The Supreme Court's first relist watch of the 2026-27 term finds the justices facing a familiar habeas question and a fresh set of property-rights disputes. Of the 100 cases on the docket for the September 28 conference, 14 are relists—13 new and one summer holdover. The lone holdover, Berry v. United States, asks whether a certificate of appealability should issue when a prisoner's claim is barred by his own circuit's precedent but accepted elsewhere. A companion petition, Clark v. United States, raises the same issue, and the court appears to have held Berry so the two could be considered together.
On the takings side, three petitions give the justices multiple vehicles to revisit the police-power exception to the Fifth Amendment. Hadley v. City of South Bend and Pena v. City of Los Angeles both involve tear gas and property damage during police standoffs, while O'Donnell v. City of Chicago challenges Chicago's practice of booting, towing, and selling cars over unpaid parking tickets. The petitioners argue the lower courts are split on whether the exception exists; the cities respond that every court agrees damage reasonably caused by law enforcement is not compensable. The court has repeatedly declined to hear such cases, but Justice Sotomayor and Justice Gorsuch have previously signaled the issue deserves another look.