Former Roberts clerk appointed to argue deportation case

SCOTUS NEWS

The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday appointed a former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts to defend a ruling by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in an immigration case after the Biden administration declined to take action.

The announcement that the court docket had appointed Stephen Hammer, an affiliate within the Dallas workplace of Gibson Dunn, to temporary and argue in help of the 4th Circuit’s determination in Riley v. Garland got here in a short unsigned order launched by the court docket on Tuesday afternoon.

In Riley, the justices will weigh in on questions referring to the 30-day deadline to hunt evaluation of a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals denying a request to dam deportation to a rustic the place an immigrant’s life or freedom is threatened. Pierre Riley, a local of Jamaica who has lived in New York for practically three a long time, contends that he’s prone to be killed if he’s required to return to Jamaica. The Biden administration agrees with Riley that the court docket of appeals was unsuitable when it concluded that the 30-day deadline to file a petition to dam deportation is jurisdictional – that’s, that the court docket can’t evaluation the petition if the deadline is missed. However the authorities urged the justices to ship the case again to the decrease court docket for one more look in mild of a latest determination by the Supreme Court docket holding {that a} comparable statutory submitting deadline just isn’t jurisdictional.

Riley inspired the justices to go forward and take up the case and, if essential, appoint a “buddy of the court docket” to defend the 4th Circuit’s ruling, as they often do when the federal authorities adjustments its place.

The court docket granted evaluation on Nov. 4. On Tuesday, slightly below one month later, the justices appointed Hammer, who clerked for Decide Gregory Katsas on the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Decide Jeffrey Sutton on the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the sixth Circuit earlier than clerking for Roberts, who serves because the “circuit justice” for the 4th Circuit.

Hammer is a Texas native and former Rhodes Scholar who served two excursions of obligation in Afghanistan as a U.S. Military officer earlier than going to regulation faculty. In 2019 he earned the 12 months’s highest rating on the Texas bar examination.

This text was originally published at Howe on the Court.