The following is a compilation of cases in which the Supreme Court granted, denied, or received a petition for cert.
Petitioned and Waiting for Certiorari
Issue: Whether a New Hampshire law prohibiting certain transfers of physicians' prescribing histories for use in detailing violates the First Amendment.
Kiyemba v. Obama
Issue: What is the standard of proof, under the “true threat” doctrine of Virginia v. Black, for a conviction for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against a federal government building, and what testimonial evidence is admissible to establish an intent to threaten?
Granted Certiorari
Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, et al.
Issue: Where an employer adopts an employment practice that discriminates against African Americans in violation of Title VII’s disparate impact provision, must a plaintiff file an EEOC charge within 300 days after the announcement of the practice, or may a plaintiff file a charge within 300 days after the employer’s use of the discriminatory practice?
Ashcroft, Former ATT'Y Gen. v. Iqbal
Issue: Whether employers violate Title VII by not fully restoring service credit for pregnancy leaves taken before the 1978 passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Granted Certiorari Waiting for Decision
Issue: Whether the holding of a state post-conviction hearing to determine the mental capacity of a capital defendant whose death sentence was affirmed before Atkins v. Virginia (2002), which barred the execution of mentally retarded defendants, violates the Double Jeopardy clause.
Cuomo v. Clearing
Issue: Whether parents of a student who has never previously received special education services from a school district may be eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for reimbursement of private school tuition.
Issue: Whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments prohibits the imprisonment of a juvenile for life without the possibility of parole as punishment for the juvenile’s commission of non-homicide.
Horne v. Flores; Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives v. Flores
Issue: Whether the 2005 REAL ID Act strips courts of jurisdiction over discretionary decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Montejo v. Louisiana
Issue: Whether the petitioner’s conviction for mail, bank and wire fraud qualified as an aggravated felony under the immigration laws, the penalty for which is lifetime banishment from the country.
Republic of Iraq v. Beaty, et al.; Republic of Iraq, et al., v. Robert Simon, et al
Issue: Whether municipalities may decline to certify results of an exam that would make disproportionately more white applicants eligible for promotion than minority applicants, due to fears that certifying the results would lead to charges of racial discrimination.
Safford United School District #1 v. Redding
Issue: Does imposition of a life without parole sentence on a thirteen-year-old for a non-homicide violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, where the freakishly rare imposition of such a sentence reflects a national consensus on the reduced criminal culpability of children?
Petitioned and Waiting for Certiorari
IMS Health v. Ayotte
Facts: Pharmaceutical sales representatives, known in industry argot as “detailers,” earn their livelihood by promoting prescription drugs in one-on-one interactions with physicians. A valuable tool in this endeavor, available through the omnipresence of computerized technology, is knowledge of each individual physician's prescribing history. With that informational asset, detailers are able to target particular physicians and shape their sales pitches accordingly. Convinced that this detailing technique induces physicians to prescribe expensive brand-name drugs in place of equally effective but less costly generic drugs, New Hampshire enacted the Prescription Information Law (PIL) that, among other things, prohibited certain transfers of physicians' prescribing histories for use in detailing. The plaintiffs in this case, IMS Health Inc. and Verispan, LLC, are in the business of data mining. For present purposes, that means that they purchase data such as the name of the patient, the identity of the prescribing physician, the drug, its dosage, and the quantity dispensed. They then aggregate the entries, group them by prescriber, and cross-reference each physician's prescribing history with physician-specific information available through the American Medical Association. The final product enumerates the prescriber's identity and speciality, the drug prescribed, and kindred information. The scope of the enterprise is mind-boggling: these two plaintiffs alone record, group, and organize several billion prescriptions each year. To protect patient privacy, prescribees' names are encrypted, effectively eliminating the ability to match particular prescriptions with particular patients.
The PIL took effect on June 30, 2006. It provides that prescription information can’t be “licensed, transferred, used, or sold by any pharmacy benefits manager, insurance company, electronic transmission intermediary, retail, mail order, or Internet pharmacy or other similar entity, for any commercial purpose, except for the limited purposes of pharmacy reimbursement; formulary compliance; care management; utilization review by a health care provider, the patient's insurance provider or the agent of either; health care research; or as otherwise provided by law.”
