Supreme Court takes new cases, including Mexican suit against U.S. gunmakers

The Supreme Court on Friday added more than a dozen cases for its term starting Monday, including a lawsuit by the Mexican government seeking to hold U.S. gunmakers liable for violence there, a death penalty appeal and a lawsuit by a woman who says she was discriminated against for being heterosexual.

Mexico took legal action in 2021 against leading firearms manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson, Beretta and Colt, accusing the companies of profiting for decades off the illegal smuggling of dangerous weapons to the powerful criminal organizations in that country.

The lawsuit does not accuse the gun manufacturers of directly colluding with the cartels, but said the manufacture of assault rifles and weapons with large capacity magazines has helped fuel the violence. They also assert the manufacturers should have placed tighter controls on sales to keep the weapons from filtering south.

Mexico wrote in its brief that roughly 350,000 to 600,000 guns made by the manufacturers are trafficked into Mexico each year and nearly half of all guns recovered at crime scenes are from the U.S. companies. Mexico alleges most of those guns were originally bought by “straw purchasers” in the United States who sell them to smugglers or traffic them to the cartels.

“The flood of Petitioners’ firearms from sources in the United States to cartels in Mexico is no accident,” the Mexican government wrote in a brief. “It results from Petitioners’ knowing and deliberate choice to supply their products to bad actors, to allow reckless and unlawful practices that feed the crime-gun pipeline, and to design and market their products in ways that Petitioners intend will drive up demand among the cartels.”

The seven gunmakers vigorously denied they bore any responsibility for violence in Mexico.

“Mexico’s suit has no business in an American court,” the gunmakers wrote in their brief to the Supreme Court.

The companies argue the lawsuit is preempted by a U.S. law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields gunmakers from criminal acts involving their weapons. A federal district court in Boston agreed with that argument and dismissed the case, before it was revived after an appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The gun manufacturers then asked the high court to weigh in.

The Supreme Court’s new term is set to begin with oral arguments on Monday. The court will take up its first significant case the next day, when it hears a challenge to the Biden administration’s regulations of “ghost guns,” the untraceable firearms made from homemade kits. Also on the docket are cases involving state bans on gender-affirming medical treatments for adolescents and age-verification requirements to protect minors from online pornography.

On Wednesday, the court is scheduled to consider the long-running death penalty case of Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man convicted in a 1997 murder. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys say Glossip should receive a new trial after independent investigations revealed prosecutorial misconduct.

The court added a second death penalty case to its calendar Friday, announcing that it would review the request of a Texas death row inmate seeking access to DNA testing that he says would prove his innocence in a 1998 killing. In July, the justices intervened to delay the execution of Ruben Gutierrez, who was convicted of murder 25 years ago.

In 2020, the court stayed Gutierrez’s execution after he challenged a Texas law that barred a spiritual adviser from being present with him in the execution chamber.

Gutierrez has for years sought to test the biological evidence collected at the crime scene, where an 85-year-old retired teacher was beaten to death in her mobile home, where she kept large amounts of cash. Evidence showed that two men entered the mobile home and that the victim, Escolastica Harrison, was stabbed to death. Gutierrez’s attorneys have said that he never entered her home.

In a statement following the court’s announcement, Gutierrez’s attorney Shawn Nolan said his client is now “one step closer to finally doing the DNA testing that will overturn Ruben’s wrongful conviction and death sentence.”

The Texas Attorney General’s office has denied his requests for DNA testing because it says state law does not allow for testing to avoid the death penalty after a conviction.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled against Gutierrez, saying his case was not affected by a separate Supreme Court decision involving a death row inmate in Texas seeking access to DNA testing.

The justices will also look at when law enforcement officers can be held accountable for using deadly force in a case involving a fatal traffic stop in Texas. Ashtian Barnes was killed in 2016 by an officer outside of Houston after being pulled over while driving a rental car, which had unpaid toll fees.

When Barnes began to pull away, officer Roberto Felix stood on the runner of the car and fired two shots, striking Barnes in the head and killing him, according to court filings. Barnes’s mother sued over the use of lethal force against her son, which she said is a violation of his constitutional rights.

The 5th Circuit upheld a lower court finding that the officer’s actions were reasonable under the appeals court’s current standard of review but called on the Supreme Court to clarify how courts should evaluate when deadly force is reasonable and constitutional.

In another case, the justices will take up the workplace discrimination complaint involving Marlean Ames, who sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services saying she was passed over for a promotion and later demoted because she is heterosexual.

Ames, who worked for the department for more than a decade, said her boss, a lesbian, picked a less qualified woman, also a lesbian, for the promotion Ames sought. Ames was then demoted, and her former position was filled by a gay man, who Ames said was also less qualified.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit sided with the state agency. Ames’s attorneys are asking the Supreme Court to address what they say is a higher bar for employees in a “majority group” to proceed with workplace discrimination claims.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost urged the justices to reject Ames’s claims, saying the department had “legitimate, nondiscriminatory, reasons for hiring someone other than Ames” and that she failed to introduce evidence that the people making hiring decisions knew of her sexual orientation.

In addition, the high court will take up the thorny issue of the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court a decision issued by the Fifth Circuit of Appeals that allowed Texas to challenge a federal plan to store tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste on the Permian Basin in the state.

The case will be the latest in a string the court has taken up in recent terms challenging the power of federal agencies. The Court will address who is allowed to challenge an action by an agency, possibly making it easier for more parties to seek court reviews.