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Tara King, et al. v. Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, No. 13-4429 · judgment October 11, 2018


Certiorari denied · April 15, 2019
Pre-decision estimate: 7% cert probability (95% interval 4%–11%)

Before the decision, about 1.7× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a Third Circuit decision below, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.

Questions presented

When this Court ruled that California’s Reproductive FACT Act violates the First Amendment, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 138 S.Ct. 2361, 2371- 74 (2018) (“NIFLA”), it also abrogated by name the panel decision at bar, rendering it demonstrably wrong. Other circuits when confronted with supervening decisions by this Court that do not mention a lower court opinion by name but place its core holdings in question have recalled the mandate. See e.g., Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 861 F.2d 565 (9th Cir. 1988). However, here, the Third Circuit refused to recall the mandate, leaving in place a blatant content-based violation of the First Amendment that creates irreparable harm each day the mandate is not recalled. See Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015). The questions presented are:

  1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred when it refused to recall its mandate after this Court explicitly abrogated its opinion by name.

  2. Whether a lower court mandate should be recalled when this Court expressly abrogates the ruling by name and when the

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Mathew D. Staver

For respondent
David Scott Flugman
Selendy Gay PLLC

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Apr 15 2019
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Mar 20 2019
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/12/2019.
  3. Feb 26 2019
    Waiver of right of respondent Garden State Equality to respond filed.
  4. Feb 21 2019
    Waiver of right of respondents Governer of New Jersey, Chris Christie, Eric T. Kanefsky, Milagros Collazo, J. Michael Walker, and Paul Jordan to respond filed.
  5. Feb 11 2019
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 18, 2019)