully appeals his conviction, the hung-jury rule permits retrial of the greater offense or Green v. United States instead bars retrial of that offense.
19-604 Francway v. Wilkie (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in holding that the Department of Veterans Affairs enjoys a presumption that its medical examiner is competent in every veterans-benefit case; and (2) whether the Federal Circuit erred in expanding the presumption of competency so that the VA and reviewing courts presume, not only that VA medical examiners are competent, but also that they are specialists in the relevant area of medicine.
19-587 White v. U.S. Whether, notwithstanding the plain language of Section 3161(h)(7) of the Speedy Trial Act and the Supreme Court’s decision in Zedner v. United States, a district court may exclude time pursuant to a stipulation between the parties without making its own “on-the-record findings” that the ends of justice served by a continuance outweigh the interests of the defendant and the public in a speedy trial.
19-549 Hannah P. v. Maguire Whether an employment decision that is based on conduct caused by a qualified individual’s disability is insulated from scrutiny under the federal disability-discrimination statutes on the ground that the decision is not made on the basis of disability.
19-546 Brownback v. King Whether a final judgment in favor of the United States in an action brought under Section 1346(b)(1) of the Federal Tort Claims Act, on the ground that a private person would not be liable to the claimant under state tort law for the injuries alleged, bars a claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics that is brought by the same claimant, based on the same injuries, and against the same governmental employees whose acts gave rise to the claimant’s FTCA claim.
19-532 U.S. v. California Whether provisions of California law that, with certain limited exceptions, prohibit state law-enforcement officials from providing federal immigration authorities with release dates and other information about individuals subject to federal immigration enforcement, and restrict the transfer of aliens in state custody to federal immigration custody, are preempted by federal law or barred by intergovernmental immunity.
19-512 Robinson v. Department of Education Whether the Fair Credit Reporting Act authorizes consumers to file civil suits against federal governmental agencies under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n and § 1681o.
19-392 Armstrong v. Securities and Exchange Commission (1) Whether the constitutional right to counsel of choice extends to cases in which a criminal defendant’s assets are frozen as part of a parallel civil enforcement action; and (2) whether the failure to return untainted personal property to a defendant violates the constitutional guarantee of due process.
19-320 Wade v. Kreisler Law, P.C. Whether the “functional equivalence” doctrine applies to nonjurisdictional mandatory claim-processing rules requiring a petition for permission to appeal.
19-229 C.D. v. Natick Public School District Whether a school district’s decision to educate a child with disabilities outside the regular classroom violates the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s mainstreaming mandate.
18-1516 Price v. City of Chicago, Illinois Whether the Supreme Court should reconsider Hill v. Colorado in light of the Supreme Court’s intervening decisions in Reed v. Town of Gilbert and McCullen v. Coakley.
18-1455 Archdiocese of Washington v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (1) Whether the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority’s policy of refusing to accept advertisements that promote or oppose religion or reflect a religious perspective violates the First Amendment; and (2) whether that discrimination against religious speech violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
18-1218 Buchwald Capital Advisors LLC v. Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Whether the Bankruptcy Code abrogates the sovereign immunity of Indian tribes.
18-1019 Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.

Calls for the Views of the Solicitor General

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
19-648 CACI Premier Technology Inc. v. Al Shimari Whether an order denying a federal contractor’s claim of derivative sovereign immunity is an immediately appealable final order under the collateral-order doctrine.
19-638 N. B. D. v. Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Whether federal law requires state courts of competent jurisdiction to make predicate findings for special immigrant juvenile status determinations upon request.
19-520 Philipp v. Federal Republic of Germany Whether the Federal Republic of Germany, a foreign state, is subject to jurisdiction under the expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for claims to property that was taken in violation of international law because Germany’s instrumentality (and possessor of the property at issue), Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, is engaged in commercial activity in the United States.
19-453 Cargill v. Doe I (1) Whether the presumption against extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute is displaced by allegations that a U.S. company generally conducted oversight of its foreign operations at its headquarters and made operational and financial decisions there, even though the conduct alleged to violate international law occurred in – and the plaintiffs suffered their injuries in – a foreign country; and (2) whether a domestic corporation is subject to liability in a private action under the Alien Tort Statute.
19-416 Nestlé USA v. Doe I Whether an aiding and abetting claim against a domestic corporation brought under the Alien Tort Statute may overcome the extraterritoriality bar where the claim is based on allegations of general corporate activity in the United States and where the plaintiffs cannot trace the alleged harms, which occurred abroad at the hands of unidentified foreign actors, to that activity; and (2) whether the judiciary has the authority under the Alien Tort Statute to impose liability on domestic corporations.
19-351 Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp (1) Whether the “expropriation exception” of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which abrogates foreign sovereign immunity when “rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue,” provides jurisdiction over claims that a foreign sovereign has violated international human-rights law when taking property from its own national within its own borders, even though such claims do not implicate the established international law governing states’ responsibility for takings of property; and (2) whether the doctrine of international comity is unavailable in cases against foreign sovereigns, even in cases of considerable historical and political significance to the foreign sovereign, and even when the foreign nation has a domestic framework for addressing the claims.
19-277 HSBC Holdings PLC v. Picard (1) Whether applying Bankruptcy Code Section 550(a)(2) to permit recovery of the proceeds of a foreign transaction that occurred abroad between two foreign parties governed by foreign law constitutes a “domestic” application of Section 550(a)(2) for the purpose of an extraterritoriality analysis; and (2) Whether a bankruptcy court’s and district court’s abstentions from applying U. S. law on grounds of international comity should be reviewed for abuse of discretion, as seven circuits that reached the issue have held, or de novo, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held.
19-185 Mutond v. Lewis (1) Whether a plaintiff can preclude conduct-based immunity for foreign government officials merely by suing them in their personal capacities; and (2) whether the Torture Victim Protection Act abrogates all common-law conduct-based immunity for foreign officials, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held below, or leaves immunity intact, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd and 9th Circuits have held.
18-1447 Republic of Hungary v. Simon (1) Whether a district court may abstain from exercising jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for reasons of international comity, in a matter in which former Hungarian nationals have sued the nation of Hungary to recover the value of property lost in Hungary during World War II but the plaintiffs made no attempt to exhaust local Hungarian remedies; and (2) in a forum non conveniens analysis, whether a district court is required to defer to the plaintiffs’ choice of a U.S. forum when the case’s sole connection to the United States is that some named plaintiffs (representing a putative worldwide class) became naturalized citizens after the time relevant to the complaint, and is permitted to defer to a foreign sovereign defendant’s comity interest in hosting claims in its own courts, when the plaintiffs allege that the sovereign defendant harmed its own nationals on its own soil and the plaintiffs have not exhausted local remedies.
18-1401 Peterson v. Linear Controls Inc. Whether the “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” covered by Section 703(a)(1) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are limited only to hiring, firing, promotions, compensation and leave.
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