Supreme Court Report

Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →

Scott Gessler v. Matt Smith, et al.

Paid petition · Supreme Court of Colorado, No. 15SC462 · judgment June 4, 2018

Certiorari denied · October 29, 2018
Pre-decision estimate: 2% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Question presented

By popular initiative Colorado created an Independent Ethics Commission with the power to enforce a gift ban and specific influence peddling standards. Expansively interpreting its own jurisdiction, the commission imposed a personal penalty and public censure on the sitting Secretary of State under a statute requiring all government workers to act “for the benefit of the people of the state.” The commission provided shifting notice of hundreds of statutes and rules before the hearing, preventing the Secretary from having meaningful pre-hearing notice. The question presented is: Are civil laws that impose a personal penalty subject to the same void-for-vagueness standards as criminal laws and deportation laws?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Michael Lee Francisco
First & Fourteenth PLLC

For respondent
Melanie Joy Snyder
Colorado Department of Law

Case

Subject area
Due Process (estimated from the questions presented, in the Supreme Court Database’s categories)

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Order
Order list, October 29, 2018 · Certiorari denied

Proceedings

  1. Oct 29 2018
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Oct 03 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/26/2018.
  3. Sep 25 2018
    Waiver of right of respondents Matt Smith, et al. to respond filed.
  4. Sep 04 2018
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 5, 2018)