[Husky Electronics v. Ritz (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The “actual fraud” language of the bankruptcy statute encompasses traditional forms of fraud and is not limited to fraudulent representation. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the 7-1 majority. The Court held that “actual fraud” is fraud that is committed with wrongful intent, and that “fraud” has traditionally been defined as any transfer of assets that impairs a creditor’s ability to collect on the debt. In the common law, such fraudulent conveyances did not require that the debtor make a false representation to the creditor. Therefore, historically, false representation has never been a requirement of “actual fraud” and should not be treated as one in the wording of the relevant section of the Bankruptcy Code. This reading maintains meaningful distinctions throughout the code and does not make the language redundant.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that “actual fraud” as used in the relevant section of the bankruptcy statute does not encompass fraudulent transfer schemes. Despite the fact that the common law meaning of actual fraud is expansive, this case is one of statutory interpretation, not common law, and therefore the common law definition cannot be dispositive when it does not fit with the relevant language of the statute. The relevant language in this case limits “actual fraud” to situations in which fraud induced the creditor to enter into a transaction with the debtor. Justice Thomas argued that the majority opinion’s reading of the phrase is overbroad and second-guesses Congress’ intent.


[Zubik v. Burwell (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which requires group health plans and health insurance issuers offering health plans to provide preventative care and screenings for women pursuant to the guidelines established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These guidelines include “approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.” The regulations include an exemption from contraceptive coverage for the group health plan of a religious employer. The exemption does not mean that such services are not covered, but that they are not covered through a cost-sharing mechanism.
The petitioners are religious organizations that argue that the contraceptive coverage mandate of the ACA violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which Congress enacted in 1993, because the mandate requires these organizations to “facilitate” the provision of insurance coverage for contraceptive services that they oppose on religious grounds. In several separate cases, the relevant district courts issued injunctions against the government, and the relevant Courts of Appeals reversed. The appellate courts held that the religious organizations were unable to show that the contraceptive mandate substantially burdened the exercise of their religious freedom.


[Zubik v. Burwell (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
After determining through supplemental briefing that insurance companies could provide contraceptive coverage to employees of organizations that object to such coverage on religious grounds without the organizations needing to provide notification, the Court vacated the case for further consideration by the lower courts in light of this agreement from the parties. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that it reached no decision on the merits of the case, and nothing in the opinion should be construed as affecting the ability of the government to ensure that employees covered by the insurance plans at issue receive full contraceptive coverage. Given the importance of the issues involved in this case, the Court remanded the case to the lower courts to afford the parties the opportunity to determine how to proceed in a manner that grants employees full contraceptive coverage while also respecting the organizations’ religious exercise.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that nothing in the majority opinion should be construed as signaling to lower courts where the Supreme Court stands on the merits of the case. Remanding the case allows the lower courts to consider whether the existing or modified regulations may properly balance the interests at issue.


[Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2 (H.B. 2), which contained several provisions related to abortions. One such provision required that any physician performing an abortion have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion was performed, and another provision required that all abortion clinics comply with standards for ambulatory surgical centers. The petitioners are a group of abortion providers who sued the State of Texas seeking to invalidate those provisions in H.B. 2 as they relate to facilities in McAllen and El Paso. The petitioners argued that H.B. 2 denied equal protection, unlawfully delegated lawmaking authority, and constituted arbitrary and unreasonable state action. The district court dismissed the equal protection, unlawful delegation, and arbitrary and unreasonable state action claims and granted declaratory and injunctive relief against the enforcement of the two contested provisions of H.B. 2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the equal protection, unlawful delegation, and arbitrary and unreasonable state action claims and partially reversed the injunctions because the plaintiffs failed to show that they placed a substantial burden in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.


[Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
In applying the substantial burden test, courts must weigh the extent to which the laws in question actually serve the stated government interest against the burden they impose. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 5-3 majority, which held that the provisions of H.B. 2 at issue do not confer medical benefits that are sufficient to justify the burdens they impose on women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. Therefore, the provisions unconstitutionally impose an undue burden. The Court held that the judicial review of such statutes need not be wholly deferential to the legislative fact-finding, especially when the factual record before the district court contradicted it. In this case, the evidence presented before the district court showed that the admitting privileges requirement of H.B. 2 did not advance the state’s interest in protecting women’s health but did place a substantial burden in the path of a woman seeking an abortion by forcing about half of the state’s abortion clinics to close. This additional layer of regulation provided no further protections than those already in place. Similarly, the requirement that abortion clinics meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers did not appreciably lower the risks of abortions compared to those performed in non-surgical centers. These requirements were so tangentially related to the actual procedures involved in an abortion that they were essentially arbitrary. If these requirements took effect, only seven or eight facilities in the entire state would be able to function, which is in and of itself a substantial burden on women seeking abortions because those remaining facilities would not be able to meet the demand. The Court also held that the petitioners were not precluded from challenging the provisions as they were applied despite previous litigation on whether the provisions were unconstitutional on their face, especially given the evidence about how their enforcement had actually affected abortion access across the state.
In her concurrence, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that modern abortions are so safe relative to other medical procedures, including childbirth itself, that any law that made accessing abortions more difficult in the name of safety could not pass judicial review.


[Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
precludedfromchallengingtheprovisionsastheywereapplieddespitepreviouslitigationonwhethertheprovisionswereunconstitutionalontheirface,especiallygiventheevidenceabouthowtheirenforcementhadactuallyaffectedabortionaccessacrossthestate.Inherconcurrence,JusticeRuthBaderGinsburgwrotethatmodernabortionsaresosaferelativetoothermedicalprocedures,includingchildbirthitself,thatanylawthatmadeaccessingabortionsmoredifficultinthenameofsafetycouldnotpassjudicialreview.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the majority opinion bent the rules of judicial scrutiny and misinterpreted precedent to reach its conclusion. He argued that this case should never have made it to the Supreme Court because the Court normally did not allow suits by third parties to vindicate the rights of others. Additionally, the majority opinion misconstrued the undue burden test as requiring courts to apply a standard of review similar to strict scrutiny in assessing laws that regulate abortions, despite the fact that there was no precedential support for that level of scrutiny in these cases. By adding further tiers to the levels of judicial scrutiny, the majority created a test that was a “meaningless formalism” and that provided little guidance to lower courts because the result is based on whether a right is favored instead of being actually enumerated in the Constitution. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the Court should not have reached the substantive issues of this case because the claims should have been barred as already litigated based on the outcome of the facial challenges to the provisions, which arose from the same set of operative facts. If the lower court’s decision was wrong as a matter of law, the petitioners could have appealed on that basis, but the strategic decision not to do so had consequences, and the majority opinion should have properly applied the well-established doctrine of claim preclusion. Even if the claims were not precluded, the petitioners did not meet their burden to show that the provisions in question affect a large fraction of Texan women. The fact that some clinics closed is evidence of a correlation with the provisions, not causation. Additionally, the petitioners did not prove that the closure of some clinics would actually affect the number of women able to access abortions, especially since many abortion clinics operated below capacity. Even if those provisions were problematic, the majority erred in declaring them completely unconstitutional when they could and should be upheld in any area in which they did not impose an undue burden. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Thomas joined in the dissent.
Learn more about the Supreme Court and abortion law in Body Politic, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.


[Simmons v. Himmelreich (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Walter Himmelreich is a federal prisoner at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. In 2008, he was attacked by another prisoner. Himmelreich filed a complaint against multiple defendants alleging many causes of action, including a claim that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was placed in administrative detention after filing a claim under the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA) and a claim that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when the prison officials failed to protect him from being assaulted by another inmate. The district court dismissed his case for failure to state a claim. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the decision and remanded the case for reconsideration of the First and Eighth Amendment claims.
On remand, the district court granted summary judgment for the defendants by holding that Himmelreich had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies on the claims and that the prison officials were subject to the discretionary exception to the FTCA, which triggered the judgment bar of the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. §2676, that prohibits “any action by the same claimant, by reason of the same subject matter, against the employee of the government whose act of omission gave rise to the claim.” The appellate court again vacated and remanded the lower court’s judgment. It held that Himmelreich’s failure to exhaust his administrative remedies should be excused because he had been intimidated and threatened by prison officials to not pursue a grievance process against them. The appellate court also found that the dismissal of Himmelreich’s claim based on discretionary exception to the FTCA as applied by the district court does not necessarily trigger a judgment bar of 28 U.S.C §2676.