The Court found that the challenged elements of the PIL principally regulate conduct because those provisions serve only to restrict the ability of data miners to aggregate, compile, and transfer information destined for narrowly defined commercial ends. The Court viewed, this as a restriction on the conduct, not the speech, of the data miners. The Court could have finished ruling there, but they went on to examine whether the PIL was constitutional if the transactions it prohibits were considered commercial speech instead of conduct.
The plaintiff argued that the PIL was void for vagueness. However, while the law was not written perfectly, the Court rejected the contention that the law was void for vagueness. The plaintiffs also mounted a Commerce Clause challenge to the PIL. They maintained that the statute violates the Constitution by regulating conduct wholly outside New Hampshire. They argued that, because the PIL lacks any explicit mention of a geographic limitation, it is restricting trade between states, and therefore violates the Commerce Clause. The Court concluded that the New Hampshire Supreme Court would interpret the Prescription Information Law to affect only domestic transactions. Seen in this light, the plaintiffs' dormant Commerce Clause challenge necessarily failed.
Issue: Whether the Government must provide 30 days' notice to court and counsel before transferring detainees from Guantanamo.
The Government argued that the Supreme Court held the provision of the MCA unconstitutional only insofar as it purported to deprive the district court of jurisdiction to hear a claim falling within the “core” of the constitutional right to habeas corpus, such as a challenge to the petitioner's detention or the duration thereof. According to the Government's theory, because the right to challenge a transfer is “ancillary” to and not at the “core” of habeas corpus relief, MCA still bars the district court from exercising jurisdiction over the instant claims since they only concern a notice before transfer. The detainees maintain that the Court didn’t make such a distinction on purpose. The Circuit court agreed, with the detainees and held that Boumediene invalidated MCA with respect to all habeas claims brought by Guantanamo detainees, not simply with respect to so-called “core” habeas claims.
The detainees are appealing to the US Supreme Court.
Parr v. United States
Facts: In the summer of 2004, the FBI received a letter warning that “somebody is making plans to blow up the federal building” in Milwaukee. The letter writer, John Schultz, was an inmate in Wisconsin's prison system, and the “somebody” was his cellmate, Steven Parr. After briefly investigating, the FBI learned that Parr had previously been found in possession of bomb making instructions and that one of his prison notebooks contained an antigovernment statement. Agents convinced Schultz to wear a wire to record Parr's statements. Parr gave a detailed plan to blow up Reuss Plaza including the amount of explosives, detonators, and a variety of other details. The only thing he did not specifically state was when he was going to commit the act. The day after this conversation, Parr was released to a halfway house but was quickly rearrested and indicted for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against a federal government building in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332a(a)(3). After his arrest Parr voluntarily spoke to FBI *496 agents and denied having made the statements. Given the existence of the recording, that wasn't a tenable position. At trial prosecutors played the recording of Parr's remarks and called Schultz to testify about his conversations with Parr. Parr testified and admitted making the statements (he could hardly do otherwise) but claimed he had been joking-just mouthing off to his cellmate.
