Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-962_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 5.0

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

n. 6  (opinion  of  the  Court)  (slip  op.,  at  17,  n. 6).  And  they 
emphasized  that  any  dispute  among  the  eight  Justices 
“[wa]sn’t  really  about  whether  this  case  should  proceed,” 
but “about which particular defendants the petitioners may 
sue.”  Id.,  at  ___,  n. 5  (slip  op.,  at  15,  n. 5).    Soon  after, 
JUSTICE GORSUCH granted the petitioners’ application to is-
sue the judgment forthwith, rather than waiting the stand-
ard 25 days.2 

After this Court issued its judgment, however, the litiga-
tion stalled.  The Fifth Circuit should have immediately re-
manded this case to the District Court, allowing it to con-
sider whether to issue preliminary relief.  But Texas moved 
to certify to the Supreme Court of Texas the question this 
Court had just decided: whether state licensing officials had 
authority under state law to enforce S. B. 8.  Texas never 
asked  the  Fifth  Circuit  to  certify  this  question  during  its 
first pass through that court, nor did it ever ask this Court 
to do so.  Even so, a Fifth Circuit panel indulged the request
by scheduling oral argument.  Judge Higginson dissented 
from the court’s decision to do so, explaining that he “d[id] 
not read the Supreme Court’s judgment, especially in a case 
of this magnitude and acceleration, to countenance such de-
lay.”  Whole  Woman’s  Health  v.  Jackson,  No.  21–50792 
(Dec. 27, 2021), p. 1.

On January 3, 2022, the petitioners requested a writ of
mandamus from this Court ordering the panel below to re-
mand the case to the  District Court.   At argument before 
the  Fifth  Circuit  four  days  later,  one  judge  on  the  panel 
raised the notion that because this Court is considering a
challenge to Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), the panel 
could  “just  sit  on  this  until  the  end  of  June”  rather  than
fulfill its obligation to apply existing precedent.  Recording 
—————— 

2 The petitioners also asked the Court to remand the case directly to 
the District Court, skipping over the Court of Appeals, but they did not 
identify any previous case in which this Court had done so, nor any au-
thority under which this Court could have done so.