The court will also consider whether federal prosecutors can file criminal charges in any district where the fallout of the alleged crime are felt, and if the Mississippi Supreme Court wrongly found a death row inmate forfeited his claims of racial bias in jury selection for his trial.
Additionally, the court will release orders Monday related to its latest conference, and at least one opinion on Tuesday.
Here, Law360 breaks down the week's oral arguments.
Proper Venue in Criminal Trials
On Monday, the Supreme Court will debate whether federal prosecutors can file criminal charges in any district where effects of the alleged conduct were felt.
Former Twitter Inc. — now known as X Corp. — employee Ahmad Abouammo has asked the justices to reverse a Ninth Circuit decision upholding his 2022 conviction for charges related to serving as a secret agent of Saudi Arabia. Abouammo, who lived in Seattle at the time of the offense, is specifically challenging the affirmation of his conviction in the Northern District of California on one count of falsifying a document with the intent to impede or obstruct a federal investigation.
A three-judge panel upheld Abouammo's conviction after finding the Northern District of California was an appropriate venue for his criminal trial. The panel ruled he could've been tried in either the Western District of Washington, where Seattle is located and where the false document was prepared, or in the Northern District of California, where the FBI's San Francisco office is located and where the obstructed investigation was based.
But Abouammo argues the Ninth Circuit's decision contradicts historical understandings of the proper venue for criminal trials and rulings from at least six other circuit courts. The appropriate venue for criminal trials has always been tied to where the alleged crime's essential facts occurred, he said, and under the falsifying document statute — 15 U.S.C. Section 1519 — the only essential fact the government must prove is that a document was fabricated. It doesn't matter that the effects of the fabrication were felt by FBI agents in San Francisco, he said.
Abouammo also claims that upholding the Ninth Circuit's decision would invite "prosecutorial forum-shopping" and violate historical practices, as well as the U.S. Constitution's venue clause, which requires crimes to be tried where they were committed.
The federal government counters that the Constitution's venue clause is not focused on the defendant's location at the time of a crime, but rather the nature of the crime itself. Section 1519 requires proof that a document was fabricated to impede a specific investigation and therefore makes the investigation a part of the crime's elements, it said. The Supreme Court has held that crimes committed outside a specific jurisdiction but are intended to produce detrimental effects in that jurisdiction can be properly tried there, the government argues.
It added that reading Section 1519 to allow Abouammo's California conviction would also be consistent with other statutes covering obstruction of justice crimes. Additionally, allowing trials to take place in the affected jurisdiction is often more practical, the government claims, because the origin of an obstructing act is not always easily determined.
Sidley Austin LLP partner Tobias S. Loss-Eaton will argue for Abouammo, and Anthony A. Yang of the U.S. Solicitor General's Office will argue for the federal government.
The case is Abouammo v. U.S., case number 25-5146.
Court Review of Arbitration Awards
Also on Monday, the justices will consider whether federal courts maintain authority to confirm or overturn arbitration awards in cases they've previously overseen.
Adrian Jules, a former security guard at West Hollywood's famous Chateau Marmont, has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a Second Circuit decision upholding an arbitration award in favor of hotel owner Andre Balazs Properties and sanctions issued against him in an employment discrimination dispute stemming from his 2020 firing. Jules originally sued Andre Balazs Properties and other related entities in New York federal court, but the judge stayed the lawsuit pending arbitration.
The Second Circuit affirmed the district judge's later order confirming the arbitration award after ruling they had authority to decide post-arbitration motions in the dispute. The appellate court said its ruling is grounded in the Supreme Court's decision in Cortez Byrd Chips v. Bill Harbert Construction, which held that a court with the power to stay an action pending arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act also has the authority to confirm the resulting award.
Jules, however, argues a more recent decision — the high court's ruling in Badgerow v. Walters — requires reversal in this case. In Badgerow, the justices ruled that federal courts lack the authority to confirm or vacate arbitration awards only if the application establishes diversity or federal-question jurisdiction by itself. In Jules' case, where both he and Andre Balazs Properties are residents of California, the stayed lawsuit raising federal law questions should have no influence on the New York district judge's authority to confirm or vacate the arbitration award, he said.
Additionally, the text of the FAA's sections regarding the confirmation or vacatur of arbitration awards — Sections 9 and 10, respectively — lack explicit statements of jurisdiction that are found in Section 8, which states federal courts in maritime disputes will retain authority to confirm awards, for example. Congress' deliberate decision to include that language in Section 8 but neither Sections 9 or 10 is telling, Jules said.
Andre Balazs Properties argues Jules is reading too much into the words of Section 8. While that section mandates that federal courts maintain the authority to hear post-arbitration disputes in maritime cases, the fact that Sections 9 and 10 lack the same wording just means federal courts have discretion to maintain similar authority, the company claims. The high court's ruling in Badgerow also applies to scenarios that are completely distinct from Jules' case, it said.
Andre Balazs Properties claims the 2022 ruling only controls situations where there is no previous federal lawsuit filed and the application to confirm or vacate an arbitration award is the first time a federal court has been asked to consider its jurisdiction over a dispute. In cases like this one, it would make no sense to require the parties to file a new, separate lawsuit when one already exists, the company said.