[Simmons v. Himmelreich (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The judgment bar of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) does not apply to claims dismissed for falling under the exceptions to the FTCA. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that the FTCA explicitly exempts coverage from certain categories of claims. Because the judgment bar is part of the FTCA, if the FTCA does not apply to a claim, then the judgment bar does not either. In the absence of Congressional intent to the contrary, the plain reading of the language of the statute -- that the FTCA, including the judgment bar, does not cover cases that are exempt -- should control the analysis. In this case, because Himmelreich’s first claim fell under the discretionary action exception to the FTCA, the judgment bar did not apply to his second claim.


[Betterman v. Montana (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Brandon Thomas Betterman failed to appear in court on December 8, 2011, on charges of partner or family member assault, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. On February 9, 2012, Betterman turned himself in and stated that he knew he was supposed to appear in court but claimed he had neither money nor transportation to get to the courthouse that day. He was convicted on March 15, 2012, and sentenced to five years. On April 19, 2012, he pled guilty to the charges of jumping bail. His sentence hearing did not occur until January 17, 2013, when he filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that he was denied a speedy and fair trial due to the amount of time that had lapsed between his guilty plea and sentencing hearing. On April 29, 2013, his motion was denied, and on June 27, 2013, Betterman was sentenced to seven years for his bail-jumping charge. The Supreme Court of Montana held that the delay between Betterman’s plea and sentencing was unacceptably long but had not violated his rights to fair and speedy trial.


[Betterman v. Montana (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a speedy trial does not extend past a guilty verdict or guilty plea. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that, although a defendant may have other recourse for an inordinate delay in sentencing, the Sixth Amendment does not apply to post-conviction, pre-sentencing delays. This reading of the Sixth Amendment is in line with the historical understanding of what the right protects: The right of the accused to have a speedy trial. Because “the accused” is different from “the convicted,” extending the Sixth Amendment right to post-conviction procedures would change the nature of the right. The manner in which legislatures and courts have interpreted the right, as well as the remedies available for a violation of the right, are also in line with the time-limited reading. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, as well as many states’ rules of criminal procedure, provide some protections against undue delays in sentencing, but the Sixth Amendment does not.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court’s opinion leaves open the question of whether an undue sentencing delay would violate a defendant’s rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that it’s not clear what test the Court would use in adjudicating such a case. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the concurrence. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate concurring opinion in which she emphasized that the question of when an undue delay in sentencing violated the Due Process Clause was an open one. Justice Sotomayor argued that a possible test would be based on an analysis of four factors: The length of the delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and the prejudice to the defendant.


[Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Unlike states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico may not authorize its municipalities, including utilities, to declare bankruptcy and seek relief under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In June 2014, Puerto Rico enacted the Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act (Recovery Act), which expressly provided different protections for creditors than Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
The plaintiffs in this case are a group of investors who collectively hold nearly two billion dollars in bonds issued by one of Puerto Rico’s public utilities, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which could potentially file for bankruptcy under the Recovery Act. The plaintiffs sued Puerto Rico in district court and argued that Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which prohibits state municipal debt restructuring laws from binding creditors without their consent, preempts the Recovery Act. The district court found in favor of the plaintiffs and enjoined the enforcement of the Recovery Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.


[Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code preempted the Puerto Rico statute that allowed public utilities to restructure their debt. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion for the 5-2 majority. The Court held that Puerto Rico is a “state” within the meaning of the preemption provision of Chapter 9. When the Bankruptcy Code was originally enacted, it included territories, such as Puerto Rico, in the definition of “states” to which the Code applied. Since then, Congress had amended the definition of “state” to exclude Puerto Rico for the purpose of defining who may be a debtor under a specific provision of Chapter 9, but that narrowing of the definition did not apply to the preemption provision. The plain language of the preemption clause did not contain any language that excluded Puerto Rico; in contrast, the amended definition of state specifically excluded Puerto Rico for the purpose of defining who may be a debtor and went no further. Without further language from Congress, the text should not be interpreted to reflect a Congressional intent for which there is no textual evidence.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that each of the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code must be read within the context of the whole Code. Because the language of the preemption provision presupposed that it applied to states who could be considered debtors, that provision did not apply to Puerto Rico. Crucially, the language of the Code also meant that the only ways to solve Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis were for Puerto Rico to pass the kind of statute that it did or wait for direct Congressional action. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


[Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) owns and operates Arbour Counseling Services (Arbour), a mental health services provider in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Arbour participates in the state Medicaid program, MassHealth, and the state has promulgated regulations for such “satellite” facilities.
Julio Escobar and Carmen Correa are the parents of Yarushka Rivera, a teenager with behavioral issues who began seeing a counselor at Arbour. These counselors were not licensed, and Escobar and Correa became concerned that they were not being properly supervised as the regulations of satellite facilities required. Rivera was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed a medicine by a “doctor” who was later discovered to be a nurse under the supervision of a non-board-certified psychiatrist. Rivera soon had an adverse reaction to the medicine and called Arbour for guidance but was unable to speak with anyone. A few days later, she had a seizure and was hospitalized. A few months later, she suffered a fatal seizure.
Escobar and Correa filed complaints with several state agencies and eventually sued UHS under both the federal and state False Claims Acts. The district court dismissed the complaint and held that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently plead the elements of falsity that claims under the False Claims Act require. The U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and held that the plaintiffs had sufficiently pled the elements of falsity by applying an “implied certification” test, which states that falsity has been sufficiently pled when there is evidence that the defendant did not comply with a condition of payment.


[Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The implied certification test could be a valid basis for False Claims Act liability, and the conditions of payment with which the defendant allegedly failed to comply did not need to be explicitly stated. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that the implied certification theory could be a basis for liability under certain circumstances. When the defendant submitted a claim for payment that made specific representations about goods or services provided but knowingly did not disclose noncompliance with statutory, regulatory, or contractual requirements, liability could attach if the omission made those representations misleading. However, liability did not depend on whether the requirements were expressly designated as conditions of payment; instead the determining factor was whether the misrepresentation about compliance was material under the traditional common law meaning of the term. Because the materiality standard and the “knowingly” part of the liability test are strict, the requirements of payment need not be expressly stated.


[CRST Van Expedited v. EEOC (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a sexual harassment suit on behalf of approximately 270 female employees against CRST Van Expedited (CRST). Two years after filing the suit, the EEOC failed to identify the 270 women, and the district court ordered the EEOC to amend its list of 270 women to include only the women who wished to continue with the suit and to ensure that those women be available for deposition. The EEOC complied with the first court order and failed to fulfill the second before the deadline. CRST had filed seven motions to dismiss, and the district granted (or granted in part) six of the motions. CRST subsequently filed a bill of costs against the EEOC for $4,560,285.11, and the district court granted the fee award. The EEOC appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the fee award. The appellate court held that the EEOC’s pre-suit obligations were not elements of the claim and did not constitute a ruling on the merits that was eligible for fees.


