During oral argument in January on an Idaho law barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, Justice Sonia Sotomayor briefly reflected on the spotlight that comes with being involved in a Supreme Court case, noting that having your name on a brief draws attention to you not only as a litigant, but as a person.
But some parties before the court have a spotlight on them well before the justices view their name on a filing. Among the petitions for review awaiting the justices’ attention this spring, there are at least four that involve well-known petitioners or “friends of the court,” including sports figures, rappers, and two of the country’s most famous magicians.
Here’s an overview of those four petitions and their significance, and a brief reflection on what a public figure’s involvement can mean for a case.
An NFL coach v. the NFL
Can the NFL grant its own commissioner complete authority to determine if a coach’s claim against it is successful? That’s the question at the center of a petition for review in a case pitting the NFL and three of its teams against one of its most prominent Black coaches.
The petition stems from a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores in 2022 against the NFL, Dolphins, New York Giants, and Denver Broncos. Flores alleged that his status as a Black man had played a role in the Dolphins’ decision to fire him and the Giants’ and Broncos’ decision not to hire him. The class-action lawsuit later expanded to include two other Black coaches as plaintiffs and three more NFL teams.
Citing the NFL Constitution and team-specific arbitration agreements, the league and teams moved to compel arbitration, contending that Flores, who is currently the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and the other coaches had accepted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s authority over employment disputes when they signed their various coaching contracts. In March 2023, a federal district judge “compelled arbitration as to the claims in which there was a specific employment contract between the respective coach and team,” but did not compel arbitration of Flores’ claims against the Broncos, Giants, Texans, and NFL. The decision cleared the way for those claims from Flores to move forward in federal court, rather than in the league’s internal arbitration process.
The NFL, Broncos, Giants, and Texans appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which affirmed Flores’ victory in August 2025. Specifically, it held that the league’s arbitration agreement was an arbitration agreement “in name only” and is therefore unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act. The “provision fails to bear even a passing resemblance to ‘traditional arbitral practice,’” according to the 2nd Circuit’s decision. “Instead, it offends basic presumptions of our arbitration jurisprudence by submitting Flores’s statutory claims to the unilateral substantive and procedural discretion of the ‘principal executive officer’ of one of his adverse parties, the NFL.”
In January, the three teams and NFL asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the case, contending that the 2nd Circuit claimed an authority to subjectively determine whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable that it doesn’t actually have. “The text and history of the Arbitration Act make clear that the Act protects not only the parties’ decision to arbitrate but also their chosen arbitration procedures, including their choice of arbitrator,” the petition said.
In his response to the petition, Flores asserted that the 2nd Circuit’s decision will not, as the league and teams predicted, send shockwaves through the legal landscape by weakening the Federal Arbitration Act. “The Second Circuit’s decision is consistent with all other circuit courts in holding that an employer—whether a professional sports league, restaurant, retail store or otherwise—cannot force employees to arbitrate statutory employment discrimination claims before the employer’s own chief executive,” Flores wrote.
New York Football Giants, Inc. v. Flores will be considered by the justices at their private conference on Friday, April 17.
A former NBA star’s vaccine battle
Utah Jazz legend John Stockton’s post-basketball life took an unexpected turn during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hall of Famer became an outspoken critic of vaccine mandates and other public health measures, and he joined a lawsuit against Washington state officials over their push to stop the spread of what they viewed as COVID misinformation.
The lawsuit, Stockton v. Brown, centers on the Washington Medical Commission’s efforts to investigate and sanction licensed physicians in the state who discourage COVID-19 vaccination and promote treatments such as ivermectin in media appearances. Specifically, Stockton, three physicians, and Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit formerly led by HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., contend that the commission is violating free speech by preventing targeted doctors from sharing their beliefs about COVID-19 and preventing interested listeners, like Stockton, from hearing their controversial messages.
In 2024, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice dismissed the case, holding that the federal lawsuit could not proceed while the commission’s proceedings against the doctors were ongoing. Rice also held that the free speech claims were not yet “ripe” for review, because the doctors appeared to still be freely sharing their anti-vaccine views and Stockton and CHD members could still easily access those views.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed Rice’s decision in September 2025, emphasizing that Stockton and others who brought the lawsuit had not suffered a concrete injury as a result of the commission’s work. “The Plaintiffs’ theory of injury would seemingly give any listener who has an interest in a speaker’s work standing to challenge laws that purportedly restrict the speaker’s speech. We refuse to countenance such a ‘startlingly broad’ theory of injury,” the 9th Circuit wrote.
