JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. Seeking to mitigate the devastating economic effects of COVID-19, Congress enacted the American Rescue Plan Act (“ARPA” or “the Act”) in March 2021. See 42 U.S.C. § 802 et seq. ARPA appropriated $195.3 billion in aid to the states and the District of Columbia. But to get the money, states had to certify that they would comply with several conditions. One was ARPA’s “Offset Provision,” which forbids a state from using the funds “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” that “result[s] from” a tax cut. § 802(c)(2)(A). Claiming that this condition amounts to a prohibition on tax cuts during ARPA’s “covered period,” id., and that such a condition would violate the Constitution in multiple respects, Ohio brought the present challenge. See, e.g., Mot. for Prelim. Injunction at 1–2, 5, R. 3. And the district court found Ohio’s objections persuasive, permanently enjoining enforcement of the Offset Provision on the ground that its terms are “unconstitutionally ambiguous” under the Spending Clause. Ohio v. Yellen, 547 F. Supp. 3d 713, 740 (S.D. Ohio. 2021).

The Treasury Department appeals, arguing, among other things, that the district court should never have reached the merits of this case, as Ohio failed to establish a justiciable controversy. We agree with Treasury. Regardless of standing, the controversy is moot. Treasury later promulgated a regulation (the “Rule”) disavowing Ohio’s interpretation of the Offset Provision and explaining that it would not enforce the Provision as if it barred tax cuts per se. See Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, 86 Fed. Reg. 26,786 (proposed May 17, 2021) (interim final rule); see also Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, 87 Fed. Reg. 4,338 (Jan. 27, 2022) (final rule); 31 C.F.R. § 35 et seq. We have no reason to believe that Treasury will not abide by its disavowal of Ohio’s interpretation of the Offset Provision as it administers the statute. So, we hold, Treasury’s credible disavowal of Ohio’s broad view of the Offset Provision mooted the case. We thus reverse the district court’s determination that the case is justiciable and vacate the permanent injunction.

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. In response to the grave economic challenges posed by COVID-19, Congress enacted the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“ARPA” or “the Act”). Pursuant to Congress’s spending power, ARPA set aside $195.3 billion in stimulus funds, to be distributed by the Treasury Department to states and the District of Columbia. This appeal concerns a challenge brought by Kentucky and Tennessee (“the States”) to what they allege is an ambiguous, coercive, and commandeering condition attached to those funds. Specifically, to get the money, the States had to certify that they would comply with the Act’s “Offset Provision.” Its terms bar the States from enacting tax cuts and then using ARPA funds to “directly or indirectly offset a reduction in [their] net tax revenue” resulting from such tax cuts. 42 U.S.C. § 802(c)(2)(A). And a related portion of the Act explains that should a State violate the Offset Provision, Treasury may initiate a recoupment action to recover the misused funds. 42 U.S.C. § 802(e)(1)–(2).

. . .

In closing, we reiterate the central conclusions we have reached today. Treasury’s credible disavowal of the money-is-fungible interpretation mooted Kentucky’s challenge to the Offset Provision, and so the district court erred when it enjoined Treasury from enforcing the Offset Provision against Kentucky. We thus REVERSE the district court’s justiciability holding as to Kentucky and VACATE the permanent injunction to the extent it bars enforcement of the Offset Provision against Kentucky. By contrast, we AFFIRM the district court’s injunction as to Tennessee. We do so because “[c]larity is demanded whenever Congress legislates through the spending power[.]” Haight, 763 F.3d at 568. Yet clarity is just what the Offset Provision lacks.

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Dr. Steven Cogswell sexually assaulted three women at the Macomb County Jail while working as the jail’s medical care contractor. Cogswell was fired and eventually convicted of second degree criminal sexual conduct. The women filed federal and state civil claims against Cogswell, his employer, Macomb County, and a corrections officer, alleging that defendants knew of Cogswell’s assaults before they were reported. Due to the absence of evidence supporting this allegation, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants.

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Troy Bush, Stacey Gibson, Ricardo MercadoLozano, and Mark Mosley challenge their respective convictions and sentences arising from a cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine drug distribution conspiracy. We agree with Gibson that his post-conviction letter to the district court asserting a perfunctory denial of guilt was an improper basis to impose a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. Otherwise, we reject defendants’ arguments and affirm their convictions and sentences.

KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. To recite the facts of this case is nearly to decide it. Here, the State of Michigan convicted Jonathan Hewittel of armed robbery and related offenses based solely on the testimony of the victim, James Lemon. Three witnesses—one of them simply a conscientious citizen with little relationship with anyone in the case—were prepared to testify in support of Hewittel’s alibi that he was at home, almost a half-hour from the crime scene, when the crime occurred. Yet Hewittel’s trial counsel failed to call any of those witnesses at trial. That failure was the result not of any strategic judgment, but of a simple mistake of fact: Hewittel’s counsel thought the crime occurred between noon and 12:30 p.m., when Hewittel was at home alone; whereas the victim twice testified (both times in counsel’s presence) that the crime occurred at 1:00 or 1:30 p.m.—by which time all three witnesses were present at Hewittel’s home. Counsel then compounded that mistake of fact with a mistake of law, namely his belief that evidence of Hewittel’s prior convictions would have unavoidably come in at trial. Instead, that evidence almost certainly would have been excluded, if Hewittel’s counsel had only asked. Yet from his opening statement, to his direct and redirect examinations of Hewittel, to his closing argument, Hewittel’s counsel reminded the jury again and again—in a case where his client was on trial for armed robbery—that his client had been convicted of armed robbery five times before.

Thereafter the trial judge twice ordered that Hewittel have a new trial, but the Michigan Court of Appeals ultimately reversed—based in part on the same mistake of fact (regarding the time of the offense) that counsel himself had made. In federal court, the district court granted a writ of habeas corpus to Hewittel. We affirm.

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge. In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a new statute (“the Act”) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tenn. Code Ann. § 14-1-101 et seq. Among other things, the Act addresses vaccination, masking, and quarantine decisions. For example, “[a] local health entity or official, mayor, governmental entity, or school does not have the authority to quarantine a person or private business for purposes of COVID-19,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 14-4-101(b), and “a school or a governing body of a school shall not require a person to wear a face mask while on school property” unless various conditions are met. Tenn. Code. Ann. § 14-2-104(a).

Immediately after passage of the Act, and prior to seeking accommodation under its terms, eight minor students with disabilities (a point that is uncontested) filed suit through their parents, alleging that the new legislation violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, clause 2. Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction, which the district court granted with respect to the two sections of the Act cited above. Specifically, the district court enjoined defendants, Bill Lee, the Governor of Tennessee, and Penny Schwinn, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education, from enforcing “Tennessee Code Annotated § 14-2-104 ‘Face coverings for schools’; and [] Tennessee Code Annotated § 14-4-101(b) to the extent that it prohibits local health officials and schools from making quarantining decisions as they relate to public schools.” R.K. by and through J.K. v. Lee, 575 F.Supp.3d 957 993 (M.D. Tenn. 2021). Defendants appealed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).

The district court concluded that the Act, despite the inclusion of language that provides that “[a] school shall, to the extent practicable, provide a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 14-2-104(d)(1), fails to comply with the requirements of either the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act