Petitioner / Appellant seeks review of a decision of

the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

The questions presented for review are as follows:

1. Whether the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court’s decision violated Petitioner’s rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by dismissing her election-related claims without consideration of evidence?

2. Whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s denial of appellate review of these claims conflicts with this Court’s precedents protecting the right of access to the courts and impartial adjudication of claims implicating federal constitutional rights?

The Government charged Senior Airman (SrA) Dennis A. George, Jr., with attempted sexual assault. The plain language of the charging document alleged that SrA George committed a specific overt act— penetrating WMB’s mouth without her consent. But at SrA George’s trial, the Government offered no evidence that SrA George penetrated WMB’s mouth with his penis without her consent.

On appeal, SrA George asserted his conviction was legally insufficient because the Government failed to prove the charged overt act. Without any case law to justify its proposition, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) created a “new approach” to interpreting charging documents as part of its legal sufficiency review—one that relies on the reading seemingly adopted by the parties at trial, rather than relying solely on the text. In doing so, the court instituted a rule that undermines the protections afforded by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution.

The question presented 1s:

Under the Fifth Amendment right to due process and the Sixth Amendment right to fair notice, may a conviction be affirmed as legally sufficient based on the parties’ interpretation of the charging document, even when that construction conflicts with the plain language of the allegation?

The trial court found that Petitioners, including the Unification Church, are the victims of a $3 billion embezzlement orchestrated by Respondents, a former church member and his allies, who fraudulently seized the Church’s financial support organization and disbursed its assets. Leaving the Church remediless, the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed on _ First Amendment “entanglement” grounds, holding that neutral principles could not resolve the dispute and then refusing to decide who led the Church when the assets were stolen. The result is a rule effectively depriving churches of any remedy in property disputes if the usurper simply claims to be the church’s leader.

That wrong conclusion conflicts with this Court’s precedents, falls on the wrong side of a substantial state court split, and undermines church autonomy. This Court has long required courts to identify and defer to church authorities on issues of polity, including in property disputes. Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 727 (1871). A sharply divided Court later authorized deciding disputes through “neutral principles of law” rather than deference. Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602-603 (1979). Deference to church authorities, however, remained the rule if no neutral principles resolved the dispute. Jd. at 604.

The question presented 1s:

Where necessary to resolve a church-property dispute, does the First Amendment prohibit courts from examining church-related facts to determine who leads the church?

Officer Mark Hanneman was assigned to serve a no- knock warrant to investigate the robbery and murder of a man killed by a body-armor-piercing bullet. The suspects were known to have committed other violent crimes and were recently pictured with a cache of guns. During the warrant entry, Officer Hanneman encountered Amir Locke who, despite being ordered to show his hands several times, concealed himself under a blanket and erabbed a gun. Body worn camera video shows that Locke raised and pointed his gun towards Officer Hanneman. Less than one second before Officer Hanneman fired his weapon, the Eighth Circuit described the video as showing “the barrel of a gun appearing from under Locke’s blanket with the barrel angled close to horizontal” as Officer Hanneman was nearby. The district court held that Officer Hanneman “faced a ‘split-second’ decision” and it was not feasible to issue a warning before firing.

But the district court denied Officer Hanneman qualified immunity from a Fourth Amendment claim because Respondents alleged Locke kept his gun pointed down, not in the direction of officers, and was shot “as he began” to comply with the last officer order to show his hands. The Eighth Circuit, citing this alleged fact dispute, dismissed the qualified immunity appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Neither court addressed Petitioners’ repeated legal argument that, even if accepted as true, Respondents’ allegations do not render Officer Hanneman’s force to be unreasonable under the totality of the circumstances or unlawful under clearly established law.

The questions presented are:

1. When the Respondents’ own factual allegations, the facts assumed by the courts, and the undisputedly

In Hess v. Port Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30 (1994), the Court held that “the vulnerability of the State’s purse is the most salient factor” in Eleventh Amendment arm-of-the-state immunity analysis. Id. at 48.

Respondent Charleston County Sheriffs’ Office (CCSO) is a department of Charleston County, and the County budgets, funds, insures, and indemnifies CCSO solely with County funds. The State of South Carolina is legally prohibited from paying any judgments against any county office, including CCSO. Nonetheless, the decision below held that CCSO was an arm of the state, yet did not consider this ‘most salient factor’ in its analysis.

The questions presented are:

1. When the State is not liable for a judgment against an entity, what weight should this fact be given in the arm-of-the-state immunity analysis of that entity.

2. Whether the Charleston County Sheriffs Office is an arm of the State of South Carolina for sovereign immunity purposes.

(1)