Summary of recent federal court decisions

Please enjoy the latest issue short circuita weekly feature written by many people at the Institute for Justice.

New case: In 2023, South Carolina will offer a $6,000 education scholarship account that can be used for virtually unlimited educational expenses, including textbooks, tutoring, homeschool materials, therapy, and private and off-campus tuition and fees. enacted legislation to provide low-income households with the following: – District public schools. However, following a recent state Supreme Court ruling, officials prohibited families from using ESAs to pay for private school tuition. So this week, IJ filed a petition with the South Carolina Supreme Court, arguing that the new policy violates two monumental U.S. Supreme Court cases that stand out from the ground. Meyer v. State of Nebraska, Recognized the right of parents to direct their children’s education. and Pierce vs. Sisters Association, They argued that this right included the right to send their children to private schools. click here To learn more.

New features of short circuit podcast: Chicago attorney Patrick Eckler joins the podcast to share the horrors of oral argument in the 7th Circuit.

1. Concerned that China is collecting information on Americans and secretly influencing them through the social media app TikTok, the United States enacted the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024. , prohibited data brokers from transferring information about U.S. residents to foreign countries. An organization that is “controlled by a foreign enemy.” TikTok and content creators filed a lawsuit claiming the law violates the First Amendment. dc circuit: This is a rare law that survives scrutiny. Agree: There is no need to go that far as it will only undergo intermediate scrutiny.
2. The convicted felons are challenging their disenfranchisement under Virginia law and the Virginia Renewal, an 1870 federal law that allowed Virginia to regain representation in Congress after the Civil War. They claim that this violates the Hospitalization Act. Virginia official: We have sovereign immunity. former young This is not the case. 4th Circuit: Can you point me to such a case? former young Are there any limits in that sense? Virginia Official: No. 4th Circuit: Then there is no sovereign immunity.
3. What does it sound like when classy Fourth Circuit teeth I’m so angry“We take here an unfortunate example in which the district court failed to follow our clear order to dismiss state law claims against school officials in this case.” The court held that an elementary school teacher with autism State law has (re)granted immunity to North Carolina public school officials who did not intervene during the abuse of a first-grader, reaffirming that position. Judgments before 2022 He emphasized, “What we said at the beginning was what we meant.”
4. A tragic incident that began with a suicide at a jail in Baltimore County, Maryland. Fourth Circuit Currently undergoing third interlocutory appeal. However, this decision was not based on merit, but instead questioned whether this third trip was premature. This is because the district court has not yet fully resolved the request for retrial, which is the subject of an appeal. The appeal continued until the end of the district court. (See footnote 3 for a conservative creation of circuit partitioning.)
5. Texas wants to install concertina wire along part of its border with Mexico, but the U.S. Border Patrol continues to remove the wire. Therefore, the state of Texas filed suit seeking a halt and preliminary injunction. Fifth Circuit (To an opposing opinion): I accept that. Federal authorities are prohibited from removing chain-link fences unless necessary access to either side of the fence is available for immigration enforcement or emergency purposes.
6. “Two households, both of similar dignity, in Fairgaly, Indiana, where our setting is set.” I know it’s hard to believe, but… Seventh Circuit I resisted the first sentence of this (admittedly harsh) opinion about two rival car washes (and possible fronts for drug dealing). One of the owners of a car wash is murdered with an AK-47, causing a lot of unrest and a life sentence. It also scolds the government for ignoring circuit court precedent regarding examination standards.
7. A class action lawsuit challenging the treatment of gender dysphoric inmates by the Illinois Department of Corrections is a major shift in the legal process. Seventh Circuit Opinion on whether a district court can retroactively convert its preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction. Short answer: no. Why that’s important is because, clearly, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires that a preliminary injunction be issued after issuance unless the district court makes certain findings as to whether the injunction is strictly tailored. This is because it stipulates that it automatically expires in 90 days. The district court did not do that here.
8. Detectives in Little Rock, Arkansas obtained a no-knock warrant after an informant purchased cocaine at the complainant’s home. A SWAT team stormed in. No cocaine. after all information provider Maybe things weren’t going well. 8th circuit: It is not clearly established whether it is unconstitutional to call SWAT when it is not necessary. like we said last time.
