THE U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District’s order affirming the District Court for the NMI’s ruling that the federal ban on cockfighting applies to the Commonwealth and does not intrude on its right to self-governance.
U.S. Supreme Court Clerk Scott Harris, in a one-page letter to the Ninth Circuit clerk on March 31, 2025, stated: “The Court today entered the following order in the above-entitled case: The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”
The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed by former Rep. Andrew S. Salas on Feb. 3, 2025.
Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute states that a writ of certiorari “orders a lower court to deliver its record in a case so that the higher court may review it.” It is a legal mechanism through which a higher court exercises discretionary authority to review decisions from lower federal courts or state courts of last resort. It is not an automatic right of appeal but a petition-based process where the high court selects cases to address significant legal issues.
Initially, Salas asked the federal court to declare Section 12616 of the Agriculture Improvement Act or 7 U.S.C. § 2156 not applicable to or effective in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Salas also asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the U.S. government and its agents from enforcing Section 12616 of 7 U.S.C. § 2156, or any other provisions of statutory or regulatory law that depend on its validity, in the CNMI.
Salas, through attorney Joseph Horey, said the Covenant establishing a political union between the U.S. and the Northern Marianas effectively exempts the Commonwealth from federal prohibitions on cockfighting.
In November 2022, District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted the request of the U.S. Department of Justice and dismissed with prejudice Salas’ lawsuit.
In a 15-page decision and order, Judge Manglona said, “Plaintiff’s proffer of providing more facts about how deeply entrenched cockfighting is in the CNMI would not cure the deficiency. Such amendment would be futile because the federal interests in regulating interstate commerce, preventing the spread of avian flu, and ensuring the humane treatment of animals, outweigh the degree of intrusion into the internal affairs of the CNMI as it relates to the tradition of cockfighting.”
Salas then appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the District Court’s ruling.
According to the Ninth Circuit, “Because cockfighting was lawful in both Guam and the CNMI under each jurisdiction’s own laws, cockfighting was not federally prohibited there until a 2018 Amendment to the [Animal Welfare Act], which prohibited cockfighting in every United States jurisdiction.”
