| 22O154 |
New Hampshire v. Massachusetts |
Whether Massachusetts' tax rule — which subjects nonresident earned income received
for services performed outside Massachusetts to the state’s income tax — is unconstitutional confiscation. |
| 20A96 |
Danville Christian Academy v. Beshear |
Whether the Supreme Court should temporarily suspend, pending appeal, an executive order by Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear that forces the closure of all public and private schools in the state – including religious schools – in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, because the order violates the Constitution's free exercise clause. |
| 20A95 |
Robinson v. Murphy |
Whether the Supreme Court should temporarily suspend, pending appeal, COVID-19 restrictions instituted by New Jersey Gov. Philip Murphy — specifically, limiting houses of worship to 25% of capacity or a numerical cap, whichever is less, and allowing only “brief” or “momentary” removal of mandated masks in religious settings, while imposing less restrictive limits on secular activities — because the restrictions violate the First Amendment’s protections for the free exercise of religion as well as free speech and assembly. |
| 20A63 |
Trump v. Vance |
Whether the Supreme Court should stay, pending appeal, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upholding the dismissal of President Donald Trump's claims that a grand-jury subpoena for his financial records – which the justices declined to invalidate in July – is overbroad and was issued in bad faith. |
| 20A105 |
High Plains Harvest Church v. Polis |
Whether the Supreme Court should temporarily suspend, pending appeal, a Colorado regulation that caps attendance at houses of worship at 50 people in light of the COVID-19 pandemic as an unconstitutional infringement on the right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. |
| 20-746 |
South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom |
(1) Whether California Governor Gavin Newsom’s lockdown orders and
reopening restrictions under the “Blueprint”
framework, placing strict limitations, including
closures, on all places of worship in California, violates South Bay’s First Amendment right to free
exercise of religion; and (2) whether strict scrutiny is the proper standard of review for challenges to state and county restrictions upon
free-exercise-of-religion rights during a pandemic,
or whether Jacobson v. Massachusetts imposes extra
limitations to the Supreme Court’s established line of free-exercise jurisprudence during a pandemic. |
| 20-740 |
Bognet v. Boockvar |
(1) Whether the petitioners, four individual voters and one
congressional candidate, have standing to raise
their elections clause, electors clause and equal
protection clause claims; (2) whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
usurped the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s paramount authority from the Constitution to “direct [the] Manner” for appointing electors for president and vice president and to prescribe “[t]he Times,
Places and Manner” for congressional elections; (3) whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s
extension violates the petitioners’ right to have their votes
counted without dilution and their right not to have
their votes treated in an arbitrary and disparate manner under the equal protection clause; and (4) whether Purcell v. Gonzalez counsels against enjoining unconstitutional usurpations of authority to regulate federal
elections by state courts and executive branch officials. |
| 20-733 |
Rickmon v. U.S. |
Whether the sound of gunshots creates an emergency
so that the “individualized suspicion” required by Terry v. Ohio
attaches to anyone near the shots. |
| 20-727 |
Facebook Inc. v. Davis |
Whether an internet content provider violates the
Wiretap Act when a computer user’s web browser instructs the provider to display content on the webpage
the user visits. |
| 20-718 |
Reyes-Romero v. U.S. |
Whether, when a district court considers awarding attorney’s fees and costs to a prevailing criminal defendant, the Hyde Amendment inquiry into whether “the position of the United
States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith” encompass actions of non-prosecutor government employees underlying the criminal case. |
| 20-701 |
Calvert v. Texas |
(1) Whether the Constitution prevents a state from
allowing a defendant to represent himself in a capital
case when the defendant is mentally competent to waive
counsel but is not mentally competent to conduct trial
proceedings in his capital trial; (2) whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the
state of Texas from sentencing petitioner James Calvert to death on a
finding of future dangerousness based in substantial
part on graphic testimony and evidence about an attack
on a prison official committed by another inmate in
another prison at another time, having no connection to Calvert; and (3) whether the constitutional violation resulting
from the trial court’s direction to administer a 50,000-
volt electric shock to Calvert during his trial to
“enforce decorum” because Calvert failed to stand
when responding to a question from the court
constitutes structural error. |
| 20-695 |
Piersing v. Domino’s Pizza Franchising LLC |
Whether, in the context of a form
employment agreement, providing that a particular
set of rules will govern arbitration proceedings is,
without more, “clear and unmistakable evidence” of
the parties’ intent to have the arbitrator decide
questions of arbitrability. |
| 20-690 |
Han v. U.S. |
Whether a court may consider factors other than the parties’
