Churches Ask Supreme Court To Address Validity Of Expired Gathering Restrictions

Mealey's (March 29, 2023, 5:07 PM EDT) -- WASHINGTON, D.C. — A pair of New Jersey churches and their pastors filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of a circuit court of appeals ruling determining that the petitioners’ challenge to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s restrictions on in-person church services during the COVID-19 pandemic was moot and requesting that the court determine exactly how the exceptions to mootness — the voluntary cessation doctrine and the capable-of-repetition-but-evading-review exception — should be applied where the government retains the authority to reissue a restriction that had been withdrawn, citing a wide disagreement within the circuits....