A Quiet Morning at SCOTUS

Not much action at the high court today. The court issued one opinion in a Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act case regarding suing foreign governments for sponsoring terrorism.

The court did not take up any cases for full briefing and argument. There is a big push by a number of groups to attack the doctrine of qualified immunity and make it easier to sue police officers. That would create one more reason to discourage people from entering the field, as if there were not enough already. It would expose officers to being sued for actions that were legal under precedents in effect at the time of the action but which a creative lawyer asks a court to declare illegal.

Baxter v. Bracey, No. 18-1287, which is tagged in SCOTUSblog’s Petitions to Watch List, directly challenges the qualified immunity doctrine and asks whether it “should be narrowed or abolished.” That case was taken off last week’s conference list and has not yet been given a new conference date, and I have been told (but not yet verified) that was done with other cases challenging the doctrine.

The court did turn down some qualified immunity cases today, though. One of them was Jessop v. Fresno, No. 19-1021, where the court granted leave to file five amicus briefs and then turned down the case. I haven’t examined this case in detail, but when the Ninth Circuit decides against the plaintiff in this type of case and not a single judge of that court thinks it is en-banc-worthy, it is not surprising that SCOTUS doesn’t take it.

Jordan Rubin has this article for Bloomberg Law.

The only other opinion today is Justice Thomas’s dissent from the court’s refusal to take up a Prison Litigation Reform Act question.

The court’s next conference is Thursday. The next day we would normally expect opinions to be released is next Monday, but no guarantees.