Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, Humboldt County

Sri Srinivasan
Conrad Hafen
Robert E. Dolan
Senior Deputy Attorney General

Larry Hiibel was arrested and convicted in Nevada state court for failing to identify himself to a police officer who was investigating an assault. Nevada, and many other states, has a law that requires a person to tell an officer his name if asked. Hiibel challenged the conviction, claiming it violated his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself and his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. The state intermediate court and Supreme Court rejected his argument in affirming the conviction.

No. In a 5-to-4 opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court ruled that the search did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was based on reasonable suspicion (the police officer was investigating the assault, and Hiibel was nearby) and involved only a minimally intrusive question (his name). It also did not violate the Fifth Amendment because Hiibel never argued that telling the officer his name would actually incriminate him of any crime. Justice Kennedy wrote, "While we recognize petitioner's strong belief that he should not have to disclose his identity, the Fifth Amendment does not override the Nevada Legislature's judgment to the contrary absent a reasonable belief that the disclosure would tend to incriminate him."


Patricia A. Millett
Donald J. Ramsell
Gary Feinerman

Police stopped Robert Lidster at a checkpoint set up to find information about a recent hit-and-run accident. Lidster was arrested, and later convicted, for drunk driving. Lidster successfully appealed his conviction to the Illinois Appellate Court. It relied on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Indianapolis v. Edmond (2000) holding that a checkpoint is unconstitutional if its only purpose is to uncover "ordinary criminal wrongdoing." The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed.

No. In an opinion delivered by Justice Breyer, the Court held 6-3 that the Illinois checkpoint did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures and was constitutional. It ruled that the checkpoint was reasonable because it advanced a "grave" public interest - "investigating a crime that had resulted in a human death" - and interfered minimally with Fourth Amendment liberty. The Court distinguished Illinois's "information-seeking" checkpoint from the "crime control" checkpoint struck down in Edmond. Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg - while agreeing that Edmond does not invalidate the Illinois checkpoint - dissented from the majority's decision granting constitutional approval to the checkpoint. They argued that the case should have been remanded to the Illinois courts.


Gena A. Bunn
George H. Kendall
Gena Bunn
A. P. Carlton, Jr.
Lynn R. Coleman
Matthew W. S. Estes

Delma Banks, Jr. was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas state court in 1980. Sixteen years later Banks learned that one of the witnesses against him, Robert Farr, was a paid informant (a fact not stated during the trial). Charles Cook, another witness against Banks, claimed that he had made up much of his testimony in order to get other criminal charges against him dropped as part of a plea agreement.

In Brady v. Maryland the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process is violated if prosecutors suppress evidence favorable to a defendant that relates to guilt or punishment. Pointing to Brady and evidence the prosecution suppressed information on its ties to the two witnesses, Banks sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal court to overturn his conviction and get a new trial. The district court granted habeas relief with respect to Banks' death sentence based on the state's failure to disclose Farr's informant status. However the district court refused to reverse the guilt verdict, rejecting Banks' Brady claim relating to Cook's testimony and Banks' argument that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b) allowed the claim to be treated as if it were raised earlier.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision to grant Banks relief as to his death sentence based on his Brady claim relating to Farr's testimony. The Court held that Banks first had to press his claims in state court. The Court upheld the district court's rejection of Banks' claim relating to Cook's testimony, holding that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b) does not apply to habeas proceedings.

Yes and yes. In an opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held 7-2 that the Fifth Circuit was wrong to dismiss Banks' claim under Brady relating to Farr's testimony and 9-0 that the Fifth Circuit was wrong to deny Banks' appeal based on Cook's testimony. Banks could make his Brady claim relating to Farr's testimony in federal court without have made the claim in state court because he demonstrated both cause for failing to present evidence in state court and evidence that that failure prejudiced the proceedings against him. The Court held that both the district court and the Fifth Circuit wrongly denied Banks' appeal with regard to his Brady claim on Cook's testimony. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(b) does apply in this case and requires courts to treat Banks' claim relating to Cook's testimony as if it were raised in earlier proceedings.


