Any decision in a civil case that has the weight of a final judgment can be appealed by the affected party. The cause of action in all of these cases alleging a

Any decision in a civil case that has the weight of a final judgment can be appealed by the affected party. The cause of action in all of these cases alleging a violation of civil rights (like the right to silence during a terry stop) is 42 U.S.C. § 1983: "Civil action for deprivation of rights". The plaintiff would be the one filing the appeal, because lower courts have largely dismissed their claims; dismissal with prejudice is considered a final judgment. The point about the status quo is that when there's uncertainty about what the actual law is, law enforcement picks a side and goes with it, and everyone else has to live in that reality. When there's genuine ambiguity as to how the law is actually supposed to apply, the Supreme Court shouldn't be able to just deny cert because they like what the government picked and are therefore beneficiaries of the legal uncertainty. The situation in which lower courts would ideally try and kick something like this up to the supreme court is exactly when they start saying things like this in their opinions: "We hold that Alexander’s claim on this point cannot overcome the officers’ qualified immunity, because “it was not clearly established that an individual has a First Amendment right to refuse to answer an officer’s questions during a Terry stop.” Surprisingly few courts have ruled on this precise issue; the parties point to no cases from this circuit directly on point. The sparse case law that does exist, however, indicates no consensus that a defendant has a First Amendment right not to answer an officer’s questions during a stop like the one at issue here."