April 28, 2026 | Volume 33, Issue 11
This Report summarizes opinions issued on April 17, 20, and 22, 2026 (Part I); and cases granted review on April 20, 2026 (Part II).
Opinions
District of Columbia v. R.W., 25-248.
By a 7-2 vote, the Court summarily reversed a D.C. Court of Appeals decision which held that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he seized a driver of a stolen car. Police responded in the early morning hours to a dispatch regarding a suspicious vehicle at a particular address. As he pulled up, an officer saw two passengers run away from the only occupied car in the parking lot at the address and then saw the driver try to back the car out with a rear door still open. The officer drew his weapon and ordered R.W., the 15-year-old driver, to put his hands up. The car was stolen, and the court adjudicated R.W. delinquent. The trial court denied R.W.’s suppression motion, relying on four facts to conclude the officer had reasonable suspicion: (1) the dispatch call regarding a suspicious vehicle at a specified address, (2) the passengers fleeing the vehicle, (3) “‘[i]t was almost 2 a.m.,’” and (4) as the officer approached, the car began “backing out of the parking space . . . while the rear driver’s side door [was] still open.” The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed the denial of the motion to suppress. It held that both the dispatch call, due to its unknown reliability, and the passengers’ flight, which was not attributable to the driver, had to be excluded from the analysis. The court found the remaining facts were insufficient to justify the seizure. In a per curiam opinion, the Court reversed.
The Court concluded that the officer “clearly” had reasonable suspicion to stop R.W. The Court faulted the lower court for applying a “divide-and-conquer approach” under which it “‘excis[ed]’ the radio dispatch and the conduct of R.W.’s companions from the analysis, and consider[ed] only ‘the lateness of the hour and the slight movement of the car.’” The Court noted that unprovoked flight from police “is certainly suggestive” of wrongdoing and that after being “on alert” from the dispatch, “every person in R. W.’s car responded strangely to an approaching police car.” The Court held that under the “totality of the circumstances” and considering “the whole picture,” the officer “drew the ‘commonsense inference’ that all three people in the car—including the driver—were trying to hide wrongdoing from the police.” The officer therefore had reasonable suspicion for the stop.
Justice Jackson dissented. She maintained that the D.C. Court of Appeals correctly followed the Fourth Amendment’s totality-of-the-circumstances analysis. She expressed an inability to “fathom” why the majority believed the D.C. Court of Appeals’ “factbound determination warranted correction by this Court.” Specifically noting that even if the Court was right that the unprovoked flight factor deserved more weight, she said such a “context-specific adjustment” did not merit the use of summary discretion. Justice Jackson concluded by saying that even if she “would have assigned more heft to a particular fact” in her assessment of the case, she “would not wordsmith a lower court in this fashion” as it is “not a worthy accomplishment for the unusual step of summary reversal.” Justice Sotomayor did not join this dissent, but she voted to deny the petition.
Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, 24-813.
By an 8-0 vote, the Court held that the federal officer removal statute authorizes Chevron to remove to federal court an environmental suit brought against it in state court that “implicates Chevron’s wartime production of crude oil” for the U.S. military. The federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. §1442(a)(1), authorizes removal of state-court suits against federal officers or persons “acting under” them “for or relating to any act under color of such office.” In 2013, Plaquemines Parish filed state-court suits against oil and gas companies under the Local Coastal Resources Management Act, which regulates certain uses of Louisiana’s coastal zone, including oil production. Pertinent here, the parish alleged that―in the course of its “crude-oil production during the Second World War”―Chevron utilized unlawful methods for storage, transportation, and drilling. Chevron attempted to remove the case to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, but the district court found the statute inapplicable and ordered the suit remanded to the state court. A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court held that although Chevron had acted under a federal officer as a military contractor, its alleged violations were not “for or relating to” official acts because Chevron’s refining contract did not specify how to acquire crude oil. In an opinion by Justice Thomas, the Court reversed and remanded.
