Today in Supreme Court History: July 26

DeBoer by Darrow v. DeBoer, 509 U.S. 1301 (decided July 26, 1993): Stevens denies (on grounds of lack of a federal issue) couple’s petition to stay Michigan Supreme Court’s order to hand over to biological parents the baby girl they had taken care of for two years; Michigan held that papers signed by biological mother giving child up for adoption were defective and did not have required 72-hour waiting period. (Years ago when I ran a crisis center I allowed it to serve as the site for handing over children in such situations, or for later visitations with a biological parent who had lost custody; there is no more heartbreaking scene.)

Trump v. Sierra Club, 140 S.Ct. 1 (decided July 26, 2019): staying the District Court’s injunction against building the border wall (on both environmental and humanitarian grounds) pending Ninth Circuit determination and then possible certiorari on the grounds that plaintiffs probably have no standing to bring suit in the first place; Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan dissent; Breyer notes the harm if the wall is built (environmental damage) versus the Gov’t’s claim of harm if not built (construction contracts not finalized and loss of funds) and argues that a middle way would be to stay construction but let the contracts get finalized. (A year later the Court maintained the stay even though contracts had been finalized, so the wall got partly built, but when Biden came in he stopped the project and the parties agreed to discontinue.)