No new grants today

The Supreme Courtreleased ordersthis morning from the justices private conference last week. The justices once again did not act on several high-profile petitions for review that they considered at last weeks conference, including a case involving whether the state of Washington violated a florists constitutional rights by requiring her to provide flowers for same-sex weddings despite her religious objections and a challenge to a 2018 rule that expanded the definition of machinegun under federal law to include bump-stocks attachments that help a semiautomatic rifle to fire faster.

The justices called for the views of the federal government inCACI Premier Technology v. al Shimari, a case brought against CACI, a government contractor that provided civilian interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, by Iraqi citizens who allege that they were abused by CACI employees while detained there. The issue on which the U.S. solicitor general will weigh in is whether an order denying CACIs claim for derivative sovereign immunity can be appealed immediately.

The justices also ordered oral argumentin a dispute between New Mexico and Texasover the use of the waters of the Pecos River, which originates in north-central New Mexico and flows into Texas, where it empties into the Rio Grande River.

The justices are now in their winter recess. Their next conference is scheduled for Friday, February 21; orders from that conference will likely be released at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, February 24.

This post was originally published at Howe on the Court.