On appeal to the 7th circuit court, Parr argued that his conviction was unconstitutional because the statements for which he was convicted were protected by the First Amendment. More specifically, that the jury instructions given to the Jury were constitutionally inappropriate. The First Amendment does not preclude restrictions on certain categories of speech having little or no social value, which includes threats. A statement qualifies as a “true threat,”, which is unprotected by the First Amendment, if it is “a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” The circuit court found that the jury was properly instructed with regard to determining whether Parr’s statements qualified as a true threat. Parr also asserted that various claims of evidentiary error occurred, specifically that the witnesses, such as former girlfriends and neighbors, as well as an expert on explosives were irrelevant. Parr argued that these witnesses were only brought forth to illustrate his intent and ability to carry out his threats, facts that he argued were irrelevant and the district judge abused his discretion in admitting this evidence. The court found that the aforementioned evidence was highly relevant because, in order to assess whether Parr's statements were true threats, the jury needed to make inferences from the background and context about his demeanor at the time he made the statements-to decide, under the circumstances, whether he conveyed the impression that he was serious or joking
Parr also challenged his sentence, saying that the district court improperly applied the obstruction-of-justice enhancement when he lied on the witness stand about his initial interview with the FBI. However the circuit court found that the district judge made the necessary findings to support his conclusion that Parr had perjured himself. The judge specifically found that Parr lied, that his lie was material, and that the lie was intentional, which was all that was required. Parr also challenged the district court's application of U.S.S.G. § 3A1.4, which applies a 12-level enhancement for an “offense ... that involved, or was intended to promote, a federal crime of terrorism.” In order to apply this statute a crime has to be “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” The district judge found that Parr’s threat did not meet the aforementioned requirement. However, since the crime he was threatening to commit did meet the requirement the statute could be applied. The circuit court held that an offense “involves” a federal crime of terrorism only if the crime of conviction is itself a federal crime of terrorism. Because of that error the circuit court vacated Parr’s sentence and remanded for resentencing, noting tat it is still possible that could still be applied.
Granted Certiorari
Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, et al.
Facts: Following the high-profile Enron and Worldcom accounting scandals, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to regulate auditors of public companies.
In August 2008, a divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed, ruling that past Supreme Court decisions on the president’s relationship with administrative agencies meant the board’s set-up must be upheld.
On May 18, the Supreme Court accepted the case for review. Justices will hear oral arguments during the fall term, which begins Oct. 5.
Lewis, et al. v. City of Chicago
Facts: In 1995 the City of Chicago gave a new written test to 26,000 applicants for jobs as firefighters. After grading the tests, the City placed the applicants in three categories, based on their scores: “well qualified,” “qualified,” and “not qualified.” The plaintiffs (and the members of their class) are black applicants who were placed in the “qualified” category. They were told these results within days after the tests were mailed January 26, 2996. On the same day, the mayor announced that the city on planned on hiring 600 of the 1,782 applicants in the “well qualified” category in the next three years, implying that no one in the “qualified” category would be hired. The suit, now entering its second decade, charges that the test had a disparate impact on the black applicants (that is, disproportionately classified them as “qualified” rather than “well qualified”) and was not a valid test of aptitude for firefighting. If these things are true, the basing of hiring decisions on the test violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After protracted proceedings, the district judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and decreed injunctive relief.
420 days after the date on which notice of the results of the test had been sent them and probably 417 to 419 days after they received the notice. But it was within 300 days of the City’s beginning to hire applicants from the “well qualified” list, and the district judge ruled that the suit was therefore timely because each time the City hired applicants in the “well qualified” group as determined on the basis of the January 1996 test results it committed a fresh violation of Title VII that may have harmed “qualified” applicants.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari on May 18th, 2009.Decided
Ashcroft, Former ATT'Y Gen. v. Iqbal
The detainees' lawsuits contended that Ashcroft and Mueller helped set up and to implement policies and procedures at the Detention Center, including discriminating against the detainees who were Arab Muslims, and were aware that such individuals were being held there and mistreated, solely because of their religious or ethnic background. The lawsuits claimed violations of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. They sought damages under the Supreme Court's 1971decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, and made a variety of claims of violations of the Alien Tort Statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, civil rights law, and the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The Second Circuit Court agreed, finding – as to Ashcroft and Mueller – that the lawsuits made adequate claims that those two officials had a discriminatory motive for their roles, and that, because of their positions, they were probably aware of and accountable for the discrimination and the abuse. The Circuit Court relied upon a standard that such allegations need only provide enough facts to make them “plausible.” It said that, after a period of “carefully controlled and limited discovery,” Ashcroft and Mueller could renew their pleas for outright dismissal, before a trial started.