9. CLAIM: During a George Floyd protest in Kansas City, Missouri, a police officer fired a white smoke bomb into an unintimidated crowd, striking the plaintiff and permanently blinding him in one eye. 8th circuit: But these constitutional arguments fail because the officers were not trying to single out anyone or intentionally hurt anyone.
10. Idaho criminalizes “abortion trafficking,” which it defines as the “purchase and sell of abortions.”[ing] “by recruiting, harboring, or transporting” a minor without the consent of the parents, “abortion” or administering an abortion drug to a non-pregnant minor. District Court: Forbidden in advance is very wrong. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are appealing, but only as to jurisdiction. 9th Circuit: There is jurisdiction over “ports or transportation” and there is no problem with the law. But let’s leave “recruitment” as is. Agree: I thought all we were talking about was jurisdiction, but there’s nothing.
11. Separately, Idaho penalizes doctors who “aid” in abortions. State Representative: Attorney General, what does that mean? AG (on official letterhead): That includes referring patients to locations outside the state where abortion is legal. Plaintiff: That’s a violation of the First Amendment. AG: I understand that my name was on that letter, but it was drafted by my assistant. [who is now under a bus] No one cares what I think anyway, I’m just a guy, you know? 9th Circuit: You are the state’s chief law enforcement officer and the law prohibits you from doing so.
12. While the losing party in the Ninth Circuit’s decision seeks certification, a power of attorney is issued and the case returns to the district court, where the parties agree to stay the proceeding pending resolution of the certification application. District Court: You can’t do that. Now that the order has been issued, I must proceed to court. Participant: Oh no! Would the Ninth Circuit please remember its mission to get us out of this logjam? 9th Circuit: No, the withdrawal of obligations is only a “last resort”, and all this was foreseeable. But we never said the district court couldn’t continue the case, so try again.
13. Several members of the Miami-based gang, including one with the visionary alias “The Real Rico,” have been convicted of (among other things) committing RICO. Was the lower court wrong to exclude expert testimony that the defendants were just “a bunch of Yahoos running around” rather than members of an organized criminal enterprise? 11th Circuit (On partial dissent): Yes, and the government has not addressed whether the exclusion was a harmless error. We do not voluntarily review nearly 8,000 pages of court records to do so. The RICO conviction was vacated and remanded.
14. And in big news, 8th circuit I will reconsider that decision A school district in Springfield, Missouri, forced employees to participate in “equity training” and take an online quiz that parroted the district’s views even if they disagreed with them, but the U.S. It said it did not violate the First Amendment. They expressed opinions such as “Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense,” and called it “wrong” and “confused.” The panel found that the plaintiffs’ claims of self-censorship were based on fears that were too speculative to warrant First Amendment claims.
15. And in state court news, North Carolina Court of Appeals The city strikes at liberty and decency, banning food trucks from operating in 96 percent of the city and making it unnecessarily difficult to operate in the remaining 4 percent, a series of state constitutional arguments against the Jacksonville, N.C. ordinance. did not dismiss it. City Council members have publicly stated that the purpose of the ban is to benefit restaurants, which is exactly the kind of preferential treatment prohibited by the North Carolina Constitution. Long live the rule of law that protects the right to earn an honest living! Benefits! (This is a case of I.J.. )

For years, the Pasco County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office has used an “algorithm” based on completely arbitrary input to identify people, many of them children, it believes are likely to commit future crimes. I’ve been using a glorified Excel spreadsheet. They then relentlessly harassed the family, with a clear desire to force them out of the county. Deputies conducted “inspections” on unsuspecting people, including at night, by confronting people in their homes, looking into their windows and banging on their doors. They confronted people at work and harassed colleagues and friends. Officers fabricated false criminal charges and punished people with unwarranted civil charges. It was evil. (so inventor The theory of “focused deterrence” suggests that police officers — mistakenly — believe they are volunteering to be expert witnesses, and that they do not know what they are doing to children on a daily basis. It is said that he shed tears. ) But this week, after three years of litigation, and literally on the eve of trial, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco threw in the towel. We agree with our opinion that the county violated the Constitution and have entered into a court-enforceable undertaking not to do so again. If that happens, or if other departments attempt this type of “predictive policing” elsewhere, we will bring them into the light. click here To learn more.