Edwin S. Kneedler
Alexander F. Reichert
Jon Metropoulos

Bureau of Indian Affairs officials arrested Billy Jo Lara on the Spirit Lake Nation Reservation for public intoxication (though Lara is not a member of the reservation). During the arrest Lara attacked an officer.

A tribal court convicted Lara of assault. The federal government then indicted Lara for assaulting a federal officer. Lara moved to dismiss the indictment, claiming the federal charges violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against double jeapordy (being charged twice for the same crime). The district court denied Lara's motion. Lara then entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his Fifth Amendment motion.

A panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court ruling. However, the Eight Circuit reversed when it reviewed the case en banc (with the full court), ruling that Lara's federal charges violated the double jeapordy clause. The court reasoned that the only source of authority for Spirit Lake Nation to prosecute a nonmember (like Lara) came from the federal Indian Civil Rights Act (1968). Because the federal government delegated this prosecutorial authority to Indian Tribes, charging Lara for the same crime in tribal and federal courts was essentially trying Lara twice under federal authority.

Yes. In an opinion written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer and joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and three other Justices, the Court found that the right to prosecute nonmember Indians is inherent in the sovereignty of Native American tribes. Congress may constitutionally choose to restrict this right, but its choice not to (or its choice to relax earlier-imposed restrictions) is different from a delegation of federal prosecutorial power. Prosecuting a crime under both federal and tribal law, therefore, does not violate the Constitution.


Scott P. Cooper
E. Randol Schoenberg
Thomas G. Hungar
Deputy Solicitor General Hungar
Andreas F. Lowenfeld

Maria Altmann learned that the valuable artwork owned by her uncle had been either seized by the Nazi's or taken by Austria after World War II. She sued in American federal court to recover six paintings from the Austrian Gallery. She filed the suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), which allows suits against foreign nations in cases involving "rights to property taken in violation of international law." Austria, however, claimed that the FSIA did not apply in this case because the paintings were taken in the 1940s, when the United States embraced a different - and more extensive - idea of immunity that would have barred the suit. Because the Act did not explicitly state that it applied retroactively (that is, to actions taken before it was passed) Austria claimed that it was entitled to this broader definition of immunity.

The district court sided with Altmann, holding that the FSIA applied retroactively. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed.

Yes. In a 6-to-3 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court ruled that, while the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 does not explicitly state that it should be applied to actions that took place before its passage, there are strong indications in the text of the statute that Congress intended it to apply retroactively. Justice Stevens wrote that, under the Act, immunity "claims are 'henceforth' to be decided by the courts. ... [T]his language suggests Congress intended courts to resolve all such claims 'in conformity with the principles set forth' in the Act, regardless of when the underlying conduct occurred."


After a heart attack left her unable to continue working as a housekeeper in the late 1980s, Pauline Thomas took a job as an elevator operator. By the mid- 1990s, however, Thomas's job and others like it were eliminated as elevators became automated. Thomas applied for Social Security disability benefits because she could not do other work. The Social Security Administration (SSA), however, rejected her claim because, it said, she was still able to perform the duties of her former position. The fact that it was nearly impossible to find such a position, the SSA held, did not entitle her to benefits under disability law. An administrative judge and a federal district court both upheld the SSA's position, but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that "a claimant's previous work must be substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy."

No. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held that the SSA's decision had been a reasonable interpretation of the statute and was therefore entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837. Justice Scalia wrote, "The proper Chevron inquiry is not whether an agency construction can give rise to undesirable results... but whether... the agency construction is reasonable. Here, the SSA's authoritative decision satisfies that test."


Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen

In 2001, President Bush announced that he planned to lift a temporary ban on Mexican trucking companies in the United States once new regulations were prepared by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to regulate safety inspections and applications to transport materials. Congress specified certain standards that those regulations would have to meet before it would appropriate money to register the new carriers.

