Whether a Bivens action is available to remedy Fourth Amendment violations occurring outside the context of a warrantless home search or against officers of an agency operating under a different legal mandate than those in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics

No question identified. : TO: THE HONORABLE JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR., CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES AND CIRCUIT JUSTICE FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 13.5, Petitioners Gerald Ferreyra and Brian Phillips respectfully request a 29-day extension of the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari up to and including September 22, 2023. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its decision on March 29, 2023, see Attachment A, and denied rehearing en banc on May 26, 2023, see Attachment B. Absent an extension, a petition for certiorari would be due on August 24, 2023. This application is timely because it has been filed more than ten days before the date on which the petition is otherwise due. 8. Ct. R. 13.5. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 1. Because recognizing a Bivens action “is ‘a disfavored judicial activity,” it is settled that no Bivens claim may lie where “there is any rational reason ... to think that Congress is better suited to ‘weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to proceed.” Egbert v. Boule, 142 S. Ct. 1793, 1803, 1805 (2022) (quoting Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 135, 136 (2017)). Two such reasons that create a new Bivens context and foreclose Bivens relief are when “the constitutional right at issue” or “the statutory or other legal mandate under which the officer was operating” meaningfully differs from Bivens itself, which involved a warrantless home search by federal narcotics officers. Ziglar, 582 U.S. at 140. The decision below deepens two already entrenched circuit splits concerning whether a court can extend Bivens to Fourth Amendment claims that do not concern the search of a home, or to Fourth Amendment claims against officers of an agency operating under a different legal mandate. This Court’s review of these important issues is urgently needed. 2. Petitioners are two U.S. Park Police officers who detained Respondent Nathaniel Hicks in July 2015 during both an hour-long “welfare check” and a brief traffic stop lasting “a few minutes.” Hicks v. Ferreyra, 64 F.4th 156, 163 (4th Cir. 2023). The first detention occurred after Petitioner Gerald Ferreyra found Respondent asleep in a vehicle parked along a highway near the headquarters of the National Security Agency, with a “handgun in a ‘holstered case” on the front passenger seat. Jd. at 162, 168 n.3. Respondent explained that he was an on-duty Secret Service agent waiting in an unmarked car to join a motorcade carrying a Cabinet-level Secretary, and Petitioners detained him until their supervisor could confirm his Secret Service status. Jd. at 162-63. Then, after Agent Hicks drove away, he was pulled over and briefly detained by Officer Phillips. Jd. at 163. 3. Respondent subsequently brought a Bivens claim against Petitioners, alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by unlawfully prolonging the welfare check and conducting the brief traffic stop. Id. During a jury trial, the district court denied Petitioners’ Rule 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law, which argued that a Bivens action was not available and that Petitioners were entitled to qualified immunity. Jd. at 164. The jury awarded Respondent $730,000 in compensatory and punitive damages: $305,000 against Officer Ferreyra and $425,000 against Officer Phillips. Jd. In denying Petitioners’ post-trial motions, the district court ruled that this case “do[es] not present either a new [Bivens] context or a new category of defendants,” notwithstanding that the alleged violations occurred during a welfare check and traffic stop, not during a warrantless home search as in Bivens, and that Petitioners are U.S. Park Police officers, not narcotics officers like those in Bivens. Hicks v. Ferreyra, 582 F. Supp. 3d 269, 283 (D. Md. 2022). 4. The Fourth Circuit affirmed. It too failed to find a meaningful distinction between the welfare check or stop of Respondent’s vehicle and the warrantless