The Court noted that it was undisputed that “Chevron ‘act[ed] under’ federal officers when it performed its refining duties.” The Court then held that the parish’s lawsuit, which implicates Chevron’s wartime production of crude oil, “relat[es] to” its wartime aviation-gasoline refining for the military. In so holding, the Court emphasized that “relating to” merely means pertaining to, having some bearing towards, or otherwise brought in connection or association with the official acts. Conversely, the Court rejected any notion that the removal statute required a defendant to show that its federal duties specifically obligated, invited, or strictly caused the challenged conduct. It explained that this balanced approach faithfully applies the broad sweep of the phrase chosen by Congress while also meaningfully limiting removal in cases where the connection to federal conduct was “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.”
Under this standard, the Court found that “Chevron’s case fits comfortably within the ordinary meaning of a suit ‘relating to’ the performance of federal duties” because its wartime efforts to produce crude oil were “closely connected” to its refinement of that oil into aviation fuel for the military. Crude oil was an indispensable component for refining aviation gasoline, which in turn was critical for the United States to prosecute, and ultimately prevail in, the global conflict. The Petroleum Administration for War (P.A.W.) issued mandates for its private-sector contractors to work “day and night” to greatly increase the production of aviation fuel as quickly as possible, and allocated crude oil to specific refiners “to maximize output.” Chevron’s complained-of methods for obtaining, storing, and transporting the crude oil that was ultimately used in its refinement of aviation gas were consistent with federal instructions to maximize efficient production while saving “time, materials, and manpower,” as well as preserving steel needed for other parts of the war effort. And because certain oil fields within the Louisiana coastal zone produced a “‘preferential’” kind of crude oil for refining aviation gas, the P.A.W. identified them as “essential to the war program.” The present suit thus was sufficiently “related to” Chevron’s obligations to the government because refraining from the challenged methods would have produced less crude oil, thereby causing its aviation-gasoline refinement for the military to suffer.
Finally, the Court rejected Louisiana’s alternative theory that “the removal statute requires that the defendant was ‘acting under’ a federal officer in taking the specific actions challenged in the suit.” Louisiana didn’t disagree “that Chevron acted under a federal officer while engaged in avgas refining. But, because Chevron did not produce crude oil pursuant to a federal contract, Louisiana reasons that the suit is not against a defendant ‘acting under’ an officer.” The Court held that “Louisiana’s theory is not consistent with the statutory text,” which “contemplates removal of suits against officers or their agents for acts that were not done under color of their offices, so long as the suits ‘relat[e] to’ such acts. Louisiana’s interpretation would leave the ‘relating to’ requirement with little, if any, independent function.”
Justice Jackson authored a concurring opinion. She agreed with the Court’s conclusion that the parish’s underlying lawsuit is “for or relating to” Chevron’s acts done “under color of [federal] office” and is therefore properly removed to federal court. But she disagreed with “the majority’s conclusion that the federal officer removal statute’s ‘for or relating to’ language requires only an indirect relationship between the conduct targeted by the lawsuit and the asserted federal duties.” In her view, “§1442(a)(1) requires a causal nexus between the targeted conduct and the federal duties.” She criticized the majority for interpreting the “relating to” language in isolation to conclude that the amended statute had “jettisoned the causal-nexus test in favor of a looser standard.” (Justice Alito took no part in the decision.)
Hencely v. Fluor Corp., 24-924.
By a 6-3 vote, the Court held that a servicemember’s suit against a defense contractor was not preempted by the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) where the contractor’s “conduct was not authorized by the military and even violated instructions the military had given it.” The FTCA contains a combatant-activities exception, which preserves the Federal Government’s immunity against claims “arising out of the combatant activities of the military” during wartime. 28 U.S.C. §2680(j). In Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988), the Court held that the FTCA precluded state tort claims against a government contractor for a design defect in military helicopters. Fluor Corp. was a defense contractor performing services for the United States in Afghanistan. It hired a local man to work at Bagram Airfield. The local was a Taliban agent, and in 2016 he committed a suicide bombing attack that killed five and wounded seventeen. Petitioner Winston Hencely was serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan when he was wounded and permanently injured from the attack. “The Army’s investigation found Fluor primarily responsible for the attack.” Hencely brought state tort claims against Fluor based on its alleged negligence. The district court granted summary judgment for Fluor based on the FTCA combatant- activities exception. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the purpose of the exception is “to foreclose state regulation of the military’s battlefield conduct and decisions.” In an opinion by Justice Thomas, the Court reversed and remanded.