When the FMCSA formulated its regulations, it performed an Environmental Assessment (EA) to examine their effects on the environment. Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), federal agencies must perform an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of policies that are likely to have significant environmental effects. If an agency feels that its policies will not have significant effects, however, it may perform a more limited Environmental Assessment (EA) - which is what FMCSA chose to do. Public Citizen, a watchdog group that monitors government actions, challenged this decision in federal court. It argued that, because FMCSA knew that a large number of Mexican trucks would be admitted into the United States once it issued its regulations, it should have considered the environmental impact of the increased number of trucks in addition to the more limited impact of the safety inspections. The impact of the trucks would have been significant enough to warrant an EIS, so Public Citizen argued that FMCSA had violated NEPA by not conducting the more stringent study. The district court side with the FMCSA, holding that, while the passage of the regulations was necessary before the trucks could be admitted, the FMCSA nevertheless did not have control of those trucks and therefore did not have to account for them in its Environmental Assessment; a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed.

No. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court held that the FMCSA had no control of the trucks once the regulations were passed, and would therefore be unable to act on the findings of an EIS even if it did conduct one. Further, the Court found that the passage of the regulations was not sufficiently responsible for the increased pollution caused by the trucks to warrant an EIS.


Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia

Theodore B. Olson
Alan B. Morrison
Paul J. Orfanedes

In January 2001, President Bush created an advisory committee on energy policy headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. After the group issued its recommendations five months later, Judicial Watch, a non-profit government watchdog group, filed suit in federal district court. The Sierra Club, an environmentalist organization, later filed a nearly identical suit that was joined with the Judicial Watch suit. The two organizations alleged that the advisory committee had violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by not making public all the documents that it had generated. While FACA exempts committees composed entirely of federal officials, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club argued that the exemption did not apply because private lobbyists had participated in the energy committee's meetings.

Cheney and the advisory group asked the court to dismiss the case, claiming that it violated the Constitutional separation of powers by requiring judicial oversight of internal executive branch deliberations. The district court refused.

The government then sought summary judgment of the case (without the discovery process) based on a few administrative documents that it claimed showed that only federal officials had worked on the group. The district court denied this request as well, and the government appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The appeals court refused to grant summary judgment, arguing that it could not yet rule on the separation of powers argument. The government then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court sent the case back to the D.C. Court of Appeals, arguing that the appellate court should have considered separation-of-powers claims and was wrong to conclude it lacked authority to order District Court discovery to stop. Such an order (mandamus) to stop discovery proceedings should be considered because those proceedings, "by virtue of their overbreadth," could interfere with presidential activity. Further, the appellate court misinterpreted U.S. v. Nixon to mean that the government needed to assert executive privilege for separation-of-powers objections to be considered.


Intel Corporation v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Jeffrey P. Minear
Carter G. Phillips
Patrick Lynch
Seth P. Waxman

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) filed a complaint against Intel with the European Commission, alleging that Intel was using its size to unfairly dominate the computer microprocessor market. Complaints filed with the European Commission are first reviewed by the commission's directorate general, which does fact-finding to decide whether or not to pursue the complaint. AMD asked the directorate to review documents containing some of Intel's trade secrets from a separate American court case involving Intel. The directorate declined.

Because European law did not provide a way for AMD to gain access to the documents, AMD filed suit against Intel in United States federal district court seeking access to the documents so that it could use them to support its complaint. The suit was filed under Title 28, Section 1782 of U.S. Code, which allows (but does not require) federal district courts to give "interested persons" access to material for proceedings before "foreign or international tribunal(s)." AMD argued that, though the directorate was only a fact-finding body, the case could eventually be appealed to a trial court and was therefore covered under section 1782. Further, it argued that the directorate's unwillingness to demand the documents was irrelevant. Intel, on the other hand, argued that the directorate was not a "foreign or international tribunal" and that the federal district court therefore did not have the authority to compel Intel to release the documents. It also argued that the directorate's unwillingness to compel production of the documents should preclude U.S. action.

