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Colleen Reilly, et al. v. City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, No. 18-2884 · judgment October 23, 2019


Certiorari denied · July 2, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 9% cert probability (95% interval 6%–14%)

Before the decision, about 2.2× 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

  1. Whether this Court’s holding in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015), that laws restricting speech on the basis of its function or purpose are facially content-based, overruled and replaced this Court’s previous test for content neutrality set forth in Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000).

  2. Whether an Article III court’s use of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance to impose a narrowing construction on a content-based regulation of protected speech that is contrary to the law’s plain text and the government’s construction, enforcement, and defense conflicts with this Court’s binding precedents in United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 481 (2010), and Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 884 (1997).

  3. Whether this Court’s holding in McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464, 494 (2014), that the government must demonstrate it seriously undertook to address alleged problems with protected speech by less restrictive tools readily available to it, requires that the government show, with a meaningful record, that other less restrictive alternatives were tried and failed or that such alternatives were closely examined and ruled out for good reason, as stated in Bruni v. City of Pittsburgh, 824 F.3d 353 (3d Cir. 2016) [hereinafter Bruni I].

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Mathew D. Staver

For respondent
Maureen Murphy McBride
Lamb McErlane, PC

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 3 conferences

Proceedings

  1. Jul 02 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Jun 29 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 7/1/2020.
  3. Jun 09 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/25/2020.
  4. Jun 09 2020
    Reply of petitioners Colleen Reilly, et al. filed. (Distributed)
  5. May 26 2020
    Brief of respondents City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, et al. in opposition filed.
  6. Apr 29 2020
    Response to motion from petitioner Colleen Reilly, et al. filed.
  7. Apr 29 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted in part; the time is extended to and including May 26, 2020.
  8. Apr 28 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from May 18, 2020 to June 17, 2020, submitted to The Clerk.
  9. Apr 17 2020
    Response Requested. (Due May 18, 2020)
  10. Apr 08 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/24/2020.
  11. Apr 06 2020
    Waiver of right of respondents City of Harrisburg, Harrisburg City Council, and Eric Papenfuse, in his official capacity as Mayor of Harrisburg to respond filed.
  12. Feb 28 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including April 6, 2020.
  13. Feb 25 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from March 6, 2020 to April 6, 2020, submitted to The Clerk.
  14. Feb 03 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 6, 2020)