In a court where, as one justice has said, Fourth Amendment cases are a “growth industry,” the current U.S. Supreme Court term stands in stark contrast with only one, rather traditional case granted so far. But the stakes could change dramatically with the addition of one more—a politically sensitive challenge that involves a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican boy on Mexican soil.
The justices will consider Hernandez v. Mesa for the second time during their Nov. 6 conference. The parents of Sergio Hernandez, represented by Deepak Gupta of Washington’s Gupta Wessler, are asking the high court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that held the Fourth Amendment’s protection against excessive deadly force did not apply because their son was a Mexican citizen with no significant voluntary connection to the United States and he was killed on Mexican territory.