[CRST Van Expedited v. EEOC (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The defendant may be a “prevailing party” for the purpose of the award of fees even without a ruling on the merits. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that the determination of whether a particular party has “prevailed” for the purpose of fee-shifting statutes is whether there has been a material alteration in the legal relationship of the parties. Because the defendant can obtain its objective by preventing the plaintiff from altering the legal relationship in its favor, the defendant can prevail without judgment on the merits of the case. In this case, the defendant prevailed because the plaintiffs did not satisfy their pre-suit obligations and therefore were unable to alter the legal relationship between the parties. There is no indication that Congress, in drafting the statutory language, intended to limit the opportunity to collect fees to parties that prevailed on the merits, especially as doing so would prevent parties from obtaining fees on claims that were dismissed as frivolous.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed with the Court’s opinion and argued that previous precedent suggesting that a district court must make a separate finding before determining that a defendant is eligible for a fee award should not be extended further.


[Sheriff v. Gillie (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In 1977, Congress enacted the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) in an effort to combat abusive debt collection practices, which were particularly problematic with third party or independent debt collectors, who are unlikely to have contact with the consumer and therefore have little incentive to act fairly. One of the issues that the FDCPA addressed was independent debt collectors representing themselves as government officials. Therefore, the FDCPA targeted these “debt collectors” while exempting government officials from that definition. The statutory language of the exemption was specific to “any officer or employee of ... any State to the extent that collecting or attempting to collect any debt is in the performance of his official duties.”
The Ohio Revised Code contains a provision that unpaid debts owed to a state entity get “certified” to the Ohio Attorney General, who is then responsible for collecting the debt or disposing of it by other means. The Attorney General may enlist “special counsel” to collect debts on the Attorney General’s behalf. To do so, the special counsel and the Attorney General enter into a retention agreement that, among other terms, allows the special counsel to use the Attorney General’s letterhead in connection with claims arising out of the tax debts the special counsel is authorized to collect.
The plaintiffs in this case are individuals who received debt collection letters that used the seal of the Ohio Attorney General from the defendants, who became special counsel to the Attorney General in 2013. The plaintiffs sued and argued that the defendants violated the FDCPA by using the Ohio Attorney General letterhead. The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and held that special counsel are not “debt collectors” under the meaning of the FDCPA because they are officers of the state for the purposes of debt collection, and therefore the use of the Ohio Attorney General letterhead was not false or misleading. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the lower court’s decision and held that special counsel are “debt collectors” under the meaning of the FDCPA and do not fall under the exemption, and that there was a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the use of Ohio Attorney General’s seal on debt collection letters was misleading.


[Sheriff v. Gillie (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
Even if special counsel appointed by the state Attorney General to collect debts are not “state officers” under the meaning of the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), use of the Attorney General Letterhead is not materially misleading. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, regardless of whether the special counsel are “state officers” under the FDCPA, their use of the Attorney General’s letterhead was not materially misleading because it accurately conveyed that the special counsel was tasked with collecting debts on the Attorney General’s behalf. The use of the Attorney General’s letterhead was in fact required when the special was sending debt collection communications, because that explained on whose authority the special counsel was writing to the debtor. The Court also noted that to interpret these actions as violating the FDCPA would raise a federalism concern, because the manner in which states collect debts is a matter of state government in which the federal government should not interfere.


[Ross v. Blake (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
On June 21, 2007, Lieutenants Michael Ross and James Madigan were escorting Shaidon Blake from his cell when Madigan shoved Blake several times. The incident escalated to Madigan punching Blake in the face several times with a key ring wrapped around his fingers while Ross held him. Blake was then taken to the medical unit and later diagnosed with nerve damage. Blake reported the incident to senior corrections officers, and the Internal Investigative Unit of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services conducted an investigation and issued a formal report. The formal report determined that Madigan had used excessive force against Blake and that Blake was not at fault in any way. Blake subsequently sued Ross and Madigan in addition to two supervisors and three government entities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and argued that they violated his constitutional rights by using excessive force.
Nearly two years after Blake initially filed the suit, Ross filed an amended answer to the complaint that alleged that Blake had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) required. Ross also moved for summary judgment based on the same argument, and the district court granted the motion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and held that the “special circumstances” exception to the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement was met in this case. Because the internal investigation provided the correction officials time and opportunity to address the complaints internally and Blake reasonably believed that he had exhausted his administrative remedies by participating in an internal investigation, the requirements for the “special circumstances” exception to the PLRA were met.


[Ross v. Blake (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirement to exhaust administrative remedies does not have a “special circumstances” exception. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the plain text of the statute clearly does not include any sort of special circumstances exception. Because no such exception exists, courts may not excuse a failure to exhaust administrative remedies, regardless of what “special circumstances” might exist. Judicial precedent interpreting the PLRA’s exhaustion provision has continually taken this strict approach to construing the provision. Additionally, the precursor to the PLRA had a relatively weak exhaustion provision, so the PLRA is best interpreted as a stronger response to what came before it. However, the Court also noted that the PLRA’s exhaustion scheme hinges on the “availability” of remedies, and that there might be cases in which administrative remedies were not available. Because this case might be one in which remedies were not “available” within the meaning of the PLRA, the Court remanded the case.
In his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the majority opinion impermissibly considered the existence of documents that were not properly before the Court because they were not part of the appellate record. In his separate opinion concurring in part, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the term “exhaustion” should be given the meaning it traditionally has in administrative law. Therefore, the term should include “well-established” exceptions to exhaustion, though none were relevant to the disposition of this case.


[Birchfield v. North Dakota (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Danny Birchfield drove into a ditch in Morton County, North Dakota. When police arrived on the scene, they believed Birchfield was intoxicated. Birchfield failed both the field sobriety tests and the breath test. He was arrested, but he refused to consent to a chemical test. Birchfield was charged with a misdemeanor for refusing to consent to a chemical test in violation of state law. He moved to dismiss the charge and claimed that the state law violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. In a similar case, police were called to the South St. Paul boat launch where three men were attempting to pull their boat out of the water and onto their truck. William Robert Bernard, Jr., admitted he had been drinking and had the truck keys in his hands, but he denied driving the truck and refused to perform a field sobriety test. He was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired (DWI) and taken to the police station, where he refused to consent to a chemical test in violation of Minnesota state law. Bernard was charged with two counts of first-degree test refusal pursuant to state law. In a separate incident, Steve Beylund consented to a blood alcohol to test to confirm he was driving under the influence after being informed it was a criminal offense in North Dakota to refuse a blood alcohol test. The test confirmed he was over the legal limit, and Beylund was charged with driving under the influence.
All three men challenged the state statutes criminalizing refusal to submit to a chemical test and argued that the statutes violated their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures when there was no probable cause that would support a warrant for the test. Both the Supreme Court of Minnesota and the Supreme Court of North Dakota determined that criminalizing the refusal to submit to a chemical test was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.


[Birchfield v. North Dakota (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
A state statute may not criminalize the refusal to submit to a blood test in the absence of a warrant because, while the Fourth Amendment allows for warrantless breath tests incident to an arrest for drunk driving, warrantless blood tests incident to an arrest violate the Fourth Amendment. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that warrantless breath tests are permissible under the search incident to arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement because they do not implicate significant privacy concerns. They involve minimal physical intrusion to capture something that is routinely exposed to the public, reveal a limited amount of information, and do not enhance any embarrassment beyond what the arrest itself causes. Blood tests, however, implicate privacy interests because they are much more physically invasive -- they require the piercing of the skin -- and they produce a sample that can be preserved and used to obtain further information beyond the subject’s blood alcohol level at the time of the test. The Court also determined that criminalizing refusal to submit to a breath test is designed to serve the government’s interest in preventing drunk driving, which is greater than merely keeping currently drunk drivers off the roads, and does so better than other alternatives. However, the same rationale did not apply to criminalizing refusal to submit to a blood test because of the greater degree of intrusion and the available alternative of the breath test.
In her partial concurrence and partial dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless searches should apply to breath tests unless exigent circumstances justify one in a particular case. In establishing exceptions to the warrant requirement, the Court has routinely examined whether a legitimate government interest justified the search in light of the individual’s privacy interest and whether that determination should be made based on a case-by-case analysis or a categorical rule. Based on this analysis, Justice Sotomayor argued that a categorical rule allowing warrantless breath tests incident to arrest was unnecessary to protect the government interest of preventing drunk driving because at that point the driver is off the road and a warrant could be obtained if necessary. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In his separate opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement should apply categorically to all blood alcohol tests, including blood tests. By drawing an arbitrary line between blood tests and breath tests, the majority destabilized the law of exceptions to the warrant requirement and made the jobs of both police officers and lower courts more difficult.


