December 3, 2025: Relist Analysis, Part II

In a previous post on November 17, I listed the most-relisted petitions that, at the time, were still pending at the Supreme Court. As I noted, the most-relisted such petition then was No. 24-1159, Pitts v. Mississippi. As it happens, exactly a week later (in its scheduled November 24 order list), the Court granted the petition--but not in the way you would usually expect, where it will hold oral argument multiple months in the future, people will be able to submit amicus briefs, etc. Instead, the Court summarily reversed the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision in an unsigned per curiam opinion, with no separate writings or noted dissents whatsoever.

I also noted then that the second-most relisted pending petition at the time was a five-way tie:

1. Neilly v. Michigan, No. 24-395. 
2. Kyle Smith v. Rochelle Scott, No. 24-1099. 
3. Kari Beck v. United States, No. 24-1078. This one was denied on November 24. Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion, and Gorsuch noted his dissent (though he neither wrote a dissenting opinion nor joined Thomas's opinion). Also, Sotomayor wrote an opinion respecting the denial.
4. John Doe v. Kathy Hochul, No. 24-1015. 
5. National Basketball Association v. Michael Salazar, No. 24-994. 

So, in short, there is now a three-way tie for the most relisted pending petitions, each of which has now been relisted 7 times:

1. National Basketball Association v. Michael Salazar, No. 24-994
2. John Doe v. Kathy Hochul, No. 24-1015
3. Kyle Smith v. Rochelle Scott, No. 24-1099

I discussed each of these in my previous post, so I will not revisit the factual details of each case here. However, I will note that the petitioners in each case (a huge corporation like the NBA in No. 24-994, anti-vaccine religious conservatives in No. 24-1015, and police officers in No. 24-1099) belong to groups with which the Republican supermajority on the current Supreme Court is clearly likely to sympathize.

In second place, it's a four-way tie between these petitions, each of which has been relisted six times:

1. Neilly v. Michigan, No. 24-395. 
2. Pitchford v. Cain, No. 24-7351.
3. Reed v. Goertz, No. 24-1268.
4. Klein v. Martin, No. 25-51.

I discussed the first one (No. 24-395) in my previous post, so I won't revisit it here, except to note that it is clearly being held for another case (Ellingburg v. United States) where the Court has granted certiorari but not issued a decision yet. So we shouldn't expect any action on that petition until a decision is issued in Ellingburg. It is unclear when that will happen, but the Court already held oral arguments in that case on October 14, almost two months ago now. The second and third petitions on this list are both interesting ones that I haven't discussed previously. Both are capital cases where the petitioners are death row inmates arguing that their constitutional rights have been violated. Pitchford is about racial discrimination in jury selection, and Reed is about an alleged due process violation of the DNA testing procedures available to death row inmates in Texas.

The fourth, Klein v. Martin, is an appeal from the state of Maryland, which is understandably unhappy that one of their state court convictions was overturned by the Fourth Circuit. The petition claims that the Fourth Circuit panel that overturned the conviction "flouted AEDPA’s requirement of deference by demanding a “nuanced” and “exhaustive” written analysis from the state court and then conducting its own de novo review when the state court’s reasoning proved insufficiently detailed for the federal court’s satisfaction."

Interestingly, Klein v. Martin was filed simultaneously with Clark v. Sweeney, No. 25-52, which was a very similar case procedurally. With both petitions, Maryland sought review of a decision by a (different) divided Fourth Circuit panel to grant habeas relief to someone who had been convicted of a crime in Maryland state court. As a result, the petitioner in both cases is a Maryland prison official and the respondent is the specific Maryland prisoner who successfully obtained habeas relief from the Fourth Circuit. The Court already granted the petition in Clark, and summarily reversed the Fourth Circuit's decision, on November 24, after only three relists. But the petition in Klein has now been relisted six times, so clearly the Court doesn't think it's such a straightforward case of the Fourth Circuit being wrong.