Jenner & Block LLP partner Adam G. Unikowsky will argue for Jules, and Haynes and Boone LLP partner Daniel L. Geyser will argue for Andre Balazs Properties.
The case is Jules v. Andre Balazs Properties et al., case number 25-83.
Racial Bias in Juror Strikes
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will explore whether the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably found a death row inmate had waived his right to challenge prosecutors' allegedly race-based objections to prospective jurors.
Terry Pitchford, a Black man who was sentenced to death for his role in a 2004 fatal armed robbery, has asked the justices to reverse a Fifth Circuit decision reinstating a Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that affirmed his conviction and sentence. Pitchford claims the state court wrongly applied its waiver doctrine to find he had forfeited his right under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky to rebut the prosecutor's race-neutral explanations for preemptively striking Black jurors.
The Fifth Circuit denied Pitchford's request for habeas relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, finding the Mississippi Supreme Court's ruling was reasonable. The panel's decision reversed a Northern District of Mississippi judge's determination that Pitchford's state trial judge had failed to complete the third step of the Batson inquiry, which allows defendants and their attorneys to rebut the prosecution's race-neutral explanations for strikes. Instead, the court accepted the prosecution's explanations and told Pitchford's attorney that the objections were in the trial record.
Pitchford argues the state trial judge wrongly foreclosed any rebuttal from him or his attorney and that the Mississippi Supreme Court's waiver doctrine improperly protects that error from scrutiny on appeal. The doctrine also violates Supreme Court precedent twice over, he claims, by denying him a meaningful opportunity to rebut the prosecution's arguments either on remand at the trial court or on appeal for the first time. The state court's errors are so severe and "structural" that the Supreme Court must either order Pitchford to be retried or released, he said.
But Burl Cain, commissioner of Mississippi's Department of Corrections, contends defendants and their attorneys have the responsibility to rebut the prosecution's race-neutral explanations at the time they're provided. Pitchford's attorney waived the right to do so when they allowed the trial court to continue on with jury selection after accepting the prosecution's explanations, he said. Criminal defendants cannot raise claims that the prosecution's explanations are pretextual for the first time on appeal and have them heard, he argues.
The federal government, which will argue in favor of Cain, agrees that it is defense counsel's responsibility to make rebuttal arguments at the time the prosecution provides its explanations. The Supreme Court has previously held that a constitutional right can be forfeited by failure to timely assert it, and that's what happened in Pitchford's case, the government said. The Mississippi Supreme Court's waiver doctrine simply implements the general practice of requiring parties to preserve issues and arguments for appeal, and it is not unreasonable, the government added.
Phillips Black Inc. principal Joseph J. Perkovich will argue for Pitchford, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott G. Stewart will argue for Cain, and Emily M. Ferguson of the U.S. Solicitor General's Office will argue for the federal government in favor of Mississippi.
The case is Pitchford v. Cain et al., case number 24-7351.
Birthright Citizenship
On Wednesday, the justices will consider whether Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship to babies born to at least one U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent complies with the Constitution and federal law.
The president has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a Ninth Circuit decision finding that the executive order, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," violates both the 14th Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act's provision granting citizenship to "a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." He is also challenging a New Hampshire federal judge's preliminary injunction barring the administration from enforcing the executive order against a nationwide class of affected babies.
Both lower courts based their rulings on the century-old understanding that the 14th Amendment's provision stating that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." Since the Supreme Court's 1898 ruling in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the clause has been understood to grant citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. regardless of their parents' immigration status, with a few exceptions, including for children of foreign diplomats or invading enemy troops.
Trump, however, contends the 14th Amendment has a more limited meaning. The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" refers to an individuals' allegiance to the country, which the president claims is established only by having a "lawful domicile" in the U.S. Under that reading, immigrants who are not permanently or lawfully present in the country are not covered, he said.
The Supreme Court's prior interpretation of the jurisdiction phrase as referring to an individual being subject to the laws and authority of the U.S. would make no sense in context with the exceptions that have been made for children of foreign diplomats and others, Trump added. The 14th Amendment's enactment shortly after the Civil War also provides important context for the original public understanding of the birthright citizenship clause, which the president argues was meant to make freed slaves and their children citizens.
The nationwide class of children from the New Hampshire case, led by a plaintiff named only as Barbara in court filings, has urged the Supreme Court to reiterate its ruling from Wong Kim Ark and to find that birthright citizenship extends to most babies born in the country regardless of their parents' immigration status. Even if the amendment's meaning is unclear, the INA's birthright citizenship clause provides a more recent interpretation of those original words. The statute, which was enacted in 1940 and recodified in 1952, not only provides a separate path to declaring the president's executive order invalid, the class argues, but also to interpreting what the executive branch has long believed the Founders intended by writing the constitutional birthright citizenship clause.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer will argue for the federal government, and Cecillia D. Wang, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, will argue for Barbara.
The case is Trump et al. v. Barbara et al., case number 25-365.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
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