In February 2008, Ashcroft, no long Attorney General, and Mueller filed their petition in the Supreme Court. On May 18, 2009, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded in a 5-4 opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy. “The complaint does not show or even intimate, that petitioners purposefully housed detainees in the ADMAX SHU due to their race, religion or national origin,” Kennedy wrote for the majority. ‘All it plausibly suggests is that the nation's top law enforcement officers, in the aftermath of a devastating attack, sought to keep suspected terrorists in the most secure conditions available until the suspects could be cleared of terrorist activity.”
Justice David Souter filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Justice Breyer also filed a separate dissenting opinion. "There is no principled basis for the majority’s disregard of the allegations linking Ashcroft and Mueller to their subordinates’ discrimination,” Souter argued in dissent.
AT&T Corp. v Hulteen
Facts: For nearly a hundred years, petitioner AT&T and its predecessors have offered employee benefits based on a “Net Credited Service” (“NCS”) date, which is calculated based on an employee’s hire date and adjusted forward to account for any time in which the employee is not working and therefore not earning service credits. Before 1977, employees who took pregnancy leave were granted a maximum of thirty personal days, with their NCS date adjusted forward for any additional time; by contrast, employees on regular temporary disability had no limit on the days they could continue to accrue service credit.
Based on an earlier Ninth Circuit decision, Pallas v. Pacific Bell, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Hulteen and the other plaintiffs. In Pallas, the court of appeals held that Pacific Bell’s decision to give service credit for all pre-PDA temporary disability leave except by reason of pregnancy when calculating retirement benefits post-PDA violated Title VII. All parties agreed that Pallas was decided on “virtually identical facts” as those in Hulteen. In its judgment, though, the district court acknowledged the “great logical and legal force” of AT&T’s arguments.
The Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc and affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the respondents, again relying on Pallas. The en banc majority held that no intervening Supreme Court decision overruled Pallas, nor did Pallas give impermissible retroactive effect to the PDA. It was AT&T’s post-PDA decision to award benefits according to an NCS date adjusted for pregnancy leave that was the “relevant, actionable” event. According to the en banc majority, Hulteen and the other respondents were affected by pregnancy anew when AT&T calculated their retirement benefits according to the adjusted NCS date and deprived them of benefits received by those not “affected by pregnancy.” In his dissent, Judge O’Scannlain (joined by three other judges, including Judge Rymer) rejected the majority’s holdings that Pallas remained good law and that the sex discrimination charges in Hulteen were timely: “because Pallas invented a timely Title VII violation where the determination of benefits simply gave present effect to past, unchallenged acts, contrary to Supreme Court authority, it must be overruled.”
On May 18, 2009, the Supreme Court reversed in a 7-2 opinion by Justice David H. Souter. Justice John Paul Stevens filed a concurring opinion. “The benefit calculation rule in this case is fide seniority system under §703(h) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(h), which insulates it from challenge,” Souter wrote.
Bobby v. Bies
Issue: Whether the holding of a state post-conviction hearing to determine the mental capacity of a capital defendant whose death sentence was affirmed before Atkins v. Virginia (2002), which barred the execution of mentally retarded defendants, violates the Double Jeopardy clause.
A state appeals court and the Supreme Court of Ohio upheld the conviction and death sentence, but concluded that the defendant did suffer from mental retardation, however the aggravating circumstances of his crime outweighed the mitigating factors and affirmed his death sentence. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, the defense argued that because mental retardation had already been established and confirmed in previous state court proceedings, the Double Jeopardy Clause prevented the prosecution from relitigating these mental health findings.
The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that the determination of mental retardation was made prior to Atkins, and that the “Ohio Supreme Court had not, for Atkins purposes, conclusively determined the issue of mental retardation in its earlier opinion.” On Jan. 16, 2009 the court accepted the case for review.
Cuomo v. Clearing
Issue: Whether the New York attorney general’s office should be allowed to investigate whether national banks discriminated against minorities seeking mortgages.