The Court explained that state law is not preempted “without a constitutional text or a federal statute,” and the Court found no statute or constitutional provision preempting Hencely’s suit. Without a statute or constitutional provision upon which to rely, Fluor pointed to Boyle. But the Court readily distinguished Boyle. First, that case concerned a procurement contract, not a performance contract, and didn’t involve the combatant-activities exception. Second, Boyle “adopted a three-part test requiring preemption if (1) the United States approved precise specifications; (2) the equipment conformed to them; and (3) the supplier warned the United States about the dangers the specifications entailed.” That rule leaves “many suits [] not preempted,” including this one, where “Hencely sued Fluor for conduct that, we assume (as the Fourth Circuit did), was not authorized by, but was even contrary to, federal instructions.” There was thus no “significant conflict” between the government’s interest and state-law negligence liability here.
The Court rejected the Fourth Circuit’s expansion of Boyle. The Fourth Circuit reasoned that “it is the imposition per se of the state . . . tort law that conflicts with the federal policy of eliminating” state regulation of the military during wartime. Disagreeing, the Court emphasized that the combatant-activities exception to the FTCA applies only to the military’s actions. “’No significant conflict exists between that interest and state law unless the challenged action can reasonably be considered the military’s own conduct or decision and the operation of state law would conflict with that decision.’”
The Court rejected arguments by Fluor and the government that the Constitution’s grant of war powers means “courts must reject any tort claim connected to a war zone.” Stated the Court, “the Constitution’s grant of war powers does not imply that courts must reject any tort claim connected to a war zone, as the Fourth Circuit’s rule requires”. Pointing to examples from the Quasi-War with France, Little v. Barreme, 2 Cranch 170 (1804), and the Mexican-American war, Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115 (1852), the Court found that “plaintiffs have been able to enforce their legal rights even when they are violated during war.” Thus, absent express prohibition by Congress, “contractors ordinarily have a constitutional defense only when the contractor is being sued precisely for accomplishing what the Federal Government requested.”
Justice Alito, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh, dissented. Justice Alito maintained that states cannot regulate “security arrangements on a military base in an active warzone” because the Constitution “expressly excludes the states from” making war. The dissent agreed that neither the FTCA nor Boyle controlled the outcome but maintained that because Hencely’s “state-law claims intrude on the Federal Government’s exclusive power to make war and conduct combat operations, the Constitution preempts them.” The dissent dismissed the majority’s reliance on cases from “a bygone legal era,” noting that both applied federal common law rather than state law. Justice Alito explored the large body of caselaw preempting states from interfering in federal activity, such as official acts of federal agents, qualifications for membership in Congress, qualifications for federal employees, and “singling out the Federal Government for unfavorable treatment in contracting.”
Justice Alito concluded that preemption is especially important when it comes to the Federal Government’s “exclusive authority to conduct relations with other nations or to wage war.” He explored how a state tort case “would substantially interfere with the Government’s ability to wage war and, in particular, with its ability to implement its preferred security policies at Bagram Airfield.” That is particularly so here, where Fluor intends “to show that the military was solely responsible for petitioner’s injuries.” Moreover, Justice Alito wrote, discovery could seek sensitive documents about security threats at Bagram Airfield and require depositions and trial testimony by military officers responsible for base security and investigation of the bombing. Finally, he asserted that the “shadow of state tort liability may also undermine the Government’s use of contractors to perform tasks that are closely related to actual combat operations.”
Enbridge Energy, LP v. Nessel, 24-783.