intent in determining whether a transfer of funds constitutes a non-taxable loan under the Internal
Revenue Code. |
| 20-685 |
Trump v. Sierra Club |
(1) Whether the Sierra Club has a cognizable cause of
action to obtain review of the secretary of defense’s compliance
with 10 U.S.C. § 2808 in reprioritizing appropriated but unobligated funds for the military construction projects involving border
barriers being authorized; and (2) whether the secretary exceeded his statutory authority under Section 2808 in reprioritizing appropriated funds for the military construction projects following the president’s declaration of a national emergency requiring the use of the armed forces at the southern border. |
| 20-666 |
Barr v. City and County of San Francisco, California |
(1) Whether the Department of Justice has statutory authority
to impose notice and access conditions on grantees
that accept Edward
Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant awards, a program that provides millions of dollars in financial
assistance to law enforcement; and (2) whether the department may withhold Byrne
JAG funds from the city and county of San Francisco, California for noncompliance with
8 U.S.C. 1373, which generally bars
state and local governments from restricting the sharing of “information regarding the citizenship or immigration status ... of any individual” with federal immigration authorities. |
| 20-662 |
Trump v. Useche |
(1) Whether the relief entered — a
three-judge district court declared that the president's memorandum, which instructed the commerce secretary to include in the report on the decennial census information about people living in the country illegally,
was unlawful and enjoined the secretary from including the
information in his report —
satisfies the requirements of Article III of the Constitution; and (2) whether the memorandum is a permissible exercise of the president’s discretion under the provisions
of law governing congressional apportionment. |
| 20-660 |
Employer Solutions Staffing Group, LLC v. Scalia |
(1) Whether the Supreme Court’s willfulness standard, which
requires a showing that “the employer either knew or
showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its
conduct was prohibited by the statute,” may be
satisfied merely by a showing that a non-compliant
employer was on notice of its general requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act but had no actual knowledge of or reason
to believe that it was not complying with any
requirement of the FLSA; (2) whether the Employer Solutions Staffing Group was liable for overtime
wages when there was no evidence that they knew or
should have known that overtime wages were not
properly being paid by a low-level employee; and (3) whether the Employer Solutions Staffing Group may seek contribution
under the FLSA from other joint-employers for joint and
several liability for an overtime wage award. |
| 20-651 |
Cook Children’s Medical Center v. T.L. |
Whether, despite the lack of any state involvement,
participation, coercion, input or control of any kind, a private hospital is nevertheless a state actor because state
law creates a safe harbor for those who conduct a private
internal review to determine private medical care in a private facility. |
| 20-641 |
LSP Transmission Holdings, LLC v. Sieben |
Whether a state law that grants an express
preference to entities with an existing in-state
presence to build facilities serving a distinctly
interstate market discriminates against interstate
commerce, notwithstanding that a few of the preferred
in-state incumbents are headquartered elsewhere. |
| 20-639 |
Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak |
(1) Whether Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak’s favoring of secular
over religious gatherings — for example, under Directive
021, casinos, restaurants,
indoor amusements parks, bowling alleys, water
parks, pools, arcades and more are subject to a 50 percent-
fire-code-capacity limit, but places of worship are limited to no more
than 50 people, whatever their facilities’ size — violates the free exercise
clause; and (2) whether the governor’s favoring of secular
over religious gatherings violates the free speech and
assembly clauses. |
| 20-637 |
Hemphill v. New York |
Whether, or under
what circumstances, a criminal defendant, whose argumentation or introduction of
evidence at trial “opens the door” to
the admission of responsive evidence that would
otherwise be barred by the rules of evidence, also forfeits his right
to exclude evidence otherwise barred by the
confrontation clause. |
| 20-631 |
Hologic Inc. v. Minerva Surgical Inc. |
Whether an assignor of a
patent may circumvent the doctrine of assignor estoppel
by challenging the validity of the assigned patent in administrative proceedings before the Patent Office, and
then using the Patent Office’s finding of invalidity to collaterally estop the assignee from relying on the patent in
infringement litigation in district court. |
| 20-622 |
Amazon.com Inc. v. Rittmann |
Whether the Federal
Arbitration Act’s exemption for classes of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce prevents the
act’s application to local transportation workers who,
as a class, are not engaged to transport goods or passengers across state or national boundaries. |
| 20-609 |
Gannett Co. v. Quatrone |
Whether a plaintiff adequately pleads breach of the
duties of prudence and diversification solely by alleging that fiduciaries permitted participants in a defined contribution plan to choose, from an adequately