Soon afterwards, the OCC sued to prevent the attorney general's investigative and enforcement efforts. A new OCC regulation expansively interpreted the NBA’s visitorial powers provision, 12 U.S.C. § 484, to preclude state officials from enforcing national banks’ compliance with state or federal laws that concern activities authorized or permitted under the NBA. The agency contended that the investigation was an unlawful exercise of visitorial powers. The Clearing House Association – a consortium of national banks, including several that received letters of inquiry from the attorney general – filed a similar complaint, seeking to enjoin the attorney general from “investigating, requesting or issuing subpoenas for information concerning, or taking any other action to enforce federal and state discrimination-in-lending laws” against its national bank members and their operating subsidiaries.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York deferred to the OCC’s interpretation of the statute. In a separate opinion, the court agreed with Clearing House that the FHA does not create an exception authorizing the exercise of visitorial powers otherwise prohibited under § 484(a). In both cases the court issued the declaratory and injunctive relief sought by the OCC and Clearing House. The attorney general's office appealed and on December 2007, a divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the rulings -- with the exception of the Fair Housing Act issue, which the court said was not ripe for adjudication.
Timeline: Oral Arguments were held 4/28/09
Facts: Oregon parents decided to withdraw their son from the Forest Grove School District because they felt the student was not receiving adequate education and services. During his freshman year of high school, the boy was referred for an evaluation to determine whether he had a learning disability that qualified him for services under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The team of specialists unanimously concluded that student, known in filings as T.A., did not have a learning disability and therefore was ineligible for special education. T.A.’s mother, who attended the meeting, agreed with that determination. No one ever followed up on either the reference to “[p]ossible 504” in the psychologist’s report or the references to “suspected ADHD” in the School District’s staff meeting notes. At some point during the next year, T.A. began using marijuana. Eventually, his use became regular, and he exhibited noticeable personality changes. T.A. ran away from home. The police brought him back a few days later. T.A.’s parents took him to a psychologist and, eventually, to a hospital emergency room. Dr. Fulop, a psychologist hired by T.A.’s parents, met with T.A. a number of times in early 2003. Dr. Fulop held several lengthy sessions immediately after T.A. ran away from home, and he eventually diagnosed T.A. with ADHD, depression, math disorder, and cannabis abuse. Dr. Fulop recommended a residential program.
The school district appealed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, arguing that reimbursement was unwarranted because T.A. unilaterally withdrew from public school without providing prior notice to the school district, he never received special education and related services from the school district, and he withdrew for reasons unrelated to his disability (that is, substance abuse and behavioral problems). The district court reversed the hearing officer’s grant of reimbursement to T.A., but a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated the hearing officer’s determination.
The school district asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. On Jan. 16, the court accepted the case for review. Oral arguments were held 4/28/09.
Graham v. Florida
Facts: This case has striking similarities to Sullivan v. Florida (see below), which was granted cert on the same day. At the age of 16 Terrance Graham was charged with armed burglary with assault or battery and attempted robbery for an incident involving the robbery of a local restaurant. During the aforementioned crime Graham’s partner assaulted the restaurant owner with a pipe. Graham pled guilty to the charges in return for the court withholding adjudication, a twelve-month sentence in a pretrial detention facility, and three years’ probation. Graham was released from jail on June 25, 2004. In December of the same year Graham took part in an armed home invasion, which culminated in a police car chase through a residential neighborhood. While evidence was presented during his trial relating to the robbery, the judge sent Graham to prison for violating the terms of his probation. Following the probation hearing, the trial court found Graham guilty charges relating to the robbery and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Horne v. Flores; Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives v. Flores
Issue: Whether the courts below improperly declined to modify an injunction against Arizona for failing to provide sufficient funding for non-English speaking school children.
