STROUP, DIRECTOR, SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, ET AL.
v.
WILLCOX ET AL.
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South Carolina state officials sought an emergency stay of a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judgment pending petition for certiorari, arguing primarily that the appeals court should have certified disputed questions of state property law to the South Carolina Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied the stay request, finding that applicants failed to meet the standard for such relief and undermined their position by raising their main argument only in passing before the lower court rather than as a central issue.
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Chief Justice Roberts,
Circuit Justice.
The State of South Carolina and Rodger Stroup, the director of the State’s Department of Archives and History, apply for a stay of the judgment issued by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit pending the filing and disposition of a petition for writ of certiorari in this Court. Their request fails to meet our standard for such relief. See Barnes v. E-Systems, Inc. Group Hospital Medical & Surgical Ins. Plan, 501 U. S. 1301, 1302 (1991) (Scalia, J., in chambers).
Moreover, a request for extraordinary equitable relief is certainly undermined when the central argument pressed was only mentioned by applicants in passing in the court below. Applicants’ request is based almost exclusively on the Court of Appeals’ failure to certify to the Supreme Court of South Carolina contested questions of state property law. In their initial submission to the Court of Appeals, however, applicants requested that the court rule on the merits of the matter. They merely noted that certification “is an option for [the] Court if it wants guidance from the South Carolina Supreme Court.” Brief for Appellants in No. 06-1179 (CA4), p. 37, n. 9.
Accordingly, the request for a stay is denied.
It is so ordered.