diversified menu of investment options, to invest in
an undiversified single-stock fund. |
| 20-603 |
Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety |
Whether Congress has the
power to authorize suits against nonconsenting states
pursuant to its constitutional war powers. |
| 20-602 |
Clifford v. Trump |
Whether the Texas Citizens’ Participation
Act applies in federal-court diversity-jurisdiction cases under Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins. |
| 20-601 |
Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C. |
(1) Whether a state attorney general vested with the
power to defend state law should be permitted to
intervene after a federal court of appeals invalidates a state statute when no other state actor will defend the
law; and (2) whether, if so, the Supreme Court should vacate the
judgment below and remand for further consideration
in light of June Medical
Services, L.L.C. v. Russo. |
| 20-588 |
Wainwright v. Sexton |
(1) Whether federal courts can award habeas relief based on
errors in state-postconviction proceedings; and (2) whether, if errors in state-postconviction proceedings
sometimes provide a basis for habeas relief, a habeas petitioner can win relief based on such errors even if
he did not diligently pursue the proceedings in which
the errors occurred. |
| 20-579 |
Tabb v. U.S. |
(1) Whether courts may defer to Sentencing Guidelines commentary without first determining that the underlying guideline is genuinely ambiguous; and (2) whether the U.S. Sentencing Commission can use
commentary to rewrite a guideline that applies to “prohibit[ions]” on the “distribution” of drugs to apply to conspiracies and attempts to distribute drugs. |
| 20-574 |
Scarnati v. Pennsylvania Democratic Party |
(1) Whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s plenary authority to “direct [the] Manner” for appointing electors for president and vice president under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the assembly’s broad power to prescribe “[t]he Times, Places, and Manner” for congressional elections under Article I, when the court issued a ruling requiring the state to count absentee ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day as long as they are not clearly postmarked after Election Day; and (2) whether that decision is preempted by federal statutes that establish a uniform nationwide federal Election Day. |
| 20-564 |
Carlisle v. Kentucky |
Whether the Fourth Amendment permits law enforcement to prolong every traffic stop by performing
a criminal history check, or whether the Fourth
Amendment requires a case-by-case approach that
permits such checks when the government offers
some evidence that the measure actually related to
officer safety. |
| 20-561 |
Trump v. City of San Jose, California |
(1) Whether the relief entered — a
three-judge district court declared that the president's memorandum, which instructed the secretary of the Department of Commerce to include
within his census report information enabling the president
to implement a policy decision to exclude people living in the country illegally from the base population number for congressional apportionment, was unlawful and enjoined the secretary from including the
information in his report — satisfies the requirements of Article III of the Constitution; and (2) whether the memorandum is a permissible exercise of the president’s discretion under the provisions
of law governing congressional apportionment. |
| 20-554 |
Smith v. McKinney |
Whether a court determining if a prisoner has
suffered an “atypical and significant” hardship must
consider factors such as the duration of and justification for the particular conditions imposed (as several
courts of appeals have held), or whether it can confine its analysis to a comparison of the conditions of
other prison populations (as the court below held,
joining several other courts of appeals). |
| 20-546 |
Michigan v. Mathews |
Whether Miranda v.
Arizona is satisfied when a
suspect in custody is advised at the beginning of an
interrogation that they have the right to an attorney,
but is not explicitly advised that they are entitled to
the attorney’s presence before and during
interrogation. |
| 20-544 |
Alaska Native Village Corporation Association v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation |
Whether Alaska Native regional and village corporations are “Indian tribes” under the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act
and therefore are eligible for emergency-relief funds
under Title V of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. |
| 20-543 |
Mnuchin v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation |
Whether Alaska Native regional and village corporations established pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act are “Indian Tribe[s]” for purposes of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. |
| 20-542 |
Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar |
(1) Whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s plenary authority to “direct [the] Manner” for appointing electors for president and vice president under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the assembly’s broad power to prescribe “[t]he Times, Places, and Manner” for congressional elections under Article I, when the court issued a ruling requiring the state to count absentee ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day as long as they are not clearly postmarked after Election Day; and (2) whether that decision is preempted by federal statutes that establish a uniform nationwide federal Election Day. |
| 20-539 |