The district court sided with Intel, ruling that the directorate's investigation was not a foreign tribunal and that the court therefore could not give AMD access to the documents. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed the decision. After the case was accepted for review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the European Commission filed a brief in the case supporting Intel's position that the directorate was not a foreign tribunal.

Yes and Yes. In a 7-to-1 decision, the Court ruled that just because a foreign tribunal was unwilling to demand certain documents did not mean that it would be unwilling to accept them if provided to them by other means. By permitting, but not forcing, American judges to allow discovery of certain documents, Congress allowed judges to exercise their discretion to decide whether a foreign tribunal would be receptive to the the documents at question. The Court also ruled that it would be impractical to limit the fact-finding to only the actual trial before a foreign tribunal because, in cases like this one, the foreign tribunal does not gather evidence itself but instead relies on the evidence presented to the investigatory commission (in this case the directorate general). In order to make the evidence available for the tribunal, therefore, it would be necessary to present it first to the commission.


Robert Tennard was convicted of murder. During the sentencing phase, he presented evidence that he had an IQ of 67. The instructions given to the jury by the judge when it was considering whether to apply the death penalty, however, did not account for this - they instructed they jury to determine whether the crime was committed deliberately and whether Tennard posed a future risk. Under Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, those instructions are not enough to allow the jury to weigh a defendant's mental retardation in his favor. After he was sentenced to death, Tennard filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court, claiming that the sentence, given the shortcomings of the jury instructions, violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. The district court rejected the petition. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that Tennard had no shown that his mental retardation was constitutionally relevant. To be constitutionally relevant, Tennard's retardation would have had to be responsible for his crime, and Tennard had not shown that this was the case.

After the Supreme Court decided, in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, that executing the mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment, the Fifth Circuit reconsidered its holding. It affirmed the decision on the grounds that execution was only unconstitutional if the defendant could show that his mental retardation had actually caused the crime; being mentally retarded in and of itself did not exempt someone from the death penalty.

In a fairly narrow ruling 6-to-3 decision written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that Tennard's mental retardation could reasonably be understood as relevant to his crime. Especially given the fact that the prosecutor emphasized Tennard's retardation when discussing the likelihood that he would be dangerous in the future, the Court found that the jury instructions did not sufficiently permit the jury to weigh Tennard's mental retardation in his favor.


Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow

Terence J. Cassidy
Michael A. Newdow
Theodore B. Olson

Michael Newdow's daughter attended public school in the Elk Grove Unified School District in California. Elk Grove teachers began school days by leading students in a voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, including the words "under God" added by a 1954 Congressional act. Newdow sued in federal district court in California, arguing that making students listen - even if they choose not to participate - to the words "under God" violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The district court dismissed Newdow's complaint for lack of standing, because he and the mother of his daughter are divorced and he does not have custody. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Newdow did have standing "to challenge a practice that interferes with his right to direct the religious education of his daughter." The Ninth Circuit ruled that Congress's 1954 act adding the words "under God" to the Pledge and the school district policy requiring it be recited both violated the First Amendment's establishment clause.

In an opinion authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court found that Newdow did not have standing to bring suit because he did not have sufficient custody over his daughter. "When hard questions of domestic relations are sure to affect the outcome, the prudent course is for the federal court to stay its hand rather than reach out to resolve a weighty question of federal constitutional law," Justice Stevens wrote. Because it found that Newdow did not have standing, the Court failed to reach the constitutional question. Chief Justice Renquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas all wrote seperate concurrences, saying that requiring teachers to lead the Pledge is constitutional.