[United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Hawkes Co., Inc. (Hawkes) was interested in purchasing a piece of land in northern Minnesota to mine high-quality peat. Hawkes applied to the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for a permit to begin extracting peat from the land once they purchased the property in October 2010. The Corps informed Hawkes that the permit process would be very costly and would take a long time and so urged Hawkes not to purchase the property. The Corps then submitted an Approved Jurisdictional Determination to derail Hawkes’ plan to purchase and mine the property by arguing that the land was a wetland connecting to “waters of the United States,” which are protected under the Clean Water Act. Hawkes challenged the jurisdictional determination and filed an action for immediate judicial review. The trial court dismissed the action and held that the jurisdictional determination was not a “final agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act, and therefore it was not subject to judicial review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the jurisdictional determination was a final agency action and remanded the action for judicial review.


[United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The Army Corps of Engineers’ jurisdictional determination that the property in question constituted “water of the United States” was a final agency action subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that two conditions must be satisfied for an agency action to be considered “final” under the APA: The action must be the consummation of the agency’s decision-making process and it must determine rights or obligations that create legal consequences. Because a jurisdictional determination is typically not revisited and marks the end of an extensive fact-finding process, it is the consummation of the agency’s decision-making process and satisfies the first condition. Similarly, the jurisdictional determination binds the two governmental agencies authorized to sue to enforce the Clean Water Act and therefore creates legal consequences, which satisfies the second condition.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the reach of the Clean Water Act remains unclear, and that the majority opinion is important to place a limit on some of the government’s power through the Act. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the concurrence. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a separate concurring opinion in which she argued that the fact that jurisdictional determinations are binding on both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency is essential to the disposition of the case. Because the jurisdictional determination binds those agencies in subsequent litigation, it creates a legal consequence.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which she argued that the fact that the jurisdictional determination is binding on the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency is not essential to the disposition of the case. Because the jurisdictional determination is definitive and creates an immediate and practical impact, that alone satisfies both of the conditions necessary for an agency action to be considered final for the purpose of APA review.


[United States v. Bryant (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In June 2011, Michael Bryant, Jr. was convicted of two counts of domestic assault by a habitual offender in violation of 18 U.S.C. 117(a), a federal law that criminalizes domestic assault by any person who has been convicted of at least two domestic violence offenses in federal, state, or Indian tribal court. For the predicate offenses, the prosecution relied on Bryant’s previous domestic abuse convictions in Northern Cheyenne Tribal Court. Bryant moved to dismiss the indictment and argued that the use of the tribal court convictions as predicate convictions for the charge violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights because he was not afforded counsel in the tribal court proceedings, so his convictions would have violated the Sixth Amendment if they had occurred in state or federal court. The district court denied the motion, and Bryant pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement that preserved his right to appeal the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that an uncounseled conviction that violated the Sixth Amendment could not be used as a predicate offense for the purpose of a charge under Section 117(a).


[United States v. Bryant (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The use of an uncounseled conviction in tribal court proceedings that complied with the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (ICRA) as a predicate offense under 18 U.S.C. 117(a) did not violate the Sixth Amendment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, although the Sixth Amendment does not apply in tribal court proceedings, ICRA contains procedural safeguards that are similar to those in the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. As long as prior convictions were valid under ICRA when they were entered, they can be used as predicate offenses to enhance a sentence under 18 U.S.C. 117(a), even if they would not have been valid in state or federal court. The Court determined that this decision was consistent with precedent and avoided the creation of a hybrid tribal court conviction that was valid on its own but not for enhanced sentencing purposes. Additionally, ICRA allows for federal habeas review in cases that do raise constitutional violation concerns.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the fact that this case was before the Court illustrated that the Court has used two conflicting views of Indian tribal sovereignty. On the one hand, the Court has established that the Sixth Amendment did not apply because the tribes are sovereign; however, the federal government has the power to subject members of the tribes to federal criminal prosecution because Congress has power over tribal sovereignty. Justice Thomas argued that the Court should reconsider its precedents that relate to Indian tribal sovereignty and create a more cohesive, coherent, theory.


[Manuel v. City of Joliet (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Elijah Manuel was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for failing to signal on March 18, 2011. When the police officer detected an odor of marijuana in the car, he dragged Manuel out of the car, pushed and kicked him, and handcuffed him. The officer found a bottle of pills in Manuel’s pocket during his pat-down. The pills were tested and the officers falsified the results to show the pills were ecstasy. The initial positive pill results were later tested at the scene of the arrest. More detailed negative lab results were presented by Manuel later. Manuel was arrested based on these initial results. The officers continued to rely on the false positive initial test throughout the grand jury proceedings, and he was held until May 4, when the Assistant State’s Attorney sought dismissal of the charges.
Manuel sued the City of Joliet and various city officials and alleged malicious prosecution as well as other civil rights claims. The district court dismissed most of Manuel’s claims as falling outside of the statute of limitations. His malicious prosecution claim was not time-barred, however, but was dismissed under Newsome v. McCabe, which held that federal claims of malicious prosecution stem from the right to due process and are not a Fourth Amendment issue. Therefore, there was no malicious prosecution claim under federal law if the state provided a similar cause of action, as Illinois did. On appeal, Manuel argued that Newsome did not foreclose a malicious prosecution claim on Fourth Amendment grounds when officers misrepresented evidence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling against Manuel as consistent with the Newsome precedent.


[Manuel v. City of Joliet (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
An individual’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure continues throughout the legal process of a criminal case. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that an individual’s claim that challenges pretrial detention falls within the scope of the Fourth Amendment regardless of whether legal process has begun. Even where legal process has begun, the prosecution itself may be unsupported by probable cause, which gives rise to a Fourth Amendment claim. In such cases, a detainee’s Fourth Amendment claim does not become a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim because the requirements of the Fourth Amendment have not been satisfied. The Court thus held that Manuel’s Fourth Amendment claim was proper because his arrest was made without probable cause. The Court then declined to decide whether Manuel’s Fourth Amendment claim arose when his criminal charges were dismissed or when legal process began and instead remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for further consideration.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the point at which Manuel’s Fourth Amendment claim arose was irrelevant because Manuel filed his claim after the statute of limitations had run for either possible date. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., wrote a separate dissenting opinion in which he argued that the majority had ignored the question of whether a malicious prosecution claim may be brought under the Fourth Amendment. At the point that Manuel brought his claim, the only timely claim he could have made was one for malicious prosecution. However, while a claim under the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is typically brought against law enforcement officers, officers do not initiate or dismiss prosecution, which is required for a claim of malicious prosecution. Malicious prosecution claims also require subjective bad faith, whereas Fourth Amendment claims use an objective standard. Lastly, malicious prosecution requires a termination of charges, while a Fourth Amendment violation occurs regardless of whether charges are eventually dismissed or not. Therefore, Justice Alito argued that a malicious prosecution claim cannot be based on the Fourth Amendment.


[Murr v. Wisconsin (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
The parents of Joseph P. Murr and his siblings (the Murrs) purchased two adjacent lots (Lots E and F) in St. Croix County in 1960. The two lots together made up approximately .98 acres. In 1994 and 1995 respectively, the Murrs’ parents transferred Lot F and Lot E to their children. In 1995, the two lots were merged pursuant to St. Croix County’s code of ordinances. The relevant ordinance prohibits the individual development or sale of adjacent lots under common ownership, unless an individual lot was at least one acre. The ordinance further specified that if each lot is not at least one acre, the lots may be measured together to equal one acre. Seven years later, the Murrs wanted to sell Lot E and not Lot F. The St. Croix County Board of Adjustment denied the Murrs’ application to sell the lots separately.
The Murrs sued the state and county and claimed the ordinance in question resulted in an uncompensated taking of their property and deprived them of “all, or practically all, of the use of Lot E because the lot cannot be sold or developed as a separate lot.” The circuit court granted summary judgement to the state and county. The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin affirmed and held that the Murrs were not deprived of their practical use of the property.