In October of 2000, ten months after the issuance of the Declaratory Judgment, the district court ordered Arizona to “prepare a cost study to establish the proper appropriation to effectively implement” ELL programs. In November 2000, the legislature voted to change the way ELL education was organized to an inclusion setting where everything was taught in English. Arizona conducted the study, but it didn’t help because it was just a breakdown of how much they were actually spending. In addition they didn’t do anything with the results. In December the legislation enacted HB 2010, which increased funding a small amount, and the courts held that this was ok for an interim measure. By 2005 the state was still not funding the ELL program appropriately (spending just over $300 per ELL student, when they should have been spending just under $2000, according to the state expert panel). Plaintiffs moved to enact sanctions in mid December 2005, and a date of 15 days after the start of the 2006 legislative year was set as a deadline. Arizona did not comply and instead racked up 20 million dollars in fines. The governor enacted HB 2064, which shifted around the funding, and created an ELL task force that made sure each school was in compliance, and raised the amount of money that each ELL pupil was getting to about $450.
In August 2003, the 9th Circuit Court remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing to see if things had changed enough for the fines to be lifted and the orders dismissed. They found that Arizona had not brought their ELL education into compliance, “In short, despite considerable efforts, and some improvements in outcomes, Arizona, as a state, does not appear to have turned the corner on ELL education performance.” The superintendent and the Legislative interveners both argue, not that HB2064, brings them into compliance with the previous ruling set out by the court, but instead that “times have changed” so much that they sweep away the foundations of the prior rulings and so justify relief from them. The 9th Circuit Court found this idea ridiculous and affirmed the lower courts decision.
Issue: Whether the 2005 REAL ID Act strips courts of jurisdiction over discretionary decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The Seventh Circuit concluded that the decision on the motion to reopen fell within Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act’s (IIRIA) jurisdiction-stripping provision. IIRIA makes it much more difficult for immigrants to obtain judicial review of various administrative immigration rulings. Most relevant to the present case is that the IIRIA stripped courts of jurisdiction to review any “decision or action of the Attorney General . . . the authority for which is specified under this subchapter to be in the discretion of” the Attorney General. The Seventh Circuit court found that, according to regulation, the decision whether to reopen a case rested solely in the discretion of the Board. In reaching this conclusion (and overruling prior Seventh Circuit precedent to the contrary), the court disagreed with a number of other circuits that have held the jurisdiction-stripping provision inapplicable in this circumstance.
Timeline: Oral arguments were heard 1/13/09
Facts: In late 2002, Patricia Ferrari returned to her Slidell, Louisiana home to discover her husband, Lewis Ferrari, dead on the kitchen floor from gunshot wounds to his head and chest. Suspicion quickly turned to Jerry Moore, whom Mr. Ferrari had employed in his dry-cleaning business. In the months leading up to the murder, Mr. Ferrari’s relationship with Mr. Moore had soured; witnesses contend that the two had argued publicly (including on the day of the murder) because Mr. Moore had lost his driver’s license and was forced to rely on a friend, Jesse Jay Montejo, for transportation, making Mr. Moore unreliable. Mr. Ferrari’s neighbors reported that they saw Mr. Montejo’s van—known for its distinctive chrome cattle bar on its front bumper—carrying a passenger and speeding away from the area around Mr. Ferrari’s home around the time of the murder. Mr. Ferrari’s white Lincoln, which had been stolen from his home, was seen closely following the van. Subsequent forensics found Mr. Montejo’s DNA under Mr. Ferrari’s fingernails.
Mr. Montejo’s subsequent descriptions of the crime amounted to a confession that he was involved with the murder along with two accomplices, Mr. Moore and an individual identified only as “D.P.” Following these statements, Mr. Montejo and Mr. Moore were arrested for murder.
The day after the hearing, the same detectives who had previously interrogated Mr. Montejo asked for his assistance in locating the murder weapon. Petitioner contends, and respondent does not disagree, that this too was a “critical stage.” Mr. Montejo said that he believed he was represented by counsel, but the detectives informed him otherwise. (The detectives later claimed that they were unaware Mr. Montejo was represented, even though a representative of the police department attended Mr. Montejo’s 72-hour hearing.) The detectives read Mr. Montejo his Miranda rights, which he agreed to waive, and proceeded to question him about the crime without his counsel present. During this questioning, Mr. Montejo wrote a note to Mrs. Ferrari in which he apologized for murdering her husband and indicated that he had only intended to commit a “simple burglary,” which in Louisiana is a technical legal term that describes a particular level of offense within the penal code. The detectives testified at trial that Mr. Montejo spontaneously produced the letter. However, Mr. Montejo testified that the letter was dictated to him by the detectives.