The Court unanimously held that the 30-day time limit for removal of state-court civil actions to federal court may not be equitably tolled. Under 28 U.S.C. §1446(b)(1), state-court suits involving a question of federal law may be removed to federal district court “within 30 days after the receipt by the defendant . . . of the initial pleading” or “within 30 days after the service of summons” upon a defendant who is not required to be served the pleading. In 2019, the Michigan Attorney General filed suit in state court against Enbridge Energy, seeking to halt operation of a 645-mile stretch of oil pipeline and void a 1953 easement that authorized its use. Enbridge did not seek to remove the case to federal court within 30 days, instead electing to litigate the matter via motion practice and oral argument in Michigan state court for months. Following dismissal of a parallel suit by the Michigan governor concerning the same pipeline easement, Enbridge sought to remove the state Attorney General’s suit to federal court—887 days after receiving the complaint. Michigan moved for remand on the basis that removal was untimely. The district held that equitable tolling excused Enbridge’s untimely removal because the case had been held in abeyance for a year pending resolution of the governor’s related suit, and the litigation involved issues of exceptional federal importance regarding a U.S. treaty with Canada. The Sixth Circuit reversed, concluding that although the time limit for removal was nonjurisdictional, the overall scheme rebutted any presumption that equitable tolling was available. In an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, the Court affirmed.
The Court agreed with both parties that the 30-day removal deadline in §1446(b)(1) is nonjurisdictional. That didn’t resolve the issue, however, because “[s]ome nonjurisdictional rules remain ‘mandatory’ and ‘are not susceptible’ to equitable tolling. Enbridge argued that the 30-day time limit wasn’t such a mandatory rule because (1) it is presumptively subject to equitable tolling and (2) “nothing rebuts the presumption that this deadline can be equitably tolled.” The Court agreed that statutes of limitations are generally “subject to a presumption of equitable tolling,” but noted that the Attorney General disputes that the 30-day time limit governing removal is a statute of limitations. The Court found it unnecessary to decide whether §1446(b)(1) qualifies as a statute of limitations because any presumption was conclusively rebutted by the “text, structure, and context” of the rule, all of which showed that Congress did not intend for the removal deadline to be subject to equitable tolling.
The Court observed that the text itself speaks in “strict, mandatory terms,” commanding that a notice of removal “shall be filed within 30 days.” The Court then found that §1446’s structure confirmed the mandatory nature of the deadline. Congress elected to create a detailed and comprehensive list of exceptions to the 30-day removal deadline in civil cases, including for “when a case at first appears unremovable”; “if the basis for removal is diversity of citizenship”; “actions against foreign states”; and “certain cases involving fatal accidents.” The existence of specifically articulated exceptions strongly indicates that “Congress did not intend courts to read other unmentioned, open-ended, ‘equitable’ exceptions into the statute that it wrote,” especially where (as here) it is evident that Congress already “accounted for equitable factors.” The Court added that unavailability of tolling in civil cases is especially clear when contrasted to the broad, general power Congress granted district courts to extend the 30-day removal deadline for good cause in criminal cases under §1455(b)(1). Finally, the Court concluded that the purpose of removal was not served by equitable tolling, for it would “undermine Congress’s manifest interest in resolving threshold removal questions early and conclusively” to facilitate efficiency and avoid “prolonged litigation on threshold nonmerits questions.”
The Court rejected Enbridge’s assertion that “rebutting the presumption of equitable tolling requires the ‘clearest command’ from Congress.” Instead, the Court reaffirmed that the presumption may be rebutted simply by showing that “Congress’s choice is evident”; tolling would be “inconsistent with the text of the relevant statute”; and there is “good reason to believe Congress did not want equitable tolling to apply.” Under this standard, the Court ruled, it is clear that equitable tolling is incongruent with the statutory scheme overall because Congress would not have adopted express, specific exceptions to the removal deadline that would have been superfluous if broader tolling was already available.
Cases Granted Review
St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton v. Roy, 25-581.
At issue is whether Colorado’s universal preschool program that reimburses both public and private preschools violates the Free Exercise Clause by requiring enrollment regardless of (among other things) sexual orientation and gender identity, even though that would prevent Catholic Church-affiliated schools from participating. Subsumed within that general issue are two sub-issues. The first concerns how Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), applies. In Smith, the Court held that neutral, generally applicable laws that burden religious exercise do not violate the Free Exercise Clause if they are rationally related to a legitimate government interest. But in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. 522 (2021), the Court held that a law “lacks general applicability” under Smith “if it prohibits religious conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines the government’s asserted interests in a similar way” or if it provides “a mechanism for individualized exemptions.” The first question presented here asks “[w]hether proving a lack of general applicability under Employment Division v. Smith requires showing unfettered discretion or categorical exemptions for identical secular conduct.” Meanwhile, in Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767 (2022), the Court struck down a Maine law that provided tuition assistance vouchers for private schools, but disallowed the use of such vouchers for religious-based private schools. The Court held that under the Free Exercise Clause, strict scrutiny applies when the government denies otherwise-available public benefits “based on a recipient’s religious exercise,” either through status-based or use-based discrimination. The second question presented asks “[w]hether Carson v. Makin displaces the rule of Employment Division v. Smith only when the government explicitly excludes religious people and institutions.” (The Court declined to grant review of petitioners’ third question, which asked whether Smith should be overruled.)
