{"id":10714,"date":"2017-11-14T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=10714"},"modified":"2018-12-24T23:16:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T04:16:46","slug":"ames-moot-court-final-round-november-14-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/ames-moot-court-final-round-november-14-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Ames Moot Court Final Round &#8211; November 14, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Welcome to CR-CL&#8217;s Live Blog of the Ames Moot Court Finals!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Please scroll down for the live blog. We&#8217;ll start blogging shortly before 7:30 pm on November 14, 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Ames Competition is one of the most prestigious competitions for appellate brief writing and advocacy in the country. This year&#8217;s final round competition will be judged by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Carl E. Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Dylan Bloom v. United States of America<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like all male U.S. citizens, petitioner Dylan Bloom was required to register with the Selective Service System when he turned 18 years old in June 2007.\u00a0 But Bloom declined to register then or at any time before his 26th birthday in June 2015.\u00a0 Bloom openly flouted the registration requirement, sending an annual letter to the Selective Service System stating that he had not registered for the draft and did not intend to do so.\u00a0 Bloom also criticized the draft in postings on social media sites and counseled teenagers on a swim team he coached to decline to register.<\/p>\n<p>The government indicted Bloom on one count of willfully failing to register with the Selective Service System, in violation of 50 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 3802(a) and 3811(a).\u00a0 Bloom moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the statute impermissibly discriminates on the basis of gender in violation of equal protection by requiring men, but not women, to register for the draft.\u00a0 The district court denied the motion because the Supreme Court rejected an equal protection challenge to the registration requirement in\u00a0<em>Rostker v. Goldberg<\/em>, 453 U.S. 57 (1981).<\/p>\n<p>Bloom then decided to enter a conditional guilty plea, and he consented to have a magistrate judge conduct the plea colloquy and accept his guilty plea.\u00a0 But before sentencing, Bloom moved to withdraw his plea.\u00a0 Bloom contended that he had an unqualified right to withdraw under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(d)(1), which applies \u201cbefore the court accepts the plea.\u201d\u00a0 Bloom argued that the magistrate judge had lacked statutory and constitutional authority to accept the plea.\u00a0 Bloom contended that the acceptance of guilty pleas in felony cases cannot qualify as an \u201cadditional duty\u201d under Section 636(b)(3) of the Federal Magistrates Act.\u00a0 And Bloom further argued that permitting magistrate judges to accept felony guilty pleas would usurp judicial power in violation of Article III\u2019s structural guarantee.\u00a0 The district court rejected those arguments and denied Bloom\u2019s motion to withdraw.<\/p>\n<p>The Ames Circuit affirmed.\u00a0 On the equal protection issue, the Ames Circuit recognized that\u00a0<em>Rostker<\/em>\u2019s equal protection holding rested on the fact that men and women were not similarly situated for draft registration purposes because women were ineligible to serve in combat when\u00a0<em>Rostker<\/em>\u00a0was decided.\u00a0 Although combat restrictions on women in the military were gradually removed and ultimately lifted in full by January 2016, the Ames Circuit concluded that it was the Supreme Court\u2019s prerogative to determine whether\u00a0<em>Rostker<\/em>\u00a0was still good law and controlled the validity of Bloom\u2019s conviction.\u00a0 On the plea withdrawal issue, the Ames Circuit held that magistrate judges have statutory authority to accept felony guilty pleas and that such authority does not violate Article III.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(1) Whether it should overrule\u00a0<em>Rostker\u00a0<\/em>and hold that Bloom\u2019s conviction must be vacated \u00a0because the Selective Service registration requirement unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of gender; and<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(2) Whether Bloom is entitled to withdraw his felony guilty plea as a matter of right because the magistrate judge lacked statutory or constitutional authority to accept the plea.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finalist Teams:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The John Hart Ely Memorial Team<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>David Beylik<br \/>\nJason Ethridge (Oralist)<br \/>\nJenya Godina<br \/>\nIsaac Park<br \/>\nDavid Phillips (Oralist)<br \/>\nDerek Reinbold<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Fred T. Korematsu Memorial Team<br \/>\n<\/strong>Frederick Ding (Oralist)<br \/>\nVivian Dong<br \/>\nHenry Druschel<br \/>\nLydia Lichlyter (Oralist)<br \/>\nRaeesa Munshi<br \/>\nWilliam Schmidt<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>The Liveblog:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to CR-CL&#8217;s Live Blog of the Ames Moot Court Finals! Please scroll down for the live blog. We&#8217;ll start [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":10717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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