[Murr v. Wisconsin (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
In a regulatory takings case, two legally distinct but commonly owned contiguous parcels should be combined for takings analysis purposes. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 5-3 majority. The Court held that, while generally governmental regulation of property was not a taking, regulation could be so burdensome that it became a taking. The analysis essentially required courts to balance the rights of property ownership against the government’s power to adjust rights for the good of the public, which is a fact-intensive inquiry. In order to properly conduct this inquiry, it was necessary to define the scope of the relevant property. The Court had determined that two approaches did not adequately protect the property rights at stake: defining the property as only the portion targeted by the challenged regulation and allowing state law to define the property. Instead, courts should consider factors such as the treatment of land under state and local law, the physical characteristics of the land, and the prospective value of the regulated land. This inquiry was objective and examined the landowner’s reasonable expectation about whether the property at issue would be treated as a single parcel or separate ones. In this case, the proper application of these factors meant that the parcels in question should be evaluated as a single unit for takings analysis purposes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment applied to established private property rights, which had historically been defined by state law. Because the analysis of whether a regulation constituted a taking required the examination of the impact of the regulation on a property right, there was an incentive for property owners to define the relevant property rights narrowly to maximize the impact of the regulation. State laws, however, provided definite, easily ascertainable boundaries to units of land and therefore clearly defined the affected property. Using state law to define the relevant property for takings analysis purposes simplified the analysis and avoided creating a “litigation-specific” definition of property. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Thomas wrote that the Court should reexamine its decisions on regulatory takings to determine whether such a concept was actually grounded in the original meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


[Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Academic textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Wiley) owns the American copyright for textbooks and often assigns its rights to its foreign subsidiaries to publish, print, and sell its textbooks abroad. Supap Kirtsaeng is a Thai citizen who came to the United States in 1997 to study mathematics. While he was in the United States, Kirtsaeng asked friends and family in Thailand to buy the English-language versions of his textbooks there, where they were cheaper, and mail them to him. Kirtsaeng would then sell the textbooks in America, where they were worth more, reimburse his friends and family, and make a profit.
In 2008, Wiley sued Kirtsaeng for copyright infringement. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court on the question of whether Kirtsaeng was barred from asserting an affirmative defense because the copyrighted works in question were manufactured abroad. The Court held that the affirmative defense was available to Kirtsaeng and remanded the case. Kirtsaeng won the case on remand and sought an award of attorneys' fees and reimbursement of litigation expenses pursuant to Section 505 of the Copyright Act. The district court held that Section 505 provides that the court may “in its discretion” award attorney’s fees but is not bound to do so. Because Wiley’s suit was not “frivolous” or “objectively unreasonable,” the district court held that awarding Kirtsaeng attorney’s fees would “not promote the purposes of the Copyright Act.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.


[Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
When deciding whether to grant attorney’s fees under Section 505 of the Copyright Act, courts should give substantial weight to the objective reasonableness of the losing party’s position, but that determination should not be the controlling factor. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, while the objective reasonableness of the losing party’s position should be given substantial weight, the court retained discretion to consider that factor in light of other relevant considerations. While the language of Section 505 clearly granted a court discretion in awarding attorney’s fees, the Supreme Court had created some restrictions that advanced the overall goals of the Copyright Act -- to encourage creation while allowing others to build on previous work. The objective reasonableness factor for determining fee awards furthered useful copyright litigation because it encouraged both parties to advance strong legal positions and deterred frivolous suits based on weak claims. However, any fee award analysis must take into account more than only this factor, as others were relevant to the court’s determination.


[Dietz v. Bouldin (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Hillary Bouldin’s vehicle collided with Rocky Dietz’s in Montana in 2009. Dietz filed a negligence claim for injuries sustained from the accident. The action was removed to federal court. The parties made stipulations as to past damages, and the jury ruled in Dietz’s favor but awarded $0 in damages. The district court judge dismissed the jury but then reconsidered and re-empaneled the jury. He asked them to re-determine the damages in a manner consistent with the parties’ stipulation. The jury returned the same verdict and awarded $15,000 in damages. On appeal, Dietz claimed that the district court erred by recalling the jury after it had been dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision and held that dismissing the jury, then recalling the jurors, was not an abuse of discretion because the jurors were not exposed to prejudicial influence during the brief duration of their dismissal.


[Dietz v. Bouldin (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
A federal district court judge has a limited ability to recall jurors in a civil case after identifying an error in their verdict, and that power was not abused in this case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the 6-2 majority. The Court held that, while the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure set out many of the powers of a district court judge, they do not establish an exhaustive list. District court judges have some powers that are not enumerated in the Federal Rules, but those powers are limited in that they must be a “reasonable response” to whatever problems are confronting the court and they cannot contradict any other express rule or statute. Based on this analysis, district court judges may recall jurors when they identify an error in the jury’s verdict because this is a more expedient way to resolve the problem than empaneling a whole new jury and re-trying the case, and there is no rule or statute prohibiting such an action. However, a district court judge may only do so when there is no suggestion that the jurors have been prejudiced by their time outside of the jury room. Additionally, this power only exists in civil trials. In this case, the district judge did not abuse its discretion by exercising the limited power to recall the jurors after discovering that their verdict was a legal error.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the common law rule preventing a judge from recalling a jury once the jury has had the opportunity to interact with the public after the conclusion of the case should control in this case. Although jurors are no longer as strictly sequestered as they once were, the prophylactic nature of drawing the rule at the opportunity for prejudice to occur is the most administrable rule that promotes confidence in the justice system. Justice Thomas also argued that the majority’s multi-factor test would create more confusion and therefore more litigation. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined in the dissent.


[United States v. Texas (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In June 2012, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, along with criteria for determining when prosecutors can choose not to enforce immigration laws under DACA. People who qualify for DACA may apply for work authorization. In 2014, DHS established a similar process for parents of citizens and lawful permanent residents as well as expanding DACA by making more people eligible. The new program was known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program.
Texas and other states sued to prevent the implementation of DAPA and argued that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it had not gone through the notice-and-comment process, and because it was arbitrary and capricious. The states also argued that DAPA violated the Take Care Clause of the Constitution, which clarifies the President's power. The district court held that the states had standing to file the suit and temporarily enjoined the implementation of DAPA because the states had established a substantial likelihood of success on the notice-and-comment claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed and held that the states had standing as well as a substantial likelihood of success on their substantive and procedural claims.


[United States v. Texas (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the equally divided Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court.


[Microsoft v. Baker (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
The plaintiffs brought a class action suit against Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and alleged that, during regular game play on the Xbox 360, the discs would come loose due to vibrations and scratch against internal components of the gaming system, which rendered them permanently broken. Because only 0.4% of consoles caused this issue with regular players, the district court determined that a class action suit could not be certified and individuals in the suit would have to come forward on their own. The parties then stipulated a dismissal with prejudice. The district court granted the dismissal, and the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appellate court reversed and held that the district court had misapplied applicable law and, therefore, abused its discretion in striking the class action allegations.