In 2020, Colorado voters passed a ballot proposition to provide state funding for its universal preschool program. The General Assembly then codified this program into law. The program covers the cost of 15 hours per week of “preschool services” for all Colorado children “regardless of their economic circumstances” in order to provide “access to voluntary, high-quality, universal preschool services free of charge in the school year before a child enrolls in kindergarten.” Both public and private preschools participate in the program, subject to “quality standards,” including an equal opportunity mandate that “each preschool provider provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level, or disability. The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver oversees 34 Catholic preschools. As a prerequisite for enrollment, it requires parents to sign a statement that “all Catholic school families must understand and display a positive and supportive attitude toward the Catholic Church, her teachings, her work, and the mission of the Catholic school.” The archdiocese requires its parish preschools to inform families of the Catholic Church’s teachings “regarding biological sex and marriage,” and to not admit children whose families’ beliefs or practices are inconsistent with whose teachings. The archdiocese asked Colorado for “an accommodation from the [equal opportunity mandate] that would allow its preschools to admit only families who agree with the Catholic Church’s teachings, including on gender and sexuality.” Because the statute does not allow for exemptions, the state declined to award the accommodation.
In 2023, a group of parishes under the direction of the archdiocese and individuals who sought financial assistance to attend their Catholic preschools (petitioners) filed suit alleging that the state’s refusal to grant the accommodation violated the Free Exercise Clause. They advanced two core theories. First, they argued that under Fulton, the universal preschool program “lacks general applicability” because “it prohibits religious conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines the government’s asserted interests in a similar way” and provides “a mechanism for individualized exemptions.” According to petitioners, Colorado provides secular exemptions to its equal opportunity mandate. In particular, the state (1) permits participating preschools to consider income level by allowing Head Start preschools to prioritize low-income families; (2) permits participating preschools to consider a child’s disability by reserving spots for children “with an Individualized Education Program”; and (3) “allow[s] a preschool provider that does not meet the quality standards to participate in the preschool program for a limited time while working toward compliance.” Second, petitioners argued that Carson and related cases establish that a state cannot compel someone to choose between their religious exercise and participation in a public program. And, they insisted, that’s what is happening in Colorado: they must sacrifice their religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation and identity if they wish to participate in the state’s program.
Following a three-day bench trial, the district court ruled in favor of Colorado. It held that the “sexual-orientation and gender-identity aspects of the equal-opportunity requirement” were not subject to strict scrutiny, and the mandate was constitutional because it was neutral and generally applicable. The Tenth Circuit affirmed. 154 F.4th 752. It first held that Carson (and the line of cases it relied upon) did not apply here because Colorado’s law does not limit its funding only to secular schools and did not exclude religious schools “on the explicit basis that they were religious.” Then, on the Smith/Fulton issue, the Tenth Circuit first rejected the premise of petitioners’ argument, finding there were no secular exemptions to the equal opportunity mandate. It next held in the alternative that Fulton’s gloss on Smith did not apply here even assuming there were secular exemptions. That’s because the state would not be exempting secular activity “comparable” to excluding children based on their or their parents’ gender identity or sexual orientation; the law would thus remain generally applicable.