Oregon v. Azar |
(1) Whether the Department of
Health and Human Services' final rule — which prohibits Title X
providers from communicating certain abortion-related information to their patients and requires
physical separation of Title X-funded care from
healthcare facilities that provide abortion services or
certain abortion-related information — violates appropriations
statutes requiring that “all pregnancy counseling” in
the Title X program “shall be nondirective”; (2) whether the final rule violates Section 1554 of the
Affordable Care Act, which prohibits HHS from
promulgating “any regulation” that creates
“unreasonable barriers” to obtaining appropriate
medical care, impedes “timely access” to such care,
interferes with patient-provider communications
“regarding a full range of treatment options,” restricts
providers from disclosing “all relevant information to
patients making health care decisions,” or violates
providers’ ethical standards; and (3) whether the final rule is arbitrary and capricious, in
violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,
including by failing to respond adequately to concerns
that (a) the rule requires medical professionals to violate medical ethics and (b) the counseling restrictions and physical-separation requirement impose
significant costs and impair access to care. |
| 20-536 |
Episcopal Church v. Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth |
(1) Whether the First Amendment requires courts to
enforce express trusts in church governing documents (as some jurisdictions hold, in line with
Jones v. Wolf's first safeguard), or whether state law may
render such trusts unenforceable (as others hold); (2) whether the First Amendment requires courts to
defer to churches on questions of polity (as some
jurisdictions hold, in line with Jones’ second safeguard), or whether courts may apply state law to
determine the structure of a church (as others hold); and (3) whether the neutral-principles approach may
constitutionally be applied — either prospectively or
retroactively — to resolve church-property disputes. |
| 20-535 |
Bates v. U.S. |
Whether a district court that chooses to conduct
a resentencing under Section 404 of the First Step Act is
prohibited from considering a defendant’s current,
legally correct Sentencing Guidelines range. |
| 20-534 |
All Saints’ Episcopal Church (Fort Worth) v. Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth |
Whether the Texas Supreme Court’s decision
awarding the sanctuary and rectory of the petitioner, All Saints’ Episcopal Church (Fort Worth), to a
dissident faction in contravention of the will of
petitioner’s parishioners and an express-trust
provision is consistent with the free exercise and
establishment clauses. |
| 20-518 |
Mastin v. U.S. |
Whether Michigan v. Summers
authorizes police officers executing an arrest warrant to
detain a bystander without individualized suspicion. |
| 20-510 |
IQVIA Inc. v. Mussat |
Whether a district court with jurisdiction coextensive with a state court in the district can exercise
personal jurisdiction over absent class members’
claims as part of a putative class action when the
court concededly could not exercise personal jurisdiction over the absent class members’ claims if they
had been brought in individual suits. |
| 20-507 |
Mays v. Hines |
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s decision — invalidating Anthony Hines' decades-old murder conviction and death sentence on
the ground that a state court unreasonably applied
Strickland v. Washington, when it
concluded that Hines suffered no prejudice from any
deficiencies in his counsel’s performance at the guilt
and penalty phases of his capital trial — conflicts with the Supreme Court’s precedents
governing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel
under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996. |
| 20-499 |
Hull v. Rockwell |
Whether a debtor may keep a state-law homestead
exemption inside bankruptcy, notwithstanding that the
proceeds would be subject to attachment and execution
outside bankruptcy because the debtor sold the home
and the exemption expired under applicable state law. |
| 20-490 |
Freeman v. Wainwright |
Whether the statute of limitations for filing a habeas petition begins when the new judgment entered
following resentencing becomes final. |
| 20-489 |
Bess v. U.S. |
(1) Whether 10 U.S.C. § 825, which allows a military commander to hand select members to sit on a general court-martial panel, as applied in Pedro Bess’
case — in which an all-white panel convicted a Black defendant of sexual misconduct against a white woman — violates the Fifth Amendment; and (2) whether the lower court erred in declining to
remand Bess' case for additional factfinding. |
| 20-486 |
Ogle v. Ohio Civil Service Employees Association |
Whether there is a “good faith defense” to 42 U.S.C. § 1983
that shields a defendant from damages liability for depriving citizens of their constitutional rights if the defendant acted under color of a law before it was held
unconstitutional. |
| 20-481 |
GE Capital Retail Bank v. Belton |
Whether provisions of the Bankruptcy Code
providing for a statutorily enforceable discharge of a
debtor’s debts impliedly repeal the Federal Arbitration
Act. |
| 20-478 |
CBX Resources, L.L.C. v. ACE American Insurance Co. |
Whether the Supreme Court should abolish the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s
judicially created “finality trap” and resolve the conflict among the U.S. Courts
of Appeals regarding the finality or non-finality under 28 U.S.C. § 1291
of a judgment when a party has dismissed — without prejudice —
