Gerard Eric Beasley v. United States

In the past year, this Court has twice summarily reversed the Fourth Circuit for violating the partypresentation principle. Margolin v. Nat’l Ass’n of Immigr. Judges, 146 S. Ct. 1285 (2026); Clark v. Sweeney, 607 U.S. 7 (2025). Under that principle, parties frame the issue and courts decide that issue. Here, the parties argued only whether Petitioner Gerard Eric Beasley’s second confession retained the taint of his earlier involuntary confession. Neither party addressed harmlessness or the admissibility of the firearm found in his car. Yet the Eleventh Circuit affirmed on that unbriefed ground, declining to answer the briefed issue and instead holding that admitting the second confession was harmless based on the admissibility of the firearm. The question presented is: Whether the decision below should be summarily reversed as a violation of the party-presentation principle.