At trial, the state relied heavily on Mr. Montejo’s letter, while Mr. Montejo altered his narrative of events and argued that although he had been involved in an altercation with Mr. Ferrari prior to the murder, he did not take part in the shooting. Mr. Montejo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
In asking the Supreme Court to review the case, attorneys for Montejo argue that the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision conflicts with decisions of at least four other state courts of last resort, along with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, “The decision below is certain to lead to a proliferation of factual controversies over what constitutes ‘acceptance’ and whether or not such ‘acceptance’ occurred in every case in which a defendant with appointed counsel has been subjected to police-initiated interrogation (particularly given that most States do not transcribe initial hearings at which counsel is appointed.”
Nijhawan v. Holder
Facts: Manoj Nijhawan is a native and citizen of India who entered the United States as an immigrant in July 1985. In 2002, Nijhawan was arrested and indicted for his involvement in a fraudulent scheme to obtain “hundreds of millions of dollars” in loans from banks. A jury convicted Nijhawan of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, and of conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956(h). The federal bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud statutes do not require proof of any particular amount of loss to the victim or victims, and the jury did not find any particular amount of loss in reaching its verdict.
While Nijhawan was serving his sentence, the Department of Homeland Security instituted removal proceedings against him. DHS alleged that the money laundering offence he was convicted of qualifies as aggravated felonies. Nijhawan’s money laundering offenses were in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956, in which the amount of the funds exceeded $10,000 and an offense involving fraud or deceit in which the loss to the victim or victims exceeded $10,000.
On April 27, 2009 the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Republic of Iraq v. Beaty, et al.; Republic of Iraq, et al., v. Robert Simon, et al
Issue: Whether U.S. Courts have jurisdiction over Iraq in claims involving alleged misdeeds that occurred during Saddam Hussein’s regime.
While Beaty and Barloon and their spouses were made whole by the default judgment their children are still filing suit. However, the filed their suit in February of 2003 and the US invaded Iraq in March of that same year. Additionally the president issued presidential Determination 2003-23 in May of 2003, which made a variety of laws, including the FSIA inapplicable to Iraq. In addition to the Presidential Determination, the D.C. Circuit Court also ruled on Ciccipio-Puleo v. Islamic Republic of Iran, holding that a private right of action can be brought against officials, agents, and employees of a foreign state but the cause of action is limited to claims against individuals in their individual capacity and does not proved a cause of action against the foreign state itself. The plaintiffs are argued that the exception to the FSIA, which divests foreign states of immunity from suits seeking monetary damages "for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage hostage taking, or the provision of material support or resources . . . for such an act" where the perpetrator was "an official, employee, or agent of [the] foreign state [who was] acting within the scope of his or her office, employment or agency." 28 U.S.C. 19a § 1605(a)(7). While Iraq agrees with this complaint, they point to the fact that due to the Presidential Determination, the sovereign immunity of Iraq has been restored. In addition plaintiffs' suit presents a nonjusticiable political question, adjudication is barred by the recently resuscitated doctrine of foreign-affairs preemption; and resolving plaintiffs' claims would contravene the act-of-state doctrine.
The Court of Appeals found that the Presidential Determination had not restored sovereign immunity to Iraq, and therefore this case is within the jurisdiction of the D.C. courts. By looking at the plaintiffs’ claims through the factors set out in Baker v. Carr, the Court found that the claims did not bring into question the propriety of United States policy toward Iraq. The Court also found that Iraq did not demonstrate a substantial conflict between the state tort laws via the FSIA, and U.S. Foreign policy. Iraq argued that the claims would contravene the Act-of-State doctrine because the regime that perpetrated the acts that brought suit is no longer in power; but has been replaced with a new government whose stability and success are a major foreign-policy objective of the United States. However, the court decided that, because in its Statement of Interest the US government to raise the Act-of-State doctrine, and the explicitly declined to support Iraq’s invocation of the doctrine, there are no grounds to grant dismissal on the grounds of the act-of-state doctrine.
