https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/02/3...ice-shootings/
This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to consider, among other things, when a state attorney general can be pulled into court in another state and when a police officer is immune from civil liability for fatally shooting a passenger in a fleeing car.
Grewal v. Defense Distributed is a dispute between the attorney general of New Jersey and a Texas company that develops digital files used to manufacture 3D-printed guns. In 2018, the attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Defense Distributed, warning that distributing such files to New Jersey residents over the internet would violate New Jersey law. In response, the company sued Grewal in federal court in Texas. It sought an injunction barring Grewal from taking any enforcement action against the company, which it argued would violate the First and Second Amendments.
The Texas district court dismissed the lawsuit after finding that it had no personal jurisdiction over Grewal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed and ruled that the case could proceed. Grewal argues in his cert petition that the 5th Circuit’s decision is at odds with the Supreme Court’s case law on personal jurisdiction. He also claims that the 5th Circuit created a circuit split on the question whether state officials subject themselves to jurisdiction in other states merely by sending cease-and-desist letters across state lines.
City of Hayward v. Stoddard-Nunez arises from a police officer’s fatal shooting of a passenger in a fleeing car. In 2013, an officer in Hayward, California, attempted to stop a car on suspicion of drunk driving. After initially stopping in a parking lot, the driver refused to exit the car. Instead, he drove past the officer’s patrol car and fled the scene. The officer, who testified that the car swerved toward him as it fled, fired nine shots into the car, killing a passenger. The passenger’s next-of-kin sued the officer and the city under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, arguing that the officer violated the passenger’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures.
The district court dismissed the lawsuit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reinstated it, concluding that a reasonable jury could find that the officer fired the fatal shot after the car had already passed him and posed little threat to the officer or the public. The officer and the city ask the Supreme Court to take up the case to resolve two issues: (1) the proper of level of generality that courts should use to assess whether an officer violated “clearly established law” for the purpose of deciding whether that officer is entitled to qualified immunity, and (2) whether a shooting of a passenger under these circumstances counts as a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.