R. Ted Cruz
Susan Finkelstein Zinn
Irving L. Gornstein
David T. Goldberg

In 1996, Linda Frew and other citizens settled a class-action lawsuit in federal district court against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Settlement was reached through a consent decree, in which the parties make an agreement that is subject to court supervision. As part of this consent decree, Texas was supposed to improve health care for poor children to comply with a federally mandated program called Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment. Two years later, Frew and others remained unsatisfied that Texas was complying with the federal requirements, and asked the court to force Texas to create a plan for how it would improve health care. Texas refused, however, claiming that it was immune from the court order under the 11th Amendment, which provides for state sovereignty. Texas argued that because no federal rights had been violated, suit could not be brought in federal court. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Texas.

Yes and no. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court held that enforcement of the consent decree does not violate the 11th Amendment. The Court rejected the argument that a federal court cannot enforce a consent decree unless it finds a violation of federal law. "The decree here is a federal court order that springs from a federal dispute and furthers the objectives of federal law," Justice Kennedy wrote.


John P. Elwood
Thomas C. Goldstein
David M. Gossett
Mary Ellen Signorille
Melvin Radowitz

Thomas Heinz worked as a construction worker for 20 years, then retired. Upon retirement, he began to receive pension payments from the Central Laborers' Pension Plan. He continued to receive the pension after he took another job as a supervisor in the construction industry. The pension plan had a list of occupations that a recipient could not work in while receiving pension payments, but construction supervisors were not included. After two years, however, Central Laborers' Pension amended the list of prohibited professions to include construction supervisors. As a result, Heinz stopped receiving his pension payment. He and Richard Schmitt, a friend who was in the same situation, filed suit in federal district court. They claimed that the amendment, because it was passed after they had already started receiving the benefits, violated the "anti-cutback" provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974. ERISA states that amendments to a pension plan may not decrease the "accrued benefit of a participant." Because the amendment barred them from receiving payments that they were otherwise eligible for, Heinz and Schmitt claimed that it had reduced their "accrued benefit." Central Laborers' Pension, however, argued that the men were still eligible to receive the same pension, they just could not receive it while working as construction supervisors. Because the value of the plan itself had not been changed, only the stipulations for receiving it, the pension plan managers argued that the amendment did not violate ERISA.

The federal district court sided with the pension plan. A divided Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel, however, reversed the decision, writing that "an amendment placing materially greater restrictions on the receipt of the benefit 'reduces' the benefit just as surely as a decrease in the size of the monthly benefit payment."

Yes. The Court unanimously held that the amendment to the plan had narrowed Heinz's rights to the benefits promised him at the time he retired, and that such a narrowing violated ERISA. Justice David H. Souter, in the Opinion of the Court, wrote, "'[A] participant's benefits cannot be understood without reference to the conditions imposed on receiving those benefits.' ... We simply do not see how, in any practical sense, this change of terms could not be viewed as shrinking the value of Heinz's pension rights and reducing his promised benefits."


In the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994 Congress created a list of people that corporations could pay while going through Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy attorney for the corporation was not included in that list. John Lamie, a bankruptcy attorney, challenged the law, arguing that the omission of bankruptcy attorneys from the list was accidental. The bankruptcy court that heard the case ruled that the omission was not inadvertent. Nevertheless, it awarded Lamie the fees in question because money intended to pay them had been set aside in a retainer before the corporation entered Chapter 7 proceedings. A Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed the decision to pay Lamie, holding that the retainer was not separate from the corporation's other funds. On the issue of whether the omission of the bankruptcy attorney from the list of acceptable payees, the panel affirmed the lower court's decision.

Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court upheld the Fourth Circuit, ruling that the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994 did not authorize the payment of bankruptcy attorneys by corporations going through Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion for the Court: "The statute is awkward, and even ungrammatical; but that does not make it ambiguous on the point at issue." The Court ruled that though the Act's deletion of the words "or to the debtor's attorney" from the Bankruptcy Code had rendered a sentence grammatically incorrect, the Act should still be interpreted according to the plain meaning of its text, however awkward. The Court found the legislative history of the Act inconclusive, and concluded that "we must determine intent from the statute before us." The text of the statute, erroneously or not, omitted bankruptcy attorneys from the list of people bankrupt corporations could pay. r


City of Littleton v. Z.J. Gifts D-4, L.L.C.