Timeline: Oral Arguments were heard on 4/22/09
Facts: In November and December 2003, the New Haven Fire Department administered written and oral examinations for promotion to Lieutenant and Captain. After the tests were administered it became apparent, because of test scores that no blacks or Hispanics would be promoted to Lieutenant, at most 2 Hispanics would be promoted to captain, and no blacks would be promoted. The CSB (which certifies test results) held five hearings between January and March 2004 on the issue of whether to certify the test results. At these hearings a variety of firefighters, as well as the union spoke in favor of certifying the results of the tests.
Eventually the board was split two to two on the question of certifying the exam, which resulted in the promotional lists not being certified. Plaintiffs allege that the non-certification vote was due to political pressure, particularly by defendant Rev. Boise Kimber, a vocal African-American minister who, it is acknowledged by all parties, is a political supporter and vote-getter for Mayor DeStefano. Plaintiffs' theory is that the defendants urged the CSB not to certify the results in the interest of pleasing minority voters and other constituents in New Haven whose priority was increasing racial diversity in the ranks of the Fire Department.
Title VII: Plaintiffs essentially argue that defendants' professed desire to comply with Title VII's anti-disparate-impact requirements was in fact a pretext for intentional discrimination against white candidates. The Court found that defendants' motivation to avoid making promotions based on a test with a racially disparate impact, even in a political context, did not, as a matter of law, constitute discriminatory intent, and therefore such evidence is insufficient for plaintiffs to prevail on their Title VII claim.
Civil Rights Conspiracy: Title 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) permits recovery of damages if a plaintiff can prove a conspiracy “for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws.” Because the Court has found that plaintiffs fail to present sufficient evidence that their equal protection rights were violated, their § 1985 conspiracy claim failed as well.
Timeline: Oral arguments were heard on 4/21/09
Facts: In October 2003, one of the eighth graders was Savana Redding, who was 13 years old at the time. Based on a tip from another eighth grader, the middle school’s assistant principal, Kerry Wilson, focused on Savana in an investigation of students who carried prescription drugs to school and used them for non-medical reasons. That investigation began after officials, suspecting substance abuse at a school dance earlier in the school year, grew wary of violations of a school rule against such uses. Acting on a tip naming Savana, for allegedly giving pain-killing ibuprofen to another student, principal Wilson first inspected Savana’s backpack, but found nothing. Two female aides then took Savana to the school nurse’s office, and conducted a strip search, requiring her to remove all of her outer clothing, and requiring her to expose her breasts and pelvic area by pulling her underclothes away from her body. Again, no pills were found. Redding’s mother filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf. School officials contend that the search was reasonable, pointing out that the pills had been found on campus and said a similar incident had sent a student to the hospital.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed. The majority held that “the strip search of Savana was neither ‘justified at its inception,’ New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 341 (1985), nor, as a grossly intrusive search of a middle school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules, ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances’ giving rise to its initiation.”
Sullivan v. Florida
Facts: 13-year-old Joe Harris Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted for the rape of an elderly woman. In 1989, Sullivan and two older teens burglarized the home of Lena Bruner, who was not home at the time. Someone returned to her house later that day and beat and raped her. The two older teenagers admitted to the earlier burglary but said Sullivan committed the rape. He was convicted in a one-day trial in which Bruner testified that she’d been blindfolded during the assault but that she could recognize her attacker’s voice. At trial, Sullivan had to repeat certain phrases used by the attacker while Bruner was asked whether she recognized his voice. Police collected biological evidence at the crime scene but it was destroyed before it could be subjected to DNA testing.
In 2005, the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile offenders in Roper v. Simmons. The Court cited a "national consensus" against the practice, along with medical and other evidence that teenagers are too immature to be held accountable for their crimes to the same extent as adults. On May 4, 2009 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the cases in the fall term.
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