[Microsoft v. Baker (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
Federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs have voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that a voluntary dismissal of individual claims with prejudice did not count as a final judgment that allowed for denial of class certification to be reviewed even after the court of appeals denied interlocutory appeal on the issue. Generally, federal courts of appeals may only review final judgments from district courts, and denial of class certification was not considered a final judgment. However, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) allowed for an appeal of the denial of class certification with the permission of the court of appeals. If the court of appeals denied the appeal, the plaintiffs may continue to litigate their individual claims. Their options at that point were that the district court may reverse its denial of class certification at any point prior to final judgment on those claims, or the plaintiffs could appeal the denial of class certification after the final judgment. In this case, the individual plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice, which subverted the procedure laid out in Rule 23(f). The plaintiffs’ proposed approach would allow indiscriminate appellate review of interlocutory orders, which both the final judgment rule and Rule 23(f) were intended to prevent.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to review an order denying class certification after the named plaintiffs had voluntarily dismissed their claims with prejudice because there was no longer a case or controversy as Article III required. Article III denied federal courts the ability to adjudicate cases that did not affect the actual rights of the litigants before them. Therefore, federal courts did not have jurisdiction over cases like the one in question here, in which the parties were no longer adverse to one another on any of their claims. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


[Encino Motorcars v. Navarro (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Encino Motorcars, LLC (Encino) sold and serviced Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Hector Navarro was employed there as a service advisor, which involved him greeting customers and assessing their needs as they entered the business. Navarro, along with other similarly-situated plaintiffs, sued Encino for failing to pay overtime compensation when they worked more than forty hours a week. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, “service advisors” engaged in servicing automobiles are not entitled to overtime compensation, so the district court dismissed their overtime claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision and held that Navarro and other employees were not exempted from overtime compensation. In reaching its decision, the appellate court relied on the Department of Labor’s 2011 determination that service advisors were not exempt under the FLSA, which was a reversal of the position that the Department had taken in 1987.


[Encino Motorcars v. Navarro (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
Because the Department of Labor did not give adequate reasons for altering its position on whether service advisors are exempt from overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the case should be remanded for reinterpretation that does not give controlling weight to the Department’s 2011 position. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that, while courts generally give deference to the determinations of agencies that Congress has authorized to administer statutes, courts should only do so when the agency’s rules are procedurally sound. A basic procedural requirement is that the agency must give adequate reasons for its determinations, and such reasons are particularly important when a change in the agency’s position may impact long-standing interpretations of the relevant statute. In this case, the Department of Labor did not provide adequate reasons for its 2011 change in position that affected a decades-long understanding of the FLSA. Therefore, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit should not have afforded the 2011 determination the deference that it did, and the case should be remanded.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the majority’s opinion should not change how courts approach agency determinations, which well-established principles of administrative law still governs. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the concurrence.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the case should not be remanded but rather that the Court should have decided the case based on the text of the FLSA. Because the text of the FLSA clearly exempts salesman, and service advisors are those who sell services related to automobiles, service advisors should be properly considered exempt from overtime compensation. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent.


[Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC. (Cuozzo) owns the 074 patent, “Speed Limit Indicator and Method for Displaying Speed and the Relevant Speed Limit,” and Garmin International, Inc. (Garmin) petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) for inter partes review of claims regarding the patent. The Board was established to process patent litigation faster by using inter partes review, and during that process, the Board uses the broadest reasonable interpretation when reviewing patent claims instead of the plain and ordinary meaning of patent claims. The Board found that claims 10, 14, and 17 were unpatentable. Cuozzo filed a motion to amend by replacing claims 10, 14, and 17 with claims 21, 22, and 23. The Board denied this request by applying the broadest reasonable interpretation standard to the term “integrally attached” regarding claim 14 on the components of the “Speed Limit Indicator.” Cuozzo appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which held that it lacked authority to review the Board’s finding under the broadest reasonable interpretation.


[Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board may apply the broadest reasonable interpretation of patent claims during an inter partes review proceeding, and such a proceeding is not judicially reviewable. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 7-0 majority. The Court held that judicial review of the decision of whether to institute inter partes review would not only go against the express wording of the statute, but it would also undercut the congressional objective of giving the Patent Office the power to revisit and revise earlier patent grants. The strong presumption of judicial review can be overcome by clear and convincing language and legislative history, as there was in this case. Additionally, because Congress did not expressly establish a standard for the Patent Office to apply in reviewing a patent claim in inter partes review, the broadest reasonable interpretation standard is acceptable as long as it is a reasonable exercise of the Patent Office’s rulemaking authority. The Court held that the broadest reasonable interpretation standard was appropriate because it encouraged a patent applicant to draft the claim narrowly, which meant that the claim would not unnecessarily prevent further patents on related work, and also resembled the standard used in district court litigation as well as other patent proceedings.
In his concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that ambiguities in statutory text should not always be interpreted as a delegation of authority to the appropriate administrative agency, and that the Court should reconsider the line of precedent that established that presumption. In this case, however, because there was an explicit delegation of authority to the Patent Office to promulgate the rules governing its own proceedings, the majority opinion appropriately deferred to the Patent Office’s determination.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which he argued that the strong presumption in favor of judicial review should apply in this case and that the agency’s final decision should be appealable. The relevant statutory language explicitly stated that the decision of whether to institute inter partes review was “nonappealable” rather than “not subject to review;” therefore, while judicial review could not stop the proceedings from going forward, it could certainly apply to the question of whether the institution of such proceedings was lawful. Allowing for judicial review of that decision is also consistent with the rule that judicial review of final agency decisions encompassed earlier rulings that were not expressly judicially reviewable on their own. In determining otherwise, the majority opinion held that the Patent Office need not adhere to the review structure that Congress put in place, which could not have been what Congress intended. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the partial concurrence and partial dissent.


[McDonnell v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
On November 3, 2009, Robert F. McDonnell was elected Governor of Virginia. At the time of his election, he and his family were experiencing economic difficulties; by September 2010, he and his wife had a combined credit card balance of $90,000, and by 2012 the business he and his sister operated had a loan balance of $2.5 million. Shortly after his election, McDonnell met with Jonnie Williams, the founder and CEO of Star Scientific, Inc. (Star), which was trying to market a product called Anatabloc that could be used to treat chronic inflammation. Star wanted the Food and Drug Administration to classify Anatabloc as a pharmaceutical, which would be more profitable than the alternative classification of nutraceutical. However, such a classification would require expensive testing, clinical trials and studies, and Star lacked the funds. Between 2009 and 2012, Williams and McDonnell met several times and agreed that “independent testing [of Anatabloc] in Virginia was a good idea.” Williams also provided expensive gifts to the McDonnells and “was willing to help” with their financial troubles. A launch event for Anatabloc was held at the Governor’s Mansion, and Mrs. McDonnell facilitated meetings between Star officials and officials at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University to get the studies started. Mrs. McDonnell also purchased, sold, and gifted Star stock in such as way as to avoid reporting requirements, and McDonnell spoke to various government officials about the benefits of Anatabloc.
The McDonnells were eventually arrested and charged for corruption, under federal statutes that make it a felony to take “official action” in exchange for money, campaign contributions, or any other thing of value. On September 4, 2014, McDonnell was found guilty on 11 counts of corruption. McDonnell appealed his conviction and argued that the jury instructions given at trial did not properly define the term “official action.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed his conviction and held that the jury instructions in question were adequate.


[McDonnell v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
An “official act” is a decision or action on a question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding, or controversy that involves a specific exercise of formal governmental power. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that arranging a meeting, contacting another official, or hosting an event -- on its own -- is not sufficient to rise to the level of an “official act” for the purpose of federal bribery statutes. This more limited reading of the statutory text gives each word a meaning that is proper in context and not superfluous, which is the best reading of the statute. Additionally, previous Supreme Court precedent has established that the existence of matters pending before a government official was not sufficient to find that any action related to those matters constituted an “official act.” Adopting a broader reading of the statutory language would likely chill public officials’ interactions with their constituents due to fears of prosecution and therefore make it more difficult for them to do their jobs. Based on this interpretation of the statutory language, the jury instructions at issue were impermissibly broad and did not provide enough guidance to the jury regarding whether the actions in question needed to be formal exercises of governmental power. Therefore, the conviction was vacated.


[Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (2017) — Roberts Court (2017-2018) — Facts]
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. (Trinity) operates a licensed preschool and daycare called The Learning Center that was initially opened as a non-profit corporation but merged with Trinity in 1985. The Learning Center has an open admissions policy and incorporates daily religious instruction into its programs. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) offers Playground Scrap Tire Surface Material Grants that provide funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds. Trinity applied for such a grant but was denied because Article I, Section 7 of the Missouri Constitution states, “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion.” Trinity sued and argued that the denial of its application violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the First Amendment’s protections of freedom of religion and speech. The district court granted Missouri DNR Director Pauley’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and Trinity moved for reconsideration and to amend its complaint to include allegations that such grants had previously been given to religious organizations. The district court denied the motions, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal and the denial of the motions to reconsider and amend the complaint.


[Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (2017) — Roberts Court (2017-2018) — Conclusion]
The exclusion of churches from an otherwise neutral and secular aid program violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion of the 7-2 majority. The Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment protected the freedom to practice religion and subjects laws that burden religious practice to strict scrutiny. First Amendment precedent had established that laws that deny an otherwise generally available benefit because of religious status are unconstitutional, though laws that are neutral and generally applicable may be upheld even if they hamper religion. The distinction was whether the law in question discriminates against some or all religious beliefs. In this case, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ policy of denying religious organizations from its Playground Scrap Tire Surface Material Grants violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause because it discriminated against otherwise eligible organizations based solely on their religious character. The law did not need to prevent the religious organization from practicing its religious; it was sufficient that the law denied a religious organization the same opportunity to compete for a benefit that is otherwise available to all secular organizations. Because the state’s interest in using this policy was simply to draw a wide berth around religious establishment concerns, it was not a sufficiently compelling interest.
In his opinion concurring in part, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment clearly prohibited laws that facially discriminate against religion. To the extent that precedent suggested that a state may “disfavor” religion by placing minor burdens on religion in order to avoid state entanglement with religion, that precedent should be construed narrowly and did not apply in this case. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined in the opinion concurring in part. Justice Gorsuch wrote a separate opinion concurring in part in which he argued that the majority opinion’s suggested distinction between laws that discriminate based on religious status and those that do so based on religious use was untenable and unsupported by the Free Exercise Clause. Additionally, the majority opinion’s footnote that limited the opinion to addressing “express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing” risked making the opinion too case-specific and not based on general principles. Justice Thomas joined in the opinion concurring in part. In his separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the First Amendment was clearly not meant to prevent religious organizations from accessing government-provided benefits such as police and fire services. The benefit here was for the health and safety of children and therefore was in the same class of government-provided services that religious organizations should be able to access.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that this case raised serious Establishment Clause concerns. The majority opinion required a state to directly fund a religious organization in a manner that assisted the spread of its religious message and views. This was precisely the sort of direct connection between church and state that the Establishment Clause was intended to prevent, as shown by extensive history of state disestablishment. Therefore, a prophylactic rule to prevent state funding of religious organizations was permissible, and many states had one. The majority opinion erroneously called this decision discriminatory, when it was actually a legitimate choice for states to make to avoid entanglement with religion. Even under the Free Exercise Clause, the doctrine allowed states to make exceptions to generally applicable laws based on an organization’s status as religious. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.


[Mathis v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
On March 8, 2013, police officers executed a warrant to search Richard Mathis’ house following allegations of sexual abuse from young men. The officers found a loaded rifle and ammunition. After he was arrested and while in custody, Mathis admitted to owning the rifle and ammunition, and he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) because of his five previous burglary convictions in Iowa state courts. At trial, the district court used a modified categorical approach to determine that Mathis’ prior convictions constituted violent felonies because the elements of the offense were substantially similar to generic burglary and posed the same risk of harm to others. Therefore, Mathis was sentenced to 180 months imprisonment pursuant to the ACCA. Mathis appealed his conviction and argued that his Iowa convictions should not have constituted predicate offenses under the ACCA, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision.


[Mathis v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
A state crime cannot qualify as a predicate offense under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) if the elements of the state offense are broader than those of a listed generic offense based on an “elements-only inquiry,” not a modified categorical approach. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 5-3 majority, which held that, if the elements of the state crime are broader than the generic offense listed under ACCA, the sentence cannot be enhanced, even if the actual conduct in question fits the generic offense listed under ACCA. The textual, elements-only approach is supported by the text of the ACCA as well as Supreme Court precedent, and this approach also avoids unfairness to the defendant. The alternative approach would raise serious Sixth Amendment concerns because it would allow a judge to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances of the crime apart from what the jury determined. In this case, because the elements of the state crime are broader than those of generic burglary, the conviction cannot give rise to a sentence enhancement under the ACCA.
In his concurrence, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that, while the majority opinion is correct that the Court’s statutory interpretation precedent controlled the decision in this case, Congress could not have intended for there to be vast sentencing disparities for defendants convicted in different jurisdictions based on substantially similar conduct. While Congress could and should resolve this problem through legislation, if it cannot do so, the Court may need to revisit its precedent. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate concurrence in which he argued that the interpretation of the ACCA that allows sentencing to be based on judge-determined, rather than jury-determined, facts violated the Sixth Amendment.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a dissent in which he argued that, by distinguishing between the elements of a crime and the means by which it was accomplished, the majority opinion created a sentencing scheme in which two individuals who engaged in the same conduct could receive drastically different sentences. A state statute is not overbroad for the purposes of ACCA sentencing enhancement when the statute allows for alternative means of proving the crime, but the charging documents for the crime in question allege the version that matches the federal crime. The Court’s precedents allow for this type of interpretation. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the line of Supreme Court precedent that has limited courts’ ability to use the modified categorical approach has resulted in fewer convictions qualifying for ACCA sentence enhancement, which cannot be what Congress intended. In holding otherwise, the majority opinion moved further away from Congress’ intentions and ignored the real-world relevance of the facts of any given case.


[Salman v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Maher Kara joined Citigroup’s healthcare investment banking group in 2002, and began asking his older brother, Michael, who held a degree in chemistry, questions about certain aspects of his job. From 2004 to 2007 the Kara brothers regularly discussed mergers and acquisitions by Citigroup clients, though Maher suspected that Michael was using the information they discussed for insider trading. In the meantime, Maher became engaged to Bassam Yacoub Salman’s sister and Michael began to share some of the insider information he received from his brother with Salman. Salman did not directly trade through his own accounts but went through his brother-in-law, Karim Bayyouk. There were numerous occasions where Bayyouk and Michael Kara executed identical trades issued by Citigroup clients. As a result, Salman’s account reached $2.1 million. Salman was charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and insider trading in 2011 and found guilty. He applied for a new trial, but his request was denied. He then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and argued there was insufficient evidence that he knew the information used for trades was from insider information. The appellate court found that, because of the close family relationship, there was sufficient evidence that Salman knew he was trading on insider information.


[Salman v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
A close family relationship is sufficient to sustain a conviction for insider trading. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court affirmed the appellate court’s judgment and held that the close family relationship was sufficient evidence that Salman knew that he was imparting insider information. A person commits insider trading where they know that the person who made the tip stands to benefit from disclosing insider information. A personal benefit may be inferred where there is a personal relationship involved, such as one between a family member or a friend, because of the likelihood that the person being tipped will return the favor. Here, Maher tipped off his brother Michael, which established that Maher stood to benefit from the disclosure and had therefore violated his duty to Citigroup. Salman in turn committed insider trading because he knew that the information had been improperly given in the first place, and that Maher stood to benefit from its disclosure. Thus, the Court found that Salman’s knowledge of Maher’s potential for personal benefit from the tip supported his conviction for insider trading.