remaining unadjudicated claims. |
| 20-472 |
HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v. Renewable Fuels Association |
Whether, in order to qualify for a hardship exemption under
Section 7545(o)(9)(B)(i) of the Renewable Fuel Standards, a small refinery needs to receive uninterrupted,
continuous hardship exemptions for every year since
2011. |
| 20-464 |
Rosemond v. U.S. |
Whether an attorney
violates a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right
to autonomy by admitting, over the defendant’s
objection, that the defendant ordered a shooting of the
victim, thereby conceding the actus reus of the crime. |
| 20-457 |
MarketGraphics Research Group Inc. v. Berge |
(1) Whether the Bankruptcy Code’s “willful and malicious injury” exception — which exempts from discharge “any
debts ... for willful and malicious injury by the
debtor to another entity or to the property of another
entity” — applies only when a debtor has a subjective
intent to injure (as five circuits hold), or whether it
may also be satisfied by conduct that objectively has
a substantial certainty of causing injury (as three
circuits hold); and (2) whether the “willful and malicious injury” exception establishes a unitary standard requiring only
“actual intent to cause injury” (as five circuits hold),
or whether it establishes a two-pronged test requiring both “actual intent to cause injury” and conduct
“in conscious disregard of one’s duties or without just
cause or excuse” (as six circuits hold). |
| 20-454 |
Azar v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore |
(1) Whether the Department of Health and
Human Services' rule, which prohibits Title X projects
from providing referrals for abortion as a method of
family planning, falls within the agency’s statutory authority; and (2) whether the rule is the product of reasoned decisionmaking. |
| 20-450 |
Wolf v. Cook County, Illinois |
(1) Whether entities that are not subject to the
public-charge ground of inadmissibility contained in
Immigration and Nationality Act, and which seek to expand benefits usage by aliens who are potentially subject to that
provision, are proper parties to challenge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's final rule interpreting the statutory term “public charge” and establishing
a framework by which DHS personnel are to assess
whether an alien is likely to become a public charge; and (2) whether the final rule is likely contrary to law or
arbitrary and capricious. |
| 20-449 |
Department of Homeland Security v. New York |
(1) Whether entities that are not subject to the
public-charge ground of inadmissibility contained in
Immigration and Nationality Act, and which seek to expand benefits usage by aliens who are potentially subject to that
provision, are proper parties to challenge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's final rule interpreting the statutory term “public charge” and establishing
a framework by which DHS personnel are to assess
whether an alien is likely to become a public charge; and (2) whether the final rule is likely contrary to law or
arbitrary and capricious. |
| 20-444 |
U.S. v. Gary |
Whether a defendant who pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
922(g)(1) and 924(a), is automatically entitled to plain-error relief if the district court did not advise him that
one element of that offense is knowledge of his status as
a felon, regardless of whether he can show that the district court’s error affected the outcome of the proceedings. |
| 20-443 |
U.S. v. Tsarnaev |
(1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit erred in concluding
that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capital sentences must be vacated on
the ground that the district court, during its 21-day voir
dire, did not ask each prospective juror for a specific
accounting of the pretrial media coverage that he or she
had read, heard or seen about Tsarnaev’s case; and (2) whether the district court committed reversible
error at the penalty phase of Tsarnaev’s trial by excluding evidence that Tsarnaev’s older brother was
allegedly involved in different crimes two years before
the offenses for which Tsarnaev was convicted. |
| 20-440 |
Minerva Surgical Inc. v. Hologic Inc. |
Whether a defendant in a patent infringement action who assigned the patent, or is in
privity with an assignor of the patent, may have a defense of invalidity heard on the merits. |
| 20-437 |
U.S. v. Palomar-Santiago |
Whether a defendant, charged with
unlawful reentry into the United States following removal, automatically satisfies the prerequisites to asserting the invalidity of the original removal
order as an affirmative defense solely
by showing that he was removed for a crime that would
not be considered a removable offense under current
circuit law, even if he cannot independently demonstrate administrative exhaustion or deprivation of the
opportunity for judicial review. |
| 20-429 |
American Medical Association v. Azar |
(1) Whether the Department of Health and Human Services' rule for the Title X family planning program — which prohibits and compels certain pregnancy-related speech between a Title
X provider and her patient, proscribing abortion-related information but requiring information about
non-abortion options — is arbitrary and capricious; (2) whether the rule violates the Title X appropriations act, which requires that “all pregnancy counseling” under Title X “shall be nondirective”; and (3) whether the rule violates Section 1554 of the
Affordable Care Act, which requires
that HHS “shall not promulgate any regulation” that
