Supreme Court Vacates Appeals Ruling for Transgender Inmate Who Sued Colorado Sheriff Over Jail Housing, as Justice Department Urged

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out a federal appeals court ruling that had revived a transgender inmate's lawsuit against a Colorado sheriff over jail housing and a strip search, and sent the case back for another look in light of the justices' recent decisions in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and United States v. Skrmetti. The Digital Free Press reviewed the Court's Nov. 9 order list and the case docket, including a brief in which the Justice Department asked the Court to take exactly this step.

What the Supreme Court Ordered

In the order list, the Court granted the petition in Roybal v. Griffith, No. 25-442, vacated the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and remanded the case "for further consideration in light of West Virginia v. B. P. J., 609 U. S. 958 (2026), and United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U. S. 495 (2025)." The order was unsigned, and no justice noted a dissent.

The petitioners are El Paso County Sheriff Joseph Roybal and other county officials. The respondent, Darlene Griffith, entered the El Paso County jail as a pretrial detainee in 2020, according to the briefs. Griffith, who identifies as a woman, was assigned to a male housing unit and alleged being denied female underwear and lipstick that were available to female inmates, according to the Justice Department's summary of the complaint. Griffith also challenged an intake body-cavity examination in which, according to the filings, a female officer examined the top half of the body and a male officer examined the bottom half.

A divided Tenth Circuit panel ruled on Feb. 19, 2025, that Griffith had plausibly alleged violations of equal protection, due process and the Fourth Amendment. Judge Tymkovich dissented, writing, as quoted in the government's brief, that Griffith "was treated identically to those with whom" Griffith "is similarly situated, biological males."

What the Justice Department Argued

The Court invited the solicitor general to weigh in last June, and the United States filed its brief on Sept. 25, signed by Solicitor General D. John Sauer and Assistant Attorneys General Harmeet K. Dhillon and Brett A. Shumate.

The brief said the Tenth Circuit decided the case "without the benefit" of B.P.J. and Skrmetti, and that those decisions "clarified the analysis of constitutional claims involving trans-identifying persons in ways that foreclose the claims" at issue. It urged the Court to grant, vacate and remand, while saying the questions "do not warrant this Court's plenary review at this time."

The brief framed the first question as whether jail policies "that classify inmates based on biological sex, and that apply equally to inmates who self-identify with the opposite sex, are subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause." Twenty-three states, led by Kansas, and the Arizona Legislature also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

What Griffith's Lawyers Said

In a brief opposing review, filed in November 2025 before the B.P.J. decision, Griffith's lawyers at the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center wrote that "nothing about the decision below imperils prisons' or jails' abilities to segregate facilities based on sex." They argued that the appeals court held only that the claims were plausible at the pleading stage and that the county would have "a chance to raise these arguments on remand."

The Tenth Circuit will now reconsider the case.

Sources: Supreme Court of the United States, Order List, Nov. 9, 2026 (https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/110926zor_ap6c.pdf); Docket No. 25-442, Roybal v. Griffith (https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-442.html); Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae, Sept. 25, 2026 (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-442/425659/20260925142253981_25-442_Roybal_CVSG.pdf); Brief in Opposition, Nov. 10, 2025 (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-442/384123/20251110173647335_Roybal%20v.%20Griffith%20No.%2025-442%20BIO.pdf). Cover photo: U.S. Supreme Court Building, by Joe Ravi, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).