[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday granted certiorari [order list, PDF] in three cases. In the three consolidated cases of Ziglar v. Turkmen, Ashcroft v. Turkmen and Hasty v. Turkmen [dockets], the court will decide whether government officials can be held liable for the decisions made in the wake of the September 11 attacks. These cases center on the arrest and detention of Middle Eastern men illegally present in the US when they were arrested for immigration violations. The men claim that a former US attorney general, a former FBI director and a former Immigration and Naturalization Services commissioner confined them due to the then-recent September 11 attacks despite allegedly knowing they had no ties to terrorism. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are both recused from this case.

In Hernandez v. Mesa [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the court will determine whether the Fourth Amendment protections against excessive deadly force apply to Mexican citizens. The case arose when `5-year-old Mexican citizen Sergio Hernandez was shot and killed by a US Border Patrol Agent across the US-Mexican border.

In Midland Funding v. Johnson [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the court will decide whether filing proof of claim in a bankruptcy proceeding outside of the statute of limitations violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) [text]. The case arose when Midland Funding purchased a woman’s debt owed to a credit card company. She later filed for bankruptcy, at which time Midland Funding filed a proof of claim, meaning it sought to obtain funds from the person declaring bankruptcy. The proof of claim was filed outside the statute of limitations, and she filed suit against Midland Funding claiming that its filing violated the FDCPA.