Supreme Court justices relist abortion case multiple times
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U.S. Supreme Court justices have been considering whether to hear a case involving an immigrants teen’s abortion—multiple times.
The court was scheduled to consider the cert petition in Azar v. Garza for the 15th time last Thursday, the National Law Journal reports. When justices consider a petition at a conference but take no action, they relist it for the next meeting, the story explains.
The court yet again did not take action in the case, which was not on Monday’s orders list.
The government is asking the Supreme Court to accept the case and vacate a federal appeals court ruling that allowed the 17-year-old girl’s abortion to proceed. The girl was being held in a shelter because she entered the country illegally, and the government had contended it did not have to facilitate her abortion.
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the government to permit the abortion in September, and the youth had the abortion the next day.
Government lawyers believed the teen left the shelter for required abortion counseling, rather than the abortion itself. They allege lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union should possibly be disciplined for failing to make the circumstances clear. The government had planned to seek a stay, and the confusion appeared designed to thwart Supreme Court review, the cert petition had alleged.
Mayer Brown partner Michael Kimberly told the National Law Journal that, in the recent past, so many relists have indicated that a justice is writing an opinion respecting or dissenting from a cert denial.
Three other cases have been relisted more often than Azar v. Garza in the last several years, according to the article. The “relist king” is Ryan v. Hughes, a convicted murderer’s appeal that was considered 23 times before the justices dismissed it in June 2014 at the state’s request. At issue was whether the defendant was entitled to a federal court hearing to determine whether the trial judge was biased.
Updated at 9:35 a.m. to note that Azar v. Garza was not on the May 21 orders list.