harms patient care in any one of six ways, including by
“interfer[ing] with communications” between a patient
and her provider. |
| 20-426 |
Huntress v. U.S. |
(1) Whether the discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity for United States employees’ negligent or wrongful conduct nullifies the law-enforcement proviso that clarifies the act’s provisions
“shall apply to any claim” for “abuse of process[ ] or
malicious prosecution” (as four circuits
have now held), limits that proviso (as one circuit has
held) or yields to it (as one circuit has held); and (2) whether the discretionary-function exemption
applies when government officials act outside their
jurisdiction. |
| 20-422 |
Lee v. Ohio Education Association |
(1) Whether 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a “good-faith defense” to private entities who violate another’s
constitutional rights before the courts have clearly established the illegality of their conduct; and (2) whether the defenses of qualified immunity or “good
faith” allow a defendant who takes another
person’s money or property in violation of the
Constitution — but in reliance on a statute or
court ruling that purported to authorize its
conduct and is only later declared unconstitutional — to keep that money or property when
the owner sues for its return. |
| 20-405 |
City of Miami Gardens, Florida v. Wells Fargo & Co. |
Whether, by raising standing sua sponte at oral
argument in an appeal concerning a partial summary-judgment decision focused solely on the statute of
limitations and when discovery was limited to that
purpose, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit’s decision dismissing
this case conflicts with the Supreme Court’s binding precedent
in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and violates
due process in conflict with decisions of the Supreme Court and
sister circuits. |
| 20-402 |
Richardson v. Omaha School District |
Whether, for attorneys’
fees actions under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, courts should borrow years-long state statutes of limitations because fees actions are analogous to independent lawsuits separate from the underlying merits of
the IDEA administrative proceedings, or, in contrast, courts should borrow far
shorter periods designed for judicial review of IDEA
administrative merits decisions because fees actions are merely ancillary to the underlying educational dispute. |
| 20-400 |
Avery v. U.S. |
Whether a state burglary statute that disjunctively
lists places that may be burgled under the statute is
divisible for purposes of a sentence enhancement under
the Armed Career Criminal Act,
even though the statutory list is not exclusive and does
not require the jury to agree that the defendant burgled any particular listed place. |
| 20-397 |
Barr v. Portillo Martinez |
Whether the government must provide the written
notice required to trigger the stop-time rule in a single document. |
| 20-382 |
Guam v. U.S. |
(1) Whether a settlement that is not under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act can
trigger a contribution claim under CERCLA Section
113(f)(3)(B); and (2) whether a settlement that expressly disclaims
any liability determination and leaves the settling
party exposed to future liability can trigger a
contribution claim under CERCLA Section
113(f)(3)(B). |
| 20-380 |
Idenix Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Gilead Sciences Inc. |
(1) Whether, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held, a
genus claim is not enabled “as a matter of law” if
it encompasses a large number of compounds — or
whether, as the Supreme Court has recognized,
enablement is a context-specific jury question; and (2) whether, as the Federal Circuit has held,
35 U.S.C. § 112(a) contains a separate “possession”
requirement — or whether, as the statute
provides, Section 112(a) sets forth a single substantive
requirement of “a written description of the
invention” sufficient “to enable any person
skilled in the art … to make and use the same.” |
| 20-365 |
Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC |
(1) Whether a commercial product using humor is subject to the same likelihood-of-confusion analysis applicable to other products under the Lanham Act, or must receive heightened First Amendment protection from
trademark-infringement claims, where the brand owner
must prove that the defendant’s use of the mark either is
“not artistically relevant” or “explicitly misleads consumers”; and (2) whether a commercial product’s use of humor renders the product “noncommercial” under 15 U.S.C.
§ 1125(c)(3)(C), thus barring as a matter of law a claim of
dilution by tarnishment under the Lanham Act. |
| 20-356 |
Barr v. Banuelos-Galviz |
Whether the government must provide the written
notice required to trigger the stop-time rule, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1)(A), in a single document. |
| 20-351 |
Carey v. Throwe |
(1) Whether a qualified retired law enforcement officer who meets the statutory
requirements to carry a weapon under the Law Enforcement Officer’s Safety Act has an enforceable right under
42 U.S.C. § 1983; and (2) whether social media posts “outing” a police officer’s misogynistic behavior
and his making light of gun violence and gun control, raises an issue of public concern
as a matter of law. |
| 20-334 |
City of San Antonio, Texas v. Hotels.com, L.P. |
Whether, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit alone has held, district
courts “lack[] discretion to deny or reduce” appellate
costs deemed “taxable” in district court under Fed. R.
