Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New cert petition: Friends, it is almost entirely illegal to advertise medical marijuana in Mississippi even though the state has legalized the industry. And yet! The First Amendment protects truthful speech that proposes a legal commercial transaction, so we’re asking the Supreme Court to step in and resolve a circuit split on how to apply its four-part test for the regulation of commercial speech.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: What’s up with substantive due process?
- In response to various federal funding freezes imposed by the Trump administration, 22 states, the District of Columbia, and the governor of Kentucky sue, alleging that the freezes and an OMB memo implementing them are illegal in a slew of ways. The day after the lawsuit is filed, the administration revokes the OMB memo, but the funding freezes remain. A moot case? First Circuit: Not on your life. And the administration’s motion to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction is denied.
- New Jersey wife and husband are convicted of various horrendous child-endangerment crimes. District court (2015): 24 months’ imprisonment for the wife and probation for the husband seems good enough. Third Circuit: No way. District court (2018): Okay, 40 months’ imprisonment for the wife, and still probation for the husband. Third Circuit: You’ve screwed it up again. District court (2021): Fine! 40 months’ imprisonment for the wife, and 18 months’ home confinement for the husband. Third Circuit: No! And the case needs to get a new judge. District court (2023): 140 months for the wife, and 108 for the husband. Third Circuit: Affirmed. And the fact that the couple had already served their original, defective prison sentences during the (many) appeals doesn’t give them a get-out-of-jail-free card on serving their at-long-last-correct sentences.
- The fun thing about being a lawyer is that sometimes you’re fighting about how copyright intersects with advanced AI technology and sometimes you’re fighting about whether a facsimile confirmation sheet is probative evidence that a plaintiff sent a fax in 2023. (The Fifth Circuit says it is.)
- You may have heard of East Coast rappers vs. West Coast rappers. A bit less familiar are Upwind States vs. Downwind States. While having little to do with music, their dispute intersects with how the EPA approves or rejects state implementation plans for reducing ozone. The EPA rejected those for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Fifth Circuit: And that was fine, except for the rejection of Mississippi’s.
- The Supreme Court recently ruled that a party which receives preliminary relief against the gov’t cannot later
Article from Reason.com
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