Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, Illinois
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 23-2367 · judgment March 8, 2024
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Question presented
In Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000), this Court upheld a Colorado law that prevented sidewalk counselors from sharing a message on a profound moral issue with their fellow citizens in the public way outside an abortion facility. Even then, multiple members of the Court denounced Hill as “patently incompatible with the guarantees of the First Amendment,” contrary to “more than a half century of well-established First Amendment principles,” and explicable only by the Court’s abortion jurisprudence. Id. at 741-65 (Scalia, J., dissenting); id. at 765-68 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Since then, this Court’s intervening First Amendment precedents have “all but interred” Hill, leaving it “an aberration.” City of Austin v. Reagan Nat’l Advert. of Austin, LLC, 596 U.S. 61, 92, 104 (2022) (Thomas, J., dissenting). And most recently, this Court revisited its abortion precedents while citing Hill as an example of how those cases had “distorted First Amendment doctrines.” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215, 287 & n.65 (2022). Dobbs should have made clear beyond cavil that Hill could no longer skew public debate on a divisive issue being returned to the people. Inexplicably, however, the City of Carbondale treated Dobbs as an invitation to enact a brand-new ordinance modeled on, and virtually identical to, the law upheld in Hill. The lower courts had no choice but to uphold that carboncopy measure. This Court has a better option. The question presented is: Whether this Court should overrule Hill v. Colorado.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Paul D. Clement
Clement & Murphy, PLLC
For respondent
Neal Kumar Katyal
Hogan Lovells US LLP
Argument & decision
Decided February 24, 2025.
Proceedings
- Feb 24 2025Petition DENIED. Justice Alito would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari. Justice Thomas, dissenting from the denial of certiorari. (Detached Opinion)
- Feb 14 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/21/2025.
- Jan 21 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/24/2025.
- Jan 13 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/17/2025.
- Jan 06 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/10/2025.
- Dec 09 2024DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/13/2024.
- Dec 02 2024DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/6/2024.
- Nov 18 2024DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/22/2024.
- Nov 12 2024DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/15/2024.
- Nov 04 2024Rescheduled.
- Oct 23 2024DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/8/2024.
- Oct 22 2024Reply of petitioner Coalition Life filed. (Distributed)
- Oct 03 2024Brief of respondent Carbondale, Illinois in opposition filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amici curiae of Kentucky, et al. filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amicus curiae of Alliance Defending Freedom filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amicus curiae of Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amicus curiae of Americans United for Life filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amici curiae of Right to Life (MI), et al. filed.
- Aug 19 2024Brief amici curiae of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, et al. filed.
- Aug 15 2024Brief amicus curiae of Students for Life of America filed.
- Aug 15 2024Brief amicus curiae of Liberty Justice Center filed.
- Aug 14 2024Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including October 3, 2024.
- Aug 08 2024Motion to extend the time to file a response from August 19, 2024 to October 3, 2024, submitted to The Clerk.
- Aug 05 2024Brief amici curiae of Jeannie Hill and the American Center for Law and Justice filed.
- Jul 16 2024Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 19, 2024)
- May 29 2024Application (23A1062) granted by Justice Barrett extending the time to file until July 16, 2024.
- May 24 2024Application (23A1062) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from June 6, 2024 to July 16, 2024, submitted to Justice Barrett.