App. P. 39(e). |
| 20-331 |
Trump v. District of Columbia |
(1) Whether a writ of mandamus is appropriate because, contrary to the holding of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 4th Circuit,
the district court’s denial of the president’s motion to
dismiss was clear and indisputable legal error; and (2) whether a writ of mandamus is appropriate, contrary to the holding of the 4th Circuit, when the
district court’s refusal to grant the president’s motion
to certify an interlocutory appeal was a clear abuse of
discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). |
| 20-330 |
Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington |
Whether plaintiffs who claim to compete with businesses in which the president of the United States has
a financial interest can seek redress in an Article III
court to enforce the foreign and domestic emoluments
clauses of the U.S. Constitution against the president. |
| 20-322 |
Barr v. Aleman Gonzalez |
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 that the alien is a flight risk or
a danger to the community. |
| 20-317 |
Chavis v. Delaware |
Whether the confrontation clause permits DNA
evidence obtained as the result of a multi-analyst testing process to be introduced against the defendant at
trial through one of the testing analysts who has no
personal knowledge of the basis for the out-of-court
testimonial statements made by the other nontestifying analysts who participated in the testing. |
| 20-315 |
Sanchez v. Wolf |
Whether, under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(f)(4), a grant of temporary protected status authorizes eligible noncitizens to obtain lawful-permanent-resident status under 8
U.S.C. § 1255. |
| 20-304 |
World Programming Ltd. v. SAS Institute Inc. |
(1) Whether the All Writs Act or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69 permits
federal courts to fashion novel remedies to enforce federal money judgments, such as an injunction that forbids
the judgment debtor from licensing its software for use
in the U.S. until the judgment is paid, to “incentivize”
payment; and (2) whether and under what circumstances federal
courts may invoke the All Writs Act to enjoin enforcement of a foreign money judgment, even within the
nation that issued the judgment. |
| 20-301 |
Hennis v. U.S. |
(1) Whether the offenses for which the petitioner, Timothy Hennis, was
tried and acquitted in state court constituted
offenses “for which [he] cannot be tried in the courts
of . . . any State”; (2) whether 10 U.S.C. § 803(a) is unconstitutional
insofar as it allowed the government to court-martial Hennis only because the double jeopardy
clause would have barred his retrial in a state court; and (3) whether the Constitution bars the military
from subjecting servicemembers to capital trials for
non-military offenses. |
| 20-293 |
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. New Mexico, ex rel. Balderas |
(1) Whether the federal government or a state
government, as the real party in interest in a qui tam
action brought in its name and litigated to judgment with
its full knowledge, is bound by a final judgment on the
merits when that government has declined to intervene; and (2) whether a state court may establish a novel
“public policy” exception to the res judicata effect of a
concededly final federal judgment when that exception
runs to the exclusive benefit of a single party, the
government. |
| 20-283 |
Bass v. Greve |
(1) Whether Officer Austin Bass had probable cause to
arrest under the Fourth Amendment when
the suspect admitted to trying to enter a
closed and locked building, breaking a door
handle in the process, but offered a questionable claim of an innocent mental state when
explaining his behavior to Bass; and (2) whether, even if there was no probable cause
to arrest Patrick Greve for any offense, Bass
was entitled to qualified immunity because
the law was not clearly established in this regard. |
| 20-276 |
Gibson v. Securities and Exchange Commission |
Whether Congress has implicitly stripped federal
district courts of jurisdiction to adjudicate separation-of-powers challenges to the authority of the Security and Exchange Commission's administrative law judges to
preside over enforcement proceedings. |
| 20-272 |
Maryland v. Rogers |
Whether the Court of Appeals of Maryland departed from
the Supreme Court’s decisions in Smith v. Doe and Apprendi v.
New Jersey in holding, contrary to the decisions of
numerous federal courts of appeals and state supreme
courts, that sex offender registration constitutes
“punishment” within the meaning of the Sixth and
14th Amendments to the United States
Constitution, and that, as a result, any fact necessary
for placement on the sex offender registry, such as the
victim’s age, must be determined beyond a reasonable
doubt during the criminal proceeding, even if that fact
is not an element of the criminal offense that is the
basis for registration. |
| 20-256 |
Jordan v. U.S. |
Whether each separate
conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) — under which “any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug
trafficking crime . . . uses or carries a firearm, or
who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a
firearm” commits an offense — requires only a
separate predicate crime of violence or drug trafficking offense, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd, 4th and 8th Circuits have held, or also requires a separate act of
using, carrying or possessing a firearm, as the
U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th and District of Columbia Circuits have held. |
| 20-255 |
Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. |
Whether Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which holds
that public school officials may regulate speech that would
materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school, applies to student speech that occurs
off campus. |
| 20-251 |
Gipson v. Louisiana |
Whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos v.
Louisiana applies to cases on
state collateral review, when the state follows the
retroactivity framework established in Teague v.
