[Eugene Volokh] Short Circuit: A roundup of recent federal court decisions

(Here is the latest edition of the Institute for Justice’s weekly Short Circuit newsletter, written by John Ross.)

In 2014, a Colorado think tank wanted to run radio ads urging listeners to urge their elected officials to support criminal sentencing reforms but held off because it would have meant turning the names and addresses of the think tank’s donors over to the federal government. Click here to read an IJ amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to recognize that mandating such disclosures chills speech.

This week on the podcast: indefinite detention, lying child-welfare workers, and the SEC’s unconstitutional ALJs. Use iTunes? Click here. Read on, friends.

• In 2014, New Hampshire legislators authorized abortion clinics to demarcate 25-foot buffer zones outside their facilities. Anti-abortion activists: Which violates our First Amendment rights. First Circuit: No clinic has set up such a zone, and it’s entirely speculative whether one ever will. So this challenge is not ripe.
• Updated from last week: Deported illegal immigrant returns to U.S. to care for his terminally ill common-law wife and raise their grandson, who had been abandoned by their son. He also kicks their other son, a drug addict, out of the house. The other son informs the authorities of his father’s illegal status. Third Circuit (Dec. 30): In light of the too-lengthy but now-completed sentence the immigrant received, the terms of his supervised release should be relaxed. Third Circuit (Jan. 3): Hold off on that. Third Circuit (Jan. 9): And the Dec. 30 opinion is good law again. (Though he’s likely in ICE custody or deported at this point.)
• Officers pull over two women in Brazoria County, Tex., and digitally probe their intimate areas for marijuana without a warrant (and without success) by the side of the road. Excessive force? Quite possibly, says the Fifth Circuit, so an officer who did not intervene to prevent the searches is not entitled to qualified immunity.
• Law clerk at Texas appeals court suspects chief justice has committed financial misconduct, reports it. Allegation: The chief justice sees to it that a job offer offered to the clerk (by a different justice) is withdrawn. Illegal retaliation? The chief justice is not entitled to qualified immunity, said two-thirds of a Fifth Circuit panel last fall. This week: There is no cause to reconsider the matter.
• Allegation: Decatur County, Tenn., officer attests that woman sold drugs; a grand jury indicts. Yikes! Video of the sale, which the officer did not review, shows a different woman. Sixth Circuit: False testimony to a grand jury is protected by absolute immunity, and the plaintiff cannot prove her malicious-prosecution claim without relying upon that testimony.
• Oakland County, Mich., officer busts 19-year-old for pot, convinces her to turn informant. The officer lets slip her role in dealer’s arrest — during the arrest. The dealer murders her. Sixth Circuit: The teen’s mother can sue the officer.
• In order for family members of legal immigrants to obtain approval to stay in the country, they must arrive after the principal visa holder. Feds: So a Lebanese immigrant who arrived 24 days before his father (in 1995) and was mistakenly permitted to stay cannot become a naturalized citizen (in 2017). Sixth Circuit: That’s what the law says.
• Bay County, Mich., guard smuggles prescription mouthwash into jail for inmate with untreated gum disease. No good deed! Gossip about the incident prompts an investigation into prescription drug trafficking by guards. Sixth Circuit: A different guard who pushed back against the investigation (by urging fellow guards to disobey orders) cannot sue over his discharge — which was perhaps also motivated by his admission that he had sex with