In September the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court for two things in a case about a transgender woman held in a Colorado jail. Wipe out the appeals court ruling in her favor, the brief said, and send it back "with a statement explaining that such claims fail as a matter of law." On Monday the justices did the first and not the second.
The November 9 order list disposes of Roybal v. Griffith, No. 25-442, in two sentences. The petition is granted, the judgment is vacated, and the case goes back to the Tenth Circuit "for further consideration in light of West Virginia v. B. P. J., 609 U. S. 958 (2026), and United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U. S. 495 (2025)." No justice wrote separately. No dissent is noted.
What the case is about
Darlene Griffith entered the El Paso County jail in Colorado as a pretrial detainee in 2020, according to the facts set out in the Solicitor General's brief, which takes the allegations of the complaint as true because the case was dismissed before trial. She was assigned to a male housing unit and alleges she was denied women's underwear and lipstick that female inmates could buy. During an intake search, she asked that a female officer conduct it. A female officer examined the top half of her body and a male officer the bottom half, and she alleges he made offensive remarks while doing it.
The district court dismissed the suit. In February 2025 a divided Tenth Circuit panel revived parts of it, holding that the jail's policies classify inmates by sex and so face intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, and that Griffith had plausibly alleged that the search violated her rights. The full Tenth Circuit declined to rehear the case in June 2025. El Paso County Sheriff Joseph Roybal and other county officials then petitioned the Supreme Court.
What the government argued
The Justice Department was not a party. The Court asked for its views on June 30, 2026, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed his brief on September 25. It told the Court that the Tenth Circuit leaned on two rulings that no longer stand. One was its own decision in Fowler v. Stitt, an Oklahoma birth certificate case the Supreme Court vacated in 2025. The other was the Ninth Circuit's Hecox v. Little, which the Court reversed in 2026 in West Virginia v. B.P.J., the transgender athletes case.
The brief recommended against full review. It said there was no circuit conflict worth resolving now and called the case "a particularly poor vehicle for further review." Its preferred route was a remand, and it added that if the Court paired that remand with an explanatory statement, "the questions presented should become largely academic." The order contains no such statement. The Tenth Circuit gets the case back with the two precedents named and nothing more.
Our timeline
February 19, 2025: The Tenth Circuit rules for Griffith in part, per the Supreme Court docket.
June 10, 2025: Rehearing by the full Tenth Circuit is denied.
October 7, 2025: The county files its petition.
November 10, 2025: Griffith files her opposition. A group of 23 states led by Kansas, along with the Arizona Legislature, files a brief supporting the county.
December 12, 2025: The petition goes to the justices' private conference. The next docket entry is dated June 29, 2026, 199 days later.
June 30, 2026: The Court invites the Solicitor General's views.
September 25, 2026: The government's brief is filed, 87 days later.
November 9, 2026: Granted, vacated and remanded, 398 days after the petition was filed and 628 days after the Tenth Circuit ruled.
Our count of the whole order list
The Griffith case was one line on a 14-page list. We counted 274 docket numbers on it. Three were summary dispositions like Griffith's. The other two were Harrington v. Martin, sent back to the Seventh Circuit in light of Zorn v. Linton, and Cid v. United States, sent back to the Eleventh Circuit in light of Hunter v. United States.
The section headed "Certiorari Denied" lists 230 docket numbers by our count. Of those, 84 carry docket numbers below 5000, the range the Court uses for paid petitions, and 146 carry numbers of 5000 and up, the range for petitions filed in forma pauperis, usually by prisoners and others who cannot pay the filing fee. That section includes two petitions for review before judgment and one petition dismissed under the Court's Rule 39.8 for repeated abuse of its process. The list also denies 4 habeas petitions, 8 mandamus petitions, 1 prohibition petition and 15 rehearing petitions.
Two justices sat out single cases. Justice Samuel Alito took no part in Grace v. RTX Corp. Justice Elena Kagan took no part in a criminal petition, citing the federal recusal statute and the justices' code of conduct on prior government employment. The list also invites the Solicitor General's views in AstraZeneca UK Ltd. v. Atchley, an Anti-Terrorism Act case about Iraq, and grants the government's request to take part in the argument of the Cook County assault weapons challenge, Viramontes v. Cook County. Its final page disbars Larry Elliot Klayman from practice before the Court, after a suspension ordered June 8, 2026.
Not one of the 274 entries carries a written dissent or statement.
What happens next
The Tenth Circuit must now decide whether Griffith's equal protection and search claims survive under B.P.J. and Skrmetti. It can ask for new briefing or rule on the papers. The same day, the Court issued an unsigned order of a different kind, its five page Big Bend border wall stay, and heard a federal prisoner's damages case about care behind bars.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
