Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday, June 23, 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 Supreme Court ruled 8-to-1 that the states challenging the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement guidelines lacked standing to sue. Texas and Louisiana had sued to block guidelines that set priorities for which unauthorized immigrants should be arrested, focusing on “national security, public safety, and border security.” The ruling did not comment on the merit, finding only on the matter of standing, writing: “The states have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit. … They want a federal court to order the executive branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests. Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the states cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.” See ruling and a report from The New York Times.

• In a ruling considered a victory for Native American Rights, the Supreme Court upheld a law that gives preference to Native families in adoptions of Native American children. A non-Native couple challenged the law arguing that it violated equal protection principles because it permits child placement to be decided based on race. The majority dismissed the equal protection argument, basing the ruling instead on Congress’s authority to make law about Native American tribes: “Our cases leave little doubt that Congress’s power in this field is muscular, superseding both tribal and state authority.”  See the decision and reports from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.

• The New York Times’ Adam Liptak wrote a piece this month called “Tracking Major Supreme Court Cases in 2023” that identifies and discusses both decided and expected cases of note for this term, including cases on race and voting maps, tribal rights, environmental protection, affirmative action, elections, and student loans (to name a few). The piece identifies the voting breakdown and holding (or the issue, for undecided cases) as well as statistics about public opinion for each issue. And John Fritz at USA Today wrote about some of the cases that might be on the horizon for the Court’s next term.

Appellate Court Opinions and News

• The Second Circuit rejected a challenge to a New York “buffer zone” law for abortion clinics. The law prohibits a person who is within a 100-foot area around a reproductive health facility from getting within eight feet of another for the purpose of “oral protest, education, or counseling.” The petitioner argued that the law violates her right to free speech. Relying on the 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Hill v. Colorado, the court held that the law did not violate the First Amendment because the law is not a regulation on speech but “a regulation of the places where some speech may occur.” See ruling and a report in Reuters.