Court of Appeals, who affirmed the district court's decision based on the precedent of Abbate. Supreme Court In June 2018 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Gamble's petition to the Supreme Court noted that in 2016, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas argued for a review of the separate sovereigns doctrine in a concurring opinion in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle; Ginsburg's opinion stated that "The matter warrants attention in a future case in which a defendant faces successive prosecutions by parts of the whole USA." Amicus briefs According to The Atlantic, the U.S. federal government contended that "overturning the dual-sovereignty doctrine would upend the country’s federalist system", and that the increasing number of federal criminal laws means that it is important that states be allowed to "preserve their own sphere of influence and prevent federal encroachment on law enforcement". The American Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute, and the Constitutional Accountability Center filed a joint amicus brief on the case, arguing that there is no textual basis for the doctrine in the Double Jeopardy Clause, which states that "[n]o person shall be ... subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb", and that the rising amount of federal criminal laws and state-federal task forces means there will be more dual state-federal prosecution. The case has been analysed in the context of the Special Counsel investigation into the Trump campaign; if the separate sovereigns doctrine had been overruled, a pardon for federal crimes from President Donald Trump would have prevented state prosecution. United States Senator Orrin Hatch filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing against the separate sovereigns doctrine. A spokesperson for him denied any relation of the brief to the investigation, saying that Hatch wants the doctrine to be overturned due to "the rapid expansion of both the scope and substance of modern federal criminal law". Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman wrote that state and federal charges usually have "no overlap, or almost no overlap, that would ring Fifth Amendment chimes in the absence of the dual sovereign analysis", and so the impact of overturning the separate sovereigns doctrine would be minimal. Oral arguments Oral arguments were originally scheduled to be heard on December 5, 2018, but were postponed due to a day of mourning for George H. W. Bush, who died on November 30, 2018.