Lane. |
| 20-250 |
Poole v. Florida |
(1) Whether the Florida Supreme Court erred in
reinstating a capital sentence issued under Florida’s
pre-2016 scheme, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s
holding in Hurst v. Florida that
such sentences violate the Sixth Amendment because
the jury did not make the requisite death-eligibility
findings, including that aggravating circumstances
outweigh mitigating circumstances; and (2) whether the Florida Supreme Court violated
the Eighth Amendment in reinstating a capital
sentence lacking a unanimous jury recommendation of
death and based on a guilt-phase jury finding rendered
without awareness of the consequences for capital
sentencing. |
| 20-234 |
Immigration and Customs Enforcement v. Padilla |
(1) Whether 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(l)(B)(ii) — which authorizes the government to detain aliens who are placed
in expedited removal proceedings, but who then establish a credible fear of persecution based on a protected
ground — violates the due process clause of the Fifth
Amendment because it contains no provision authorizing bond hearings; and (2) whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) prohibits lower
courts from granting classwide injunctions against the
operation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1221–1232. |
| 20-216 |
Bose v. Bea |
Whether a school that expels a student based on
charges and evidence motivated by sex bias denies that
student educational opportunities “on the basis of sex.” |
| 20-202 |
Massie v. Mena |
(1) Whether, under the particular facts and circumstances
of this case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred in finding that Robert Massie’s actions constituted an excessive use
of force in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and (2) whether, regardless of the answer to the first issue, the district court and 9th Circuit nonetheless
erred in denying qualified immunity to Massie when
it was not clearly established at the time of the incident (or now) that his actions constituted an excessive use of force in violation of the Fourth
Amendment. |
| 20-183 |
Stair v. Jackson |
(1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit departed from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Connor and Plumhoff v. Rickard in denying qualified immunity
to the petitioner, Billy Stair, based upon the absence of a constitutional violation by assessing the reasonableness of each of three Taser activations
over a 19-second period, instead of assessing the reasonableness of Stair’s
conduct in light of the totality of the circumstances; and (2) whether the 8th Circuit departed from the Supreme Court’s decision in Kisela v. Hughes and
numerous other cases by denying qualified immunity even though two judges concluded
the use of force was reasonable, and notwithstanding the absence of clearly established
law imposing liability under circumstances
closely analogous to those confronting Stair. |
| 20-136 |
Dozier v. U.S. |
Whether an offense is
“punishable by imprisonment for more than one year”
when the maximum term permitted by the applicable
statutory sentencing scheme at the time of conviction is
one year or less. |
| 20-132 |
The Moodsters Company v. The Walt Disney Company |
(1) Whether
originality is the proper standard to determine
character copyrightability; and (2) whether
copyrightability — for a character or any work — is a question of fact, or involves questions of fact, ill-suited for resolution on a Rule 12 motion. |
| 20-120 |
Juarez v. Colorado |
Whether, when there
is no dispute that a guilty plea will trigger mandatory
deportation pursuant to federal law, defense
counsel must advise a noncitizen-defendant that the plea
will result in deportation as a matter of law, or whether it is sufficient for defense counsel to caution that the plea
could make the noncitizen-defendant “deportable” or
that it will “probably” result in deportation. |
| 20-101 |
Harris v. Maryland |
Whether, when preindictment delay has caused actual prejudice to the accused’s ability to defend himself, the due process clause requires that the defendant prove that the delay was driven by an improper prosecutorial motive, or that courts balance the particular prejudice to the defendant against the particular
reasons (or lack thereof) for the delay. |
| 20-97 |
Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association v. Ross |
(1) Whether, in conflict with the holdings of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th
and 11th Circuits and the National Marine
Sanctuaries Act, the Antiquities Act applies to ocean
areas beyond United States’ sovereignty where the
federal government has only limited regulatory
authority; and (2) whether the president can evade the Antiquities
Act’s “smallest area” requirement, including
designating ocean monuments larger than most
states, by vaguely referencing “resources” or an
“ecosystem” as the objects to be protected. |
| 20-83 |
Jones v. Kalbaugh |
(1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit improperly focused on the
knowledge and intentions of the suspect, rather than
the facts knowable to the officers, in reversing the district court’s grant of qualified immunity in an excessive
force case; and (2) whether the 10th Circuit analyzed clearly established
law at too high a level of generality by relying on general statements of Fourth Amendment excessive force
principles rather than identifying a case in which officers
acting under similar circumstances were held to have
violated the Fourth Amendment. |
| 19-1441 |
City of Austin, Texas v. Paxton |
Whether, under Ex parte Young, a state official is a
proper defendant in a federal declaratory
judgment challenge under the supremacy
clause to the validity of a self-enforcing state
statute, if the official with authority to enforce
the statute has not yet overtly threatened enforcement. |
| 19-1194 |
Kuang v. Department of Defense |
(1) Whether courts can evade their constitutional
and statutory duty to review military decisions under
the so-called “Mindes test,” from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit's decision in Mindes v. Seamen, or whether claims seeking
injunctive relief against the military are reviewable
so long as they do not present a nonjusticiable
political question or otherwise fall outside the court’s
subject-matter jurisdiction; and (2) whether a Department of Defense policy that requires all legal
permanent resident enlistees—but not their U.S.-
citizen counterparts—to suffer unjustified delays
before beginning their military careers is judicially
reviewable. |
| 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. |