Petitioners argue that under Fulton’s gloss on Smith, a law is not generally applicable merely because the exemptions it grants for secular conduct are not identical to those sought by religious institutions and merely because the government agency enforcing the law does not possess unfettered discretion to grant individualized exemptions. Instead, they insist that a law which burdens religious exercise fails Smith’s general-application test whenever it has either granted secular exemptions or provided any discretion to grant individualized exceptions, which undermine the government’s interest in the same manner as the denied religious exemption would have. They maintain that “[p]ermitting a government to ‘divvy up its exemption regimes provision-by-provision’—or here, word-by-word—’would permit governments to subvert free exercise through clever drafting.’” On the second issue, petitioners argue that Carson is triggered whenever generally available state funding is withheld from religious organizations. The Tenth Circuit erred, they say, by limiting Carson to where exclusions are explicitly “targeted” at religious use or status.
Colorado argues that the universal preschool program’s equal opportunity mandate fully comports with the Free Exercise Clause and the requirements articulated in Smith, Fulton, and Carson. On the Smith/Fulton issue, Colorado rejects the premise of petitioners’ argument. According to Colorado, there are no secular exemptions to its equal opportunity mandate. For example, the state says, the Tenth Circuit “correctly interpreted the statute to protect children with disabilities and children from low-income families from the denial of equal opportunity based on those characteristics.” On the Carson issue, Colorado notes that its law does not deny funding based on religious status or exercise, and that over 40 religious institutions, including preschools run by Catholic Charities, participate in the program. The state argues that “Carson does not apply to this case because [the program] does not exclude religious schools: indeed, [it] welcomes them in a program where public funding turns not on providers’ secular or religious character, but instead on providers’ compliance with [the] equal-opportunity requirements.”
Beaird v. United States, 25-5343.
At issue is whether Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36 (1993), still correctly states the rule for the deference that courts must give the commentary to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. In Stinson, the Court held that the Sentencing Guidelines commentary is “authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline.” But in Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U.S. 558 (2019), the Court held that before an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation is entitled to deference, the court must “exhaust all the ‘traditional tools’ of construction” and find the regulation “genuinely ambiguous.”
Petitioner Kendrick Beaird pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 72 months of imprisonment. The sentence length was based in part on the application of Sentencing Guidelines §2K2.1(a)(3), which enhances the base level for an unlawful-possession offense involving a “semiautomatic firearm that is capable of accepting a large capacity magazine.” The Sentencing Guidelines commentary defines a “large capacity magazine” as one capable of accepting more than 15 rounds of ammunition. The gun Beaird possessed accepted 17 rounds of ammunition. The district court overruled Beaird’s objection to the court’s reliance on the commentary, and held that the §2K2.1(a)(3) enhancement applied to him. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion, noting the issue was foreclosed by prior circuit precedent. 2025 WL 1410410. In that prior case, the Fifth Circuit had concluded “that the commentary’s definition of ‘large capacity magazine’ is authoritative under Stinson, and thus we must follow the commentary.” United States v. Martin, 119 F.4th 410, 415 (5th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1454 (2025).
Beaird contends that Kisor undermines the holding in Stinson. Beaird notes that the circuit courts are divided on how much Kisor trims Stinson, with four circuits concluding that “Kisor requires reevaluation of Stinson,” and four circuits concluding Stinson is unaffected. On the merits, Beaird asserts that “in the absence of Stinson―that is, in a framework that required the courts to exhaust tools of statutory construction before deferring to the Commentary―a 17-bullet magazine would not likely qualify for enhancement as a ‘large capacity magazine.’” Beaird points out that the enhancement targets a small class of exceptionally dangerous weapons―explosive devices, sawed-off shotguns, and machineguns―while the 17-round magazine he possessed is “not large in relation to the most common weapons available for lawful consumer purchase” and that a “’large capacity magazine’ must be large in relation to the industry standard.”
In response, the United States agrees that “Kisor governs the degree of deference owed to an agency’s interpretation of its regulations.” But the United States asserts that this would not change the outcome of Beaird’s case because the Third and Ninth Circuits, two of the courts Beaird relied upon to suggest Kisor undermines Stinson, have concluded that the “large capacity magazine” commentary survives under Kisor deference.
NAAG Center for Supreme Court Advocacy Staff
- Dan Schweitzer, Director and Chief Counsel
- Kevin Morrow, Supreme Court Fellow
- Michael Butera, Supreme Court Fellow
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