U.S. Department of Education (9th Cir. 2022). In a 2-1 decision, Smith partially granted a petition for a writ of mandamus brought by former Secretary of Education Elisabeth DeVos after a federal district judge ordered former Secretary DeVos to sit for a deposition in a lawsuit about denying student-loan relief. Smith denied Devos's request for a transfer to the Southern District of Florida, but wrote that the district court clearly erred by requiring DeVos to sit for a deposition in light of her status as the former Secretary of Education and the lack of any showing that her testimony was necessary to resolving the case. Smith's opinion was joined by Judge Jacqueline Nguyen. Judge Richard Paez dissented, noting that DeVos was no longer in office, and arguing that for this reason, forcing her to sit for a short deposition would not significantly distract from any official duties. Death penalty McGill v. Shinn (9th Cir. 2021). Smith dissented when the 9th circuit permitted Arizona to execute someone despite the fact that Arizona's death penalty statute at the time was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Ring v. Arizona. Although Arizona updated its death penalty statute afterwards, Smith argued that the execution violates the ex post facto clause. Copyright law Smith wrote the majority opinion for a divided panel, which upheld a jury verdict finding that the 2013 song "Blurred Lines" infringed on Marvin Gaye's estate's copyright to the 1977 song "Got To Give It Up." The decision rested on narrow grounds based on the procedural posture of the case. Environmental law Smith wrote a concurrence described as "unusually blunt and wide-ranging," in which he criticized the court for "taking the law too far and causing much of 'the decimation of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest' and the loss of legions of timber jobs." Smith's view prevailed when the case was reviewed en banc, with Smith writing the opinion for the unanimous 11-judge panel. Smith dissented from an en banc decision of the court holding that a federal agency's decision to refrain from acting triggered the Endangered Species Act's interagency consultation process. The dissent began with a reproduction of a woodcut and excerpt from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, depicting and describing the eponymous traveler's capture by the Lilliputians—an unusual sight in the Federal Reporter. In addition to criticizing the majority opinion in the case, the dissent criticized other recent