This case concerns whether a State may disbar an attorney for legal advice, public commentary, and petitioning activity undertaken on behalf of a client in a politically charged constitutional dispute. The Review Department of the State Bar Court of California acknowledged that the statements for which Dr. John Eastman was charged involved core political speech and even conceded that “the applicable standard is one of strict scrutiny,” yet the Review Department then set that standard aside, declaring that, “[r]Jegardless, our focus remains on EKastman’s false statements and whether or not they violate the rules and statutes governing attorney conduct.” App.102a n.92. The Review Department likewise refused to require narrow tailoring, characterizing such scrutiny as “compartmentaliz[ing] Eastman’s conduct into isolated events.” App.19a. Instead, the Review Department affirmed global discipline across counts one through ten _ for statements it deemed _ professional misconduct, concluding that some of those statements were statements of fact and thus entitled to only reduced or no constitutional protection. These errors give rise to the questions presented:

1. Whether California’s disbarment of an attorney for legal advice, public commentary, and constitutional advocacy on matters of public concern is incompatible with the First Amendment.

The Commodity Exchange Act gives the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “exclusive jurisdic- tion” over “transactions involving swaps or contracts of sale of a commodity for future delivery” that are “traded or executed on a contract market” regulated by the CFTC. 7 U.S.C. § 2(a)(1)(A). Petitioner Robinhood De- rivatives, LLC, a federally regulated futures commission merchant, facilitates trading of sports-related event con- tracts on federally regulated contract markets. Nevada seeks to enforce state gaming laws against this activity on contract markets regulated by the CFTC.

The question presented is whether the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the application of state gaming laws to sports-related event contracts traded on federally regulated contract markets.

(I)

The federal diversity-jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1832, grants district courts jurisdiction over civil actions with more than $75,000 in controversy that are “between … citizens of different States and in which citizens or subjects of a foreign state are additional parties.” 28 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(8).

Petitioner is a limited liability company with mem- bers who were citizens of Texas, California, and China. It brought suit against respondents, who were citizens of North Carolina and the United Kingdom. Thus, the jurisdictional lineup was:

Tex. Plaintiff Cal.

China Defendant 1 U.K. Defendant 2 N.C. Defendant 3 N.C. Defendant 4 N.C.

The Fourth Circuit held that because of petitioner’s Chinese member, “there isn’t a U.S. citizen on the plaintiff side. So we don’t have a suit between ‘citizens of different States.” App. 10a (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1382(a)(8)). The question presented is:

Whether 28 U.S.C. § 1382(a)(8) confers diversity jurisdiction over a civil action in which the sole plaintiff is an LLC with both state and foreign citizenship, the defendants include both state and foreign citizens, and the state citizenships on opposite sides are completely diverse.

(i)

Whether the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments permit the State, in a joint criminal trial, to introduce for its truth a non-testifying codefendant’s out-of-court accusation expressly implicating the defendant, on the theory that the statement was made years after the charged offense during an ongoing “joint venture’ to conceal the crime, where the statement was made privately to a family member who already knew of the allegations and where the defendant had no opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.

ia

Whether Petitioner was deprived of his right, under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, to a trial by a 12-person jury when the defendant is charged with a serious felony?

In Kian v. Florida, No. 25-6623, the Court has granted certiorari on the identical question. This case should at least be held pending resolution of that case.

1

When the government appeals from criminal sentencing, the courts of appeals review both whether the sentencing court gave adequate, record- based reasons and whether those reasons were substantively reasonable.

When a criminal defendant appeals in the Ninth Circuit, that court reviews only the former procedural-reasonableness question. Even when the criminal defendant separately raises substantive reasonableness, the Ninth Circuit commonly resolves that challenge on procedural rather than substantive considerations. It thus denies defendants that second-step inquiry into the substance of their sentences, as it did with Mr. Scovotto here.

The question presented 1s:

Whether, like the government when it 1s appellant, criminal defendant-appellants are entitled to resentencing when a district court’s reasons for the sentence are substantively unreasonable?

ial