This morning the Supreme Court issued more orders from last week’s private conference – the first regularly scheduled conference since the end of June. As expected, the justices did not add any more cases to their merits docket for the term, but they did deny review in over 1,000 cases.
One of the most closely watched orders today was the justices’ denial of New York City’s bid to dismiss the challenge to a now-repealed restriction on transporting guns outside city limits. The justices agreed to review the case in January, setting the stage for the Supreme Court’s first ruling on the scope of the Second Amendment in nearly a decade. But in July the city urged the justices to remove the case from their docket, arguing that changes to the city’s rule and to state law rendered the case moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. However, the court went ahead and scheduled the case for oral argument in December, deferring consideration of the city’s motion until last week. Today the justices made clear that the case will move forward: They rejected the city’s request to dismiss the case as moot immediately, instead announcing that the “question of mootness will be subject to further consideration, and the parties should be prepared to discuss it.”
The petitions for review that the Supreme Court denied today included:
• Domino’s Pizza v. Robles, involving whether the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to websites and apps;
• Miller v. Inslee, involving whether a state can require operators of state-subsidized home daycare centers to accept an exclusive bargaining agent to deal with the state on public-policy issues;
• Hall v. Merrill, involving whether and when a candidate for office can challenge a rule limiting access to the ballot when the election in which he wanted to run has already passed;
• Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, involving overtime for hourly workers at Amazon fulfillment centers, who are seeking to be paid for time spent going through security screenings;
• County of San Diego v. Mann, a case arising from child-abuse allegations, in which the county had asked the justices to weigh in on the standard for holding municipalities liable in cases brought by parents, as well as when parental consent or a court order can be required for a child’s medical exam;
• Illinois v. Bonilla, involving whether police normally need a warrant to use a drug-sniffing dog in the area just outside an apartment door; and
• Zamudio v. United States, involving whether police have probable cause to search a home when a search warrant does not draw a specific connection between someone’s alleged drug trafficking and that person’s home.
The justices’ next conference is scheduled for Friday, October 11.