Good morning, everyone! Welcome to our live blog. We are expecting orders from last week's conference in a few minutes, followed by opinions in argued cases at 10 am.
We have been waiting for the court to act on Azar v. Garza, the government's request to have the justices vacate a decision by the D.C. Circuit that cleared the way for a pregnant undocumented teenager to obtain an abortion. We've been waiting for what feels like forever; they'll have to act on it eventually, but at this point we have no reason to expect it will come today.
There were, as John Elwood has observed in his Relist Watch, also lots of homicide cases before the justices last week at their conference. And we are also waiting on Sause v. Bauer, the qualified immunity petition filed by James Ho, who is now a judge on the Fifth Circuit. That was the case of a woman who alleges that police officers violated her civil rights when they forced her to stop praying when they responded to a noise complaint.
Okay, headed in to wait for orders now. Back soon.
We do have Garza, the case of the undocumented pregnant teenager. The Court grants the government's petition, vacates the D.C. Circuit's order, and sends the case back to the lower court with instructions to direct the trial court to dismiss the individual claim for relief as moot.
It is a five-page per curiam ruling, with no noted dissent.
Court does not rule on the government's request for sanctions against the ACLU attorneys, whom the government alleges made misrepresentations and omissions to keep the justices from considering the government's appeal at the time.
Says that the justices don't need to "delve into the factual disputes by the parties in order to answer" the mootness question.
There do not appear to be any new grants today. There is one call for the views of the solicitor general, in Airline Service Providers v. LA World Airports.
There is a denial in the capital case Trevino v. Davis, over a dissent by Justice Sotomayor who is joined by Justice Ginsburg.
The court denied review in 17-951, Vitol v. PREPA, in which the justices had been asked to decide whether the rule that a court should not decide the merits of a case until it decides whether it has the power to review the case in the first place applies only when the federal court’s power to hear the case would stem from Article III of the Constitution, or whether it also applies when the court’s power arises from a federal law.
The paragraph in Azar v. Garza about sanctions is pretty interesting, and it seems like it may have been part of what took so long. The Court makes clear that it takes these kinds of allegations by the government "seriously." "On the one hand," the per curiam opinion says, ""all attorneys must remain aware of the principle that zealous advocacy does not displace their obligations as officers of the court. Especially in fast-paced, emergency proceedings like those at issue here, it is critical that lawyers and courts alike be able to rely on one another's representations."
"On the other hand," the court continues, "lawyers also have ethical obligations to their clients and not all communication breakdowns constitute misconduct."
These competing interests seem like they could have required some negotiations to me.
We are expecting opinions at 10, but I'll have more coverage of Garza and Trevino in a post on the blog later this morning.
As is almost always the case, we don't know which opinions we are getting today or how many. There are only 3 cases left from the fall, and they are all big ones: Gill v. Whitford (which Roberts is likely to be writing, assuming the Court follows its normal opinion-assignment practices); Carpenter v. US, and Masterpiece Cakeshop. The conventional wisdom is that Kennedy and Roberts are also writing Masterpiece, although no way to know which is which.
Two boxes today. For those of you who are relatively new here, the number of boxes is a ROUGH approximation of how many opinions we might expect.
Okay, going in to wait for opinions now. Back soon.
I'm putting my "two box" money on two smaller opinions and one big one. Also: My two box money is not very much money.
We have the first opinion from Lamar, Archer & Cofrin v. Appling, from Sotomayor.
The decision of the 11th Circuit is affirmed in this bankruptcy case. It is unanimous except as to one part, which Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch do not join. But there are no separate writings.
This is a case about what constitutes a "statement respecting the debtor's financial condition" in a bankruptcy case.
"The statutory language makes plain," the court says, that a "statement about a single asset can be a 'statement respecting the debtor's financial condition.' If that statement is not in writing, then, the associated debt may be discharged, even if the statement was false."
We will not presumably hear from the more junior justices, Kagan and Gorsuch, today, because the justices announce opinions in reverse seniority order.
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