[Welch v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Police entered Gregory Welch’s apartment because they had reason to believe that a robbery suspect was on the premises. After obtaining Welch’s consent to search the apartment, the police located a gun and ammunition that Welch later identified as his own. Welch was subsequently arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and he pleaded guilty. Because Welch had three prior felony convictions, the district court determined that the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) required that he be sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Welch appealed his sentence and argued that one of his felonies, a conviction for “strong arm” robbery in Florida state court in 1996, did not qualify as a predicate offense for the purpose of the ACCA because, at the time he was convicted, Florida state law allowed for a conviction of robbery with a much lower level of force than the federal law required. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s determination that Welch’s conviction for robbery under Florida state law was a predicate offense for the purpose of the ACCA because it involved force that was “capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person.”
In 2013, Welch filed a collateral challenge to his conviction and argued that his prior conviction for strong arm robbery vague and that his trial counsel had been ineffective in allowing him to be sentenced under the ACCA. He sought a certificate of appealability to the appellate court, which the district court denied. Welch then sought a certificate of appealability from the appellate court and noted that there was a challenge to the ACCA based on its vagueness pending in the Supreme Court, Johnson v. United States. The appellate denied the certificate of appealability.
Three weeks later, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States and held that the residual clause of the ACCA, which included action that “otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” in the definition of a violent felony, was unconstitutionally vague. The Court held that the residual clause violated the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendments because it was so vague that it failed to give people adequate notice of the conduct it punished. In order to apply the residual clause to a case, courts had to assess the “hypothetical risk posed by an abstract generic version” of the crime in question, which made the application of the clause unconstitutionally arbitrary and unpredictable.


[Welch v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The rule that the Supreme Court announced in Johnson v. United States regarding what constitutes a violent offense for the purposes of sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act applies retroactively. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the rule announced in Johnson, that the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) was unconstitutionally vague, was a substantive rule of criminal procedure because it altered “the range of conduct or class of persons that the law punishes.” Unlike procedural rules that alter the permissible methods for determining whether conduct is punishable, substantive rules affect the reach of the statute itself rather than how it is applied. While procedural rules are generally not retroactive, substantive rules are; therefore, the rule the Court announced in Johnson should apply retroactively to this case.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that neither the Supreme Court nor the lower appellate court should have reviewed this case because Welch had failed to raise the Johnson vagueness claims at the district court level, and the higher courts should be reviewing only the decision that the district court made based on the issues presented there. Justice Thomas also wrote that the Johnson rule was not substantive because it did not place any class of persons or punishments outside of the statute’s reach, nor did it announce a new constitutional rule. Instead, the rule in Johnson should be properly understood as addressing the manner of Congress’ defining a sentencing enhancement, not the substantive conduct that triggers it. Therefore, the Johnson rule should not be given retroactive effect.


[Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc. (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In April 2011, Apple Inc. (Apple) sued Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd. (Samsung) and argued that certain design elements of Samsung’s smartphones infringed on specific patents for design elements in the iPhone that Apple holds. The jury held that Samsung had infringed on Apple’s patents and awarded over $1 billion in damages. The district court ordered a partial retrial on the issue of damages because some damages had been awarded for a period in which Samsung did not have notice of some of the asserted patents. On retrial, the jury awarded nearly $300 million in damages. On appeal, Samsung argued that the district court erred in allowing the jury to award damages based on Samsung’s entire profits, rather than the fraction of profits directly attributable to the infringed patents themselves. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s award of damages because Samsung did not argue that there was a lack of substantial evidence to support the award.


[Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc. (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
For the purpose of calculating damages in a patent infringement action, the infringing “article of manufacture” may be defined as either an end product sold to a consumer or as a component of that product. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that the relevant text of the Patent Act encompasses both an end product sold to a consumer as well as a component of that product. The fact that a component may be incorporated into the larger end product does not place it outside the category of an “article of manufacture.” Therefore, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in interpreting that phrase too narrowly to only refer to the end product. Under the proper reading of the phrase, an infringer will sometimes be liable for the total profit from the component of the end product, but the Court declined to determine whether that is the case here.


[Bravo-Fernandez v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
In May 2005, Juan Bravo-Fernandez, the president of a private security firm in Puerto Rico, and Hector Martinez-Maldonado, a member of the Puerto Rican Senate, traveled to Las Vegas to see a boxing match. Bravo-Fernandez and Martinez-Maldonado were later indicted on charges that Bravo-Fernandez’s payment for the trip was connected to Martinez-Maldonado’s support of legislation beneficial to the security firm. The charges included violations of the federal bribery statute, conspiracy, and the Travel Act, which prohibits travel in interstate commerce for a criminal purpose -- in this case, the violation of the federal bribery statute. The jury convicted the defendants of violating the federal bribery statute, but found the defendants not guilty of conspiracy to violate the statute or of violating the Travel Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated the convictions for violating the federal bribery statute because the jury was improperly instructed about what the government needed to prove. The appellate court remanded the case.
Based on this holding, the district court entered an order that acquitted the defendants, but that order was vacated after the government clarified that the appellate court’s decision vacating the federal bribery convictions did not require the district court to enter an order of acquittal. The district court subsequently entered an order that clarified that the bribery convictions were vacated. The defendants moved to reinstate the initial order and argued that it was a judgment of acquittal that, under the Double Jeopardy Clause, could not be rescinded. The district court denied the motion. The defendants then moved for acquittal and argued that the original acquittals for the Travel Act and conspiracy charges prevented the government from relitigating the bribery charges because a jury had already determined that the government failed to prove elements essential to conviction under the bribery statute. The defendants argued that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits relitigation of these issues. The district court denied the motion, and the appellate court affirmed.


[Bravo-Fernandez v. United States (2016) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Conclusion]
The Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent the government from retrying defendants after a jury returns an irreconcilably inconsistent verdict of convictions and acquittals and the convictions are later vacated based on a different legal error. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court determined that retrial in this case would be precluded if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had vacated the convictions (a) due to insufficient evidence or (b) to resolve the inconsistency of the jury’s verdicts. However, because the vacated judgment was due to a legal error, the petitioners may be retried. The Court also drew a distinction between a hung jury and the jury’s verdict in this case. A hung jury means a jury did not reach a decision at all; in this case, the jury supplied both an acquittal and a conviction, notwithstanding that the decision was vacated on appeal due to a legal error. Because it is unclear what the jury would have concluded without the legal error, the Government is not precluded from a new trial on the jury’s returned convictions.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court should reconsider the precedents established in Ashe v. Swenson and Yeager v. United States. In Ashe, the Court found that the Double Jeopardy Clause sometimes precludes a successive prosecution when facts essential to conviction of the second crime have been “necessarily” resolved in an acquittal of the first crime. Justice Thomas argued that the Court erroneously extended Ashe in Yeager, which “bar[red] retrial on hung counts” after an earlier stage of the same proceeding, not a prior proceeding. However, because this decision did not extend the holding in those cases, Justice Thomas joined the majority opinion.


[Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017) — Roberts Court (2016-2017) — Facts]
Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct and harassment in state trial court. After the entry of a guilty verdict, two jurors informed Pena-Rodriguez’s counsel that one of the other jurors made racially biased statements about Pena-Rodriguez and the alibi witness during jury deliberations. The trial court authorized Pena-Rodriguez’s counsel to contact the two jurors for their affidavits explaining what the “biased” juror said about Pena-Rodriguez or his alibi witness. Based on these affidavits, which related racially biased statements about Pena-Rodriguez’s likely guilt and the alibi witness’ lack of credibility because both were Hispanic, Pena-Rodriguez moved for a new trial. The trial court denied the motion, and the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court of Colorado held the jurors’ affidavits were inadmissible under Rule 606(b) of Colorado’s Rules of Evidence, which prohibits juror testimony on any matter occurring during the jury deliberations. The Supreme Court of Colorado also held Rule 606(b) did not violate Pena-Rodriguez’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury because Pena-Rodriguez had waived that right by failing to adequately question jurors about their racial bias during voir dire.