In January, the Supreme Court granted cert. review of the same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to determine whether state-level bans against gay marriage, as well as state laws forbidding the recognition of gay marriages performed in other states, violate the federal Constitution. All four cases – #14-556, #14-562, #14-571, and #14-574 – have been vided and will be heard together in April.
We have received numerous calls about filing amici briefs in these consolidated cases. Amici briefs in support of the Petitioners are due March 6th. Amici briefs in support of the Respondents are due April 3rd. Here are a couple of filing questions we’ve already received:
- I want to file in all four cases. What should my cover look like?
If you can’t fit all four case captions on your cover, you have two options:
- Reproduce all four vided docket numbers at the top of the cover and use only the case caption in #14-556 with “et al.” after both “Petitioners” and “Respondents.” Here is a sample from the EPA cases filed last year in which six cases were vided.
- Follow option one, and also reproduce the additional case captions on an inside cover. Here is another sample from the same case which follows this style.
The Court has no preference as to options #1 or #2, but you’ll need all four docket numbers in order to be docketed in all four cases. If you plan on putting additional amici or counsel on an inside cover, you may want to choose option #1 as the Court only allows one inside cover.
- Does the Court need 160 copies of my brief?
The Court will take 40 copies regardless of how many docket numbers appear on your vided cover.
- Whom do I serve? How many copies do I send?
There are eight counsels of record who require service in #14-556, #14-562, #14-571, and #14-574 respectively, which means 24 service copies in total. You don’t need to serve other amici. We have the service list on file so that you won’t need to create your own.