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Here Here The This week, we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, whether cellphones are similarly entitled to greater Fourth Amendment protection than other belongings at the U.S. border.
Marcos Mendez was returning to the United States in 2016 when his passport was flagged at immigration in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. A Men The One These The Men The The officer then ran the phone through a software program designed to digitally extract photos and other data, which uncovered dozens more suspicious photographs.
Following further investigation, Mendez was indicted on child pornography charges and extradited to the United States. Before trial, Mendez sought to have the evidence from his cellphone excluded, on the ground that the search of his cellphone had violated the Fourth Amendment.
The trial judge concluded that the C.B.P. Agent The The The court of appeals concluded that this exception applies with equal force to cellphones.
In Mendez v. United States, Mendez asks the justices to grant review and reverse the 7th Circuit. He In The Characterizing the question as one of location, not technology, the government argues that heightened security risks at the border quash even the exceptional privacy interests in the contents of a cellphone.
Moreover, the government disagrees that the courts of appeals are divided. The Officer Accordingly, the government reasons that the flag on Mendez’s passport would have rendered the warrantless search of his cellphone lawful no matter where it occurred.
A list of this week’s featured petitions is below:
Nivar Santana v. Garland
24-46
Issue:
What standard of proof applies when a noncitizen previously admitted to the United States seeks to obtain relief from removal by having her status adjusted to that of a lawful permanent resident.
Jacobsen v. Montana Democratic Party
24-220
Issues
: (1) What standard applies, when the Supreme Court reviews a state court’s decision invalidating state legislation under the Constitution’s elections clause, to whether that decision exceeds the bounds of ordinary judicial review; and (2) whether the Montana Supreme Court’s split decision below exceeded the bounds of ordinary judicial review by invalidating under the Montana Constitution two Montana election integrity provisions — one setting the voter-registration deadline at noon the day before election day, and another requiring the secretary of state to promulgate regulations banning paid absentee ballot collection.
Mendez v. United States
24-302
Issues
: (1) Whether the government may conduct a warrantless search of the electronic contents of a person’s cellphone at the border; and (2) whether the government may conduct a suspicionless search of the electronic contents of a person’s cellphone at the border.
Patterson v. Baz
24-390Issues
: (1) Whether parties to a case under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction may waive the right to seek a return elsewhere by agreeing to resolve child-custody disputes exclusively in the United States; and (2) whether parties to a case under the Hague Convention should be held to a decision to waive, forego, or stipulate away rights, including to argue that the habitual residence of a child is outside of the United States, in the same way as any other party would in an ordinary civil action brought in U.S. court.
Davis v. Smith
24-421Issue:
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit exceeded its powers under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in concluding that “every fairminded jurist would agree” that the Ohio courts violated the Constitution in refusing to bar testimony from a victim of an attempted murder identifying her attacker.
