Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday, August 4, 2023

Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure to include, feel free to send a quick note to either (1) Dan Real at DReal@Creighton.edu or on Twitter @Daniel_L_Real or (2) Catharine Du Bois at DuBoisLegalWriting@gmail.com or on Twitter @CLDLegalWriting.

US Supreme Court Opinions and News

• The conversation about the Supreme Court’s shadow docket continues this summer. See a piece in The National Law Journal that discusses the shadow docket and some of the recent Court decisions, including those summarized here.  

• The Court granted the Biden administration request to block a Texas judge’s nationwide ruling that invalidated a federal restriction on ghost guns. The restriction bans “buy build shoot” kits, which can be bought on line without a background check and do not have traceable serial numbers. The Texas court ruled that the administration exceeded its authority in adopting the rule and blocked the rule. The Supreme Court blocked that ruling while it considers whether to reinstate the rule pending appeal to the Fifth Circuit. See reports from Reuters and NBC.

• The Supreme Court lifted the stay on the construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline project as the appeal continues. The Fourth Circuit had temporarily blocked construction earlier this summer. See reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post.

State Court Opinions and News

• The Ninth Circuit stayed a District Court for Northern California decision blocking the Biden administrations new rules for asylum seekers. The new rules make it more difficult for migrants to get asylum if they cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally without first seeking protection from a country they’ve passed through to reach the border. The challenge argued that the rules endangered asylum-seekers by requiring them to wait in border towns, and the District Court agreed, blocking the rules. The Ninth Circuit placed the appeal on an expedited schedule but allowed the rules to continue while it considers the case.  See the order and reports from The New York Times, NPR, The Associated Press, and Reuters.

• The Eleventh Circuit held that receiving an “unwanted, illegal text message” constitutes a concrete injury. This decision disagrees with a previous decision finding that a single unwanted text message is a “brief, inconsequential annoyance [that is] categorically distinct from those kinds of real but intangible harms” and therefore insufficient to meet the injury-in-fact requirement. See the TCPA blog.