Weekly roundup highlights diverse federal appellate rulings across civil rights, criminal and tech disputes

In its latest edition, Short Circuit presents a collection of appellate rulings that touch on a wide array of legal issues. A Bound by Oath podcast episode revisits the 1966 Younger v. Harris case that birthed the Younger abstention doctrine, while a new Short Circuit podcast episode affirms First Amendment rights to record police and Fourth Amendment protections against ID requests, even when arrests follow. The First Circuit assumed a rational-basis review for Puerto Rican nonbinary birth-certificate petitions, whereas the Second Circuit upheld school-district authority to remove pride flags from classrooms.

The Third Circuit labeled a botched hit-and-hold search as a mere mistake, leaving the defendant liable for seized drugs. The Ninth Circuit declined to apply federal preemption to sports-event contracts, creating a circuit split with the Third Circuit, and also ruled that in-rem jurisdiction over foreign assets violates due-process. Additional decisions include a Fifth Circuit restitution order for a police chief’s wrist-twist, a Sixth Circuit reversal of a district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction against Tennessee’s child-social-media law, and a Tenth Circuit note on Utah’s mandatory bar-dues split. The roundup underscores how appellate courts continue to shape policy across civil rights, technology, and criminal law.