Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a) requires a district judge to request the convening of a three-judge district court whenever an action is filed “challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts,” unless the claim is “wholly insubstantial” as recognized by this Court in Shapiro ov. McManus, 577 U.S. 39 (2015).

In an effort to stop Petitioner Antonio Smith’s hunger strike, prison officials left him in a cell for 23 hours, naked and without heat, at temperatures that dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Petitioner chal- lenged the officials’ conduct under the Eighth Amend- ment. A Seventh Circuit panel unanimously held that housing Petitioner in those conditions violated his Eighth Amendment rights because the record would support a finding that the officials were deliberately indifferent to the health risks inherent in Petitioner’s exposure to the extraordinary cold, “left naked in a frigid cell overnight.” But, over a vigorous dissent, the panel majority granted these officials qualified i1m- munity. The majority acknowledged that “inmates have a well-established constitutional right to protec- tion from extreme cold.” The court nevertheless held that no case “squarely governs’ here, and the officials therefore enjoy qualified immunity, because the Sev- enth Circuit had never specifically held that it violates the Eighth Amendment “to house an inmate in a cell that ranged in temperature from 25 to 57 degrees over a 23-hour period without clothes or a way to keep warm.”

The question presented 1s:

When a government official acts in an obviously unconstitutional manner, is that sufficient for the v1- olation to be clearly established, as this Court has held and other Circuits have ruled in analogous cir- cumstances, or 1s a violation clearly established only if there is binding precedent in a factually indistin- suishable case, as the Seventh Circuit required here?

Counsel for the Underwriters

1. Whether the District Court’s and the Eighth Circuit’s focus on the isolated components of the McDonnell Douglas framework eviscerated the required summary judgment analysis of Petitioners’ race discrimination claims in contravention of this Court’s established precedent.

2. Whether the Eighth Circuit’s decision creates a new procedural impasse forcing litigants to pursue claims in direct contravention of the established precedent of a circuit violating the doctrine of stare decisis.

In state court, Kendrick Simpson raised a single claim based purely on state law. He argued Oklahoma’s execution statute violates the state constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. The state court ruled that his claim was unripe. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Simpson challenged the state procedural process in federal court. The decision below concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction under Rooker-Feldman and the Eleventh Amendment.

Three times in the last three years, this Court has granted certiorari to consider jurisdictional issues stemming from § 1983 challenges to state procedural processes.! In each case, the Court reversed or vacated a decision from the Fifth Circuit that held jurisdiction was lacking. Despite this Court’s unidirectional movement toward a narrower and potentially nonexistent ” Rooker-Feldman, the decision below invoked a 2021 Fifth Circuit case? to employ an expansive view of the doctrine. It concluded Simpson is harmed solely by the state court judgment—not by the prison executing him.

The decision then folded that faulty causal reasoning into its Ex parte Young analysis. It concluded that the Defendants (the officials executing him) have no connection to Simpson’s injury because they are not responsible for the state judgment. Contrary to the supremacy of federal law, the decision below expands Rooker-Feldman, narrows Hx parte Young, and immunizes state officials from federal civil rights suits.

The question presented 1s: Whether Rooker-Feldman and the Eleventh Amendment jurisdictionally bar a § 1983 challenge to a state procedural rule announced in a state court decision that did not reach the merits of a claim purely based on state law.

1 See Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230, 234-35 (2023); Gutierrez v. Saenz, 606 U.S. 305, 309 (2025); Wood v. Patton, 145 8. Ct. 2839 (June 80, 2025) (GVR in light of Gutierrez). 2 See Brief for Petitioner at § I], 7.M. v. Univ. of Md. Med. Sys. Corp., No. 25-197. 3 Rhoades v. Martinez, No. 21-70007, 2021 WL 4434711 (Sth Cir. 2021). The reasoning of the unpublished decision garnered two votes. One judge concurred in the judgment only. Id. at n*.

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In Brown v. United States, 602 U.S. 101 (2024), this Court held that whether a prior state drug trafficking conviction qualified as a predicate under the Armed Career Criminal Act in a federal prosecution required a review of the state conviction at the time of the conviction. However, this Court expressly left open the question of whether a federal sentencing court must review the state conviction at the time of the federal sentencing, rather than at the time of the conviction, for a recidivist enhancement under the United States Sentencing Guidelines given the requirement that the Sentencing Guidelines in effect at sentencing must be applied.

The Question Presented here is:

Whether, consistent with federal statute mandating the application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing, a sentencing court must look to the validity of a state prior at the time of federal sentencing to determine whether the state conviction qualifies as a predicate offense for a recidivist sentencing enhancement under the United States Sentencing Guidelines?

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1. Is McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459 (1969) still good law? That is, are trial courts still required to examine the relation between the law and the act(s) a defendant admits to protect a defendant who is in the position of pleading voluntarily with an understanding of the nature of the charge but without realizing that his conduct does not actually fall within the charge, particularly with regard to juveniles?

2. Whether defense counsel renders ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by telling a juvenile client who does not want to plead guilty that he cannot raise self-defense despite evidence and case law to the contrary, and by not telling the client about a) the option to pursue conviction of a lessor offense, also supported by evidence and case law, and b) a statutory alternative sentence for juveniles, in order to attain the lawyer’s objective of securing the minimum sentence for murder?

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In order to appeal from the final order in a proceeding brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a movant must first obtain a certificate of appealability (“COA”). 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). “A certificate of appealability may issue … only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). The Court has interpreted this standard to require that the movant “demonstrate that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 4738, 484 (2000).

The circuits are divided over whether a movant may make this showing and obtain a COA where his claim is precluded by adverse circuit precedent, but where courts 1n other jurisdictions have ruled differently. The questions presented is:

Whether, for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c), a claim foreclosed by

binding circuit precedent may nonetheless be “debatable among jurists

of reason” where another circuit has reached the opposite conclusion.

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