In November, Stockton, the doctors, and Children’s Health Defense appealed to the Supreme Court, and their petition for review is expected to be addressed by the justices at a private conference later this month. They position their case as a complement to Chiles v. Salazar, in which the court held on March 31 that Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban, as applied to talk therapy, regulated speech based on the speaker’s viewpoint. “Deciding this case (even if only by a grant, vacate and remand resulting from the Chiles decision), will allow the Court to cover the processional speech field,” the petition says.
Hip-hop artists rally behind death row inmate
As noted above, sports stars aren’t the only celebrities involved in pending Supreme Court petitions. Several hip-hop artists have joined friend-of-the-court briefs urging the justices to hear the case of James Garfield Broadnax, a death row inmate in Texas.
Broadnax was convicted in 2009 for the murders of music producers Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler. During the sentencing phase of his trial, prosecutors introduced “over 40 pages of his handwritten rap lyrics” to the predominately white jury, arguing that the lyrics showed his propensity toward violence.
In his petition for review, Broadnax describes the lyrics as “racially inflammatory” and inappropriately prejudicial evidence and accuses prosecutors of “exploit[ing] racial stereotypes commonly associated with rap lyrics and the Black community to transform Mr. Broadnax’s artistic expression into a death warrant.” Broadnax asks the justices to take up his case and hold that the introduction of the lyrics rendered his sentencing “fundamentally unfair.”
Last month, two friend-of-the-court briefs were filed in support of Broadnax by hip-hop artists, including Travis Scott, T.I. and Killer Mike, and several music scholars. The rappers explained that, although rap is incredibly popular, it’s often misunderstood. “[R]ap music’s characteristics as a genre, divorced from context, uniquely position it to be abused by prosecutors against criminal defendants and increase the likelihood that juries will be influenced to convict or inflict harsher sentences on improper grounds,” Scott contended. In an interview about the briefs with The New York Times, Killer Mike said that violent lyrics are “an interpretation of the human spirit … not an admission of guilt.”
The petition for review in Broadnax v. Texas is expected to be addressed during the justices’ private conference on Friday, April 24. Broadnax’s execution is scheduled for April 30.
Star magicians on hypnosis
Another death row inmate with high-profile supporters is Charles Don Flores, who was sentenced to death in Texas in 1999 after being convicted of murdering Betty Black during a robbery. Flores’ petition for review raises investigators’ use of “investigative hypnosis” with a key witness to the crime, contending that “his trial was irreparably tainted by junk science and official misconduct.”
According to the petition, the “witness initially described perpetrators who looked nothing like Flores” and “failed to pick a recent picture of him out of a photo lineup.” Yet the witness later identified Flores as “the perpetrator” after being “subjected to ‘investigative hypnosis’ and,” as the petition put it, “other suggestive procedures.”
The Emmy-award winning magician duo Penn & Teller have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Flores, in which they share their experience with and beliefs about hypnosis. They note that they reject “exploitative” use of this practice, which stems from the illogical and unscientific belief “that hypnosis is a tool for traveling back in time to extract picture-perfect memories.” “Penn & Teller believe it would be a ‘failure of integrity’ not to speak up and use their skills as manipulators of perception to expose flim-flam when they see it. And they see it in the case of petitioner Charles Don Flores,” their brief says.
Texas officials have not yet filed their response to Flores’ petition for review. The case will likely be addressed by the justices at a private conference in late May or June.
What celebrity involvement brings
As Sotomayor noted in January, the Supreme Court’s attention alone can turn someone into a public figure. But how does the involvement of someone famous affect the court’s own view of a case?
Perhaps the most common assumption is that celebrity involvement in a case will benefit whichever side the celebrity supports. Then-Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson alluded to that belief in his statement on the district court ruling against Stockton and his co-plaintiffs, calling them out for attempting to capitalize on Stockton’s fame. “Adding famous names to a baseless lawsuit can’t change what it is,” Ferguson said.
In the context of Supreme Court petitions, it seems clear that such involvement helps draw attention to cases that might otherwise get lost among the thousands of petitions filed with the court each term. After all, this very story was inspired by news articles and social media posts about two of these petitions.
It’s less clear, however, if increased attention from the media and public increases the odds that the justices will take up a case. When assessing petitions, the justices are considering factors like whether there is a circuit split – that is, a disagreement between the federal courts of appeals on the same legal issue – and other signals of the case’s potential legal impact, not whether their cousin’s favorite Las Vegas performers have filed an amicus brief. And as Sarah Isgur noted during an episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast about Ghislaine Maxwell, a bright spotlight on a petition can actually work against the petitioner if the celebrity involved is more infamous than famous – likely because the justices are wary of deepening public distrust in the court.
We should learn the fate of these four celebrity-related petitions by the end of this term.
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