Short Circuit: A Weekly, Non-Exhaustive Digest of Federal Appellate Rulings

Take pleasure in the newest installment of Short Circuit, a weekly feature created by a group at the Institute for Justice.

Fresh case on deck! Last year, in Rivera v. Borough of Pottstown, a Pennsylvania appellate court held that officers must have individualized suspicion before obtaining a warrant to inspect homes for code violations. That was a win! But now the borough wants renters to endure suspicionless inspections by private inspectors. So, dear readers, we’re moving forward with Rivera v. Pottstown II.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: we put our bets—apologies, predictions—on Kalshi’s compliance with Indian gaming and the broader regulation of prediction markets.

A German firm wins the bid to furnish trains capable of surpassing 186 mph for a new rail corridor linking Rancho Cucamonga, California, to Las Vegas. The company’s current trains reach 220 mph. The first pair will be built in Germany with American personnel receiving training, followed by eight additional units manufactured in the United States. The losing bidder, whose trains max out at 160 mph, claims this isn’t Buy America-compliant. The D.C. Circuit says it is.
A Rhode Island man leaps from a second-story window to avoid arrest, injuring his feet and ankles; he asserts he must hobble through prison without doctor-recommended accommodations. Prison authorities argue that the state’s tort claims act may waive sovereign immunity for “all actions of tort,” yet the Rhode Island Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on whether that protection extends to discrimination claims. The First Circuit notes that it consulted the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which appeared fairly definitive on the matter.
Legal research tool ROSS Intelligence trained its AI on Westlaw headnotes. A copyright issue? The Third Circuit says yes. It holds that headnotes are protectable by copyright and that using them for training was not fair use.
It would clearly violate the First Amendment for a city to enact a ban on a sound-truck operator supporting the mayor’s political rival, but what if officials instead scheme to seize the truck by invoking obscure parking and noise ordinances? The Sixth Circuit says that, too, would be unconstitutional—though officials who were simply following the conspirators’ orders enjoy qualified immunity. (This is an IJ case.)
In 1995, a Knoxville woman, claiming she “just felt mean that day,” tortures and kills another woman, removing a skull fragment she said she was “eating breakfast with.” She is sentenced to death and seeks habeas relief, which she loses. Her execution is scheduled, and a few months earlier she challenges the state’s execution protocol. At a hearing, the state’s attorney concedes that the woman had a history of rape and sexual abuse. Hours before her execution, she argues that this concession undermines the foundation of her state-court proceedings and requires reopening her habeas petition. The district court treats this as a second habeas petition, which courts cannot consider. The Sixth Circuit, in a dissent, agrees to stay the execution to allow proper review. The Supreme Court, in a dissent, stays the stay. The state subsequently bungles the execution, leaving the woman in critical condition.
The summarist didn’t study law-school topics about what a “swap” is. Regardless, the Sixth Circuit rejects Kalshi’s claim that predicting the Dodgers’ victory in a five-game series is not akin to speculating on the future price of pork bellies. As a result, the Ohio and Tennessee gambling authorities win this round, and Kalshi’s bid to obtain a preliminary injunction fails.
When officers possess an arrest warrant, do they require probable cause to believe the subject is at home before breaking in, or is a mere reasonable belief enough? The Sixth Circuit (unpublished) notes that it has endorsed both standards, and provides no single clarifying rule today. Qualified immunity applies.
The Ninth Circuit holds that restraining a felony suspect at gunpoint until handcuffed does not, by itself, violate the Fourth Amendment, even if the suspect cooperates. A partial dissent argues there was no justification to think the individual was violent and that pointing firearms at someone a few feet away could be unreasonable; but because there is no clearly established law on the point, the court reverses the denial of qualified immunity.
After creating Great Basin National Park in the 1980s, federal officials began diverting water within the park, causing downstream ranchers to lose water rights established in a 1934 state proceeding. The Ninth Circuit dismisses the case, noting that Congress waived sovereign immunity in 1952 and suggesting that it would be absurd otherwise. A dissent argues that the majority’s interpretation of the statute, precedent, and legislative history is itself absurd and warns of a looming disaster.
A Mexican citizen living in the U.S. since 2000 loses a bid to cancel removal, but opts to depart voluntarily and pays the required $500 the next day. He promptly appeals about cancellation of removal. On appeal, the BIA affirms cancellation and notes that the individual had paid the fee, despite a record indicating otherwise. The Ninth Circuit agrees that the payment was made. Voluntary removal remains an option. A concurrence critiques the government’s argument that a misstatement by the BIA would doom the appeal. A dissent reminds that this is aligned with Supreme Court precedent.
If there had been a prediction market gauging whether the Ninth Circuit would uphold Arizona’s broad campaign-disclosure statute—despite a long history of protecting anonymous political speech—this author might have saved some time reading a 103-page opinion that leads to a predictable outcome.
Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative “seeks to dismantle institutional racism in workplaces by requiring training on racial justice and enabling affinity groups.” An individual claims it created a hostile environment, excluding white people from government benefits and job opportunities. The Ninth Circuit dismisses the case.
Allegation: An Oregon inmate is pepper-sprayed with a canister intended for someone else and is not allowed to rinse it off for two dreadful days. The district court rules the suit untimely, even though the deadline was paused during the inmate’s internal grievance process, and the initial filing does not count toward tolling. The Ninth Circuit dismisses the case.
Alabama law bars convicted sex offenders from living with children, including their own; the Eleventh Circuit finds this unconstitutional. In contrast, other states address the issue without imposing total exclusions on parents.
The Eleventh Circuit holds that if a federal loan was obtained under fraud by misrepresenting a scuba‑diving business as shut down due to COVID-19 (while it had halted because the operator killed a diver), the government can pursue charges for both homicide and the fraud together.
In another ruling, the Eleventh Circuit reiterates that a government defendant’s decision to abandon a challenged policy does not automatically strip the federal judiciary of the authority to order the policy to remain abandoned.
On en banc review, the Ninth Circuit declines to revisit its ruling that the Forest Service’s transfer of federal land—home to an Apache ceremonial site and containing one of the world’s largest copper reserves—to a private mining company—complies with the Free Exercise Clause and RFRA. A dissenter argues that turning a sacred site into a two-mile-wide, thousand-foot-deep hole significantly burdens the Apache people’s religious exercise.

Victory! This week, a federal jury found Bexar County, Texas liable for a policy enabling unconstitutional highway stops. In Bexar and elsewhere, ordinary travel is treated with suspicion by license-plate readers and similar tools, leading to thousands of pretextual stops and prolonged searches of law-abiding motorists. IJ client Alek Schott, for example, was falsely accused of drifting over a fog line and questioned for more than an hour after a Border Patrol analyst labeled his trip as suspicious (followed by a K-9 misfiring on his vehicle). “The Fourth Amendment does not permit this,” states IJ Attorney Christie Hebert. “Today, a jury of Texans scrutinized how this program actually operates and concluded as much. Every agency in the state should understand that we are fully prepared to enforce this verdict.”