On September 11, 2026, the Supreme Court dismissed Genalo v. Black, No. 25-886, a case that was supposed to resolve a real fight over immigration detention and the Due Process Clause. It never got the chance. Three calendar days before the respondent’s merits brief was due, New York Governor Kathy Hochul granted him a full and unconditional pardon, erasing the very conviction that gave the federal government its authority to hold him without bond. The case went moot, the Court dismissed it under its own Rule 46.1, and a Second Circuit precedent I believe is badly wrong survives untouched. New York has run this exact play before.
A Bond-Hearing Fight Congress Thought It Had Settled
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), Congress required the government to detain certain criminal aliens without a bond hearing while removal proceedings are pending — a mandatory-detention statute, not a discretionary one. Two respondents, Carol Williams Black and a man identified in the record as G.M., argued that Section 1226(c) is unconstitutional once detention grows “prolonged.” The Second Circuit agreed in Black v. Decker; G.M. v. Decker, 103 F.4th 133 (2d Cir. 2024), holding that the Due Process Clause entitles such aliens to bond hearings, with the government bearing the burden of justifying continued detention by clear and convincing evidence. That ruling built on the Supreme Court’s own restraint in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281 (2018), which read the statute as authorizing no bond hearings at all but stopped short of the constitutional question. The Court granted certiorari on June 15, 2026 — but only as to G.M.’s case; Black had already left the country, mooting his half first. G.M.’s case, now captioned Genalo v. Black after Kenneth Genalo succeeded Thomas Decker as director of ICE’s New York field office, was left as the sole vehicle for testing whether the Second Circuit’s rule can stand.
A Pardon Timed to the Calendar
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Clerk exactly what happened, in a September 11 letter worth reading in full:
“At the certiorari stage, the parties agreed that Black’s case had become moot after the court of appeals’ decision… and this Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari as to G.M.’s case only. Three calendar days before G.M.’s merits brief was due, however, the Governor of New York granted a full and unconditional pardon with respect to G.M.’s aggravated-felony conviction… That conviction is the basis for the pending removal proceedings against G.M., see 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) … and also the foundation of the government’s arguments for mandatory detention pending those proceedings, see 8 U.S.C. 1226(c)(1)(B). As a result of the pardon, G.M. would no longer be subject to such detention. See 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(vi). The government therefore agrees with G.M. that his habeas case is now moot.”
Congress itself wrote Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(vi) to erase removability once a pardon issues. Three days of calendar was all it took to convert a live Supreme Court case into nothing at all.
Why a Pardon Beats an Argument
Article III confines federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to actual “cases” and “controversies.” Once G.M. was no longer subject to mandatory detention, there was no live dispute left to resolve, and a case with no live dispute gets dismissed for lack of jurisdiction — not decided on the merits, however clear the underlying legal error. The government also did not ask the Court to vacate the Second Circuit’s judgment on its way out, the remedy ordinarily available in a mooted appeal. That choice leaves the Second Circuit’s bond-hearing rule fully intact as binding precedent across New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
New York Has Run This Play Before
This is not New York’s first use of timing to keep the Court from ruling. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. City of New York, 590 U.S. 336 (2020), the city repealed the very transport ordinance the Court had agreed to review, mooting the case out from under the petitioners just as a ruling appeared imminent. The Court held the injunctive claim moot in a per curiam opinion, vacated the Second Circuit’s judgment, and remanded rather than reach the merits. It took roughly two years and two months, but the underlying question did not disappear — the Court answered it decisively in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). A state actor can extinguish one case, but not the legal question, which tends to resurface in a different vehicle.
The Pardon She Won’t Sign
The starkest part of this story is the pardon Governor Hochul has not granted. Dexter Taylor, a Brooklyn gun maker, was convicted in New York state court of unlicensed firearm manufacturing and possession and sentenced in May 2024 to ten years. His conviction, like G.M.’s, is a state matter only the Governor can pardon. Unlike G.M.’s underlying offense, an assault, Taylor’s conduct harmed no one; it was the exercise of a constitutional right treated as a felony. Governor Hochul moved swiftly to protect a precedent that benefits detained aliens in the Second Circuit. She has shown no comparable urgency toward a gun owner serving a decade in a state prison, and that contrast tells you where her priorities sit.
The Solicitor General is left hunting for a new case to test a bond-hearing rule I believe misreads the statute. Dexter Taylor is left waiting for a pardon his governor has had two years to grant. Whether a state actor could aim this same mootness maneuver at the pending AR-15 litigation is a question for another day.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.