Douglas R. Cole
J. Andrew Nathan
Michael W. Gross

Littleton required adult businesses to apply for a permit to operate from the city. If the city denied the license, the business could appeal to a state district court under the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure. Z.J. Gifts, an adult bookstore, wanted to operate in a place not zoned for adult businesses. Rather than apply for a license, they challenged the licensing law itself as unconstitutional, claiming that the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure provide merely for prompt judicial review of city denial, not for a prompt judicial decision. Because stores denied a license cannot operate until the court has made its decision, they could potentially be forced to wait indefinitely for a license based solely on the content of the material they intend to sell. This, Z.J. argued, violated the Supreme Court's holding in Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, that censorship laws must provide for "prompt judicial determination."

The federal district court sided with Littleton. A Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed.

No. In an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Court held that Colorado did not have to explicitly provide for a "prompt judicial determination" to make the law constitutional. As long as Colorado courts did not unnecessarily delay such claims, the normal judicial review process could be expected to provide a decision quickly enough to satisfy the constitutional demands. If the courts failed to make a prompt decision in a specific case, the business in that particular case could sue, but the absence of explicit "prompt judicial determination" language in the statute did not make it unconstitutional.


Narda Pierce
Jay Alan Sekulow
Theodore B. Olson

The Washington State Promise Scholarship, created by the state legislature in 1999, gives college scholarship money to talented students. However, this money cannot be used to obtain a degree in theology if the program is taught to cause belief. Washington's constitution prohibits funding religious instruction. The 1969 state code applied this ban to college financial aid.

Joshua Davey forfeited his Promise Scholarship money in order to major in pastoral ministries at a private Christian college. Davey filed suit in U.S. district court, claiming the state constitution's ban on funding religious instruction violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion (in the U.S. Constitution). The district court rejected Davey's claim. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, concluding Davey's free exercise rights were violated.

No. In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Court ruled that a state does not violate the First Amendment's free exercise clause when it funds secular college majors but excludes devotional theology majors. The Court rejected Davey's argument that the state scholarship program is unconstitutional because it is not neutral toward religion. "The State has merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction," the Court wrote. Similarly the Washington Constitution - which explicitly prohibits state money from going to religious instruction - does not violate the free exercise clause. Unlike laws and programs the Court has struck down under the free exercise clause, nothing in either the scholarship program or the state constitution "suggests animus towards religion." States have a "historic and substantial interest" in excluding religious activity from public funding.


Donald A. Bailey
Irving L. Gornstein
John George Knorr, III

Nancy Drew Suders quit her job as a dispatcher for the Pennsylvania State Police in August 1998. She claimed that she had been sexually harassed by her supervisors since she got the job in March of that year, and that she had finally decided to quit after she was accused of theft, handcuffed, photographed and questioned. Two days before quitting, she had contacted the state police equal opportunity officer about the harassment, but did not file a report because, Suders claimed, the woman was unhelpful and unsympathetic.

Suders then filed suit in federal district court, charging that the harassment had forced her to quit. The district court judge, however, granted summary judgment to the state police before the case went to trial. He found that Suders had failed to use the internal procedures set up by the state police to deal with sexual harassment, and that she therefore could not bring suit unless the police had taken a "tangible employment action" that substantially changed her employment status. On appeal, a Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned the district judge's decision, ruling that the harassment had been so bad that Suders had no choice but to quit. While the police had not fired Suders, they had been directly responsible for her resignation and therefore could not use her failure to file a report as a defense.

Yes. In an 8-to-1 decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court ruled that an employee faced with a situation in which a "reasonable person ... would have felt compelled to resign" could bring suit even if she had not filed a report with the employer before resigning. Her employer, however, could use her failure to file a report, along with evidence of the safeguards it had in place to prevent harassment, in its defense. If it could prove that she had not attempted to prevent the harassment, and that the safeguards in place would have prevented it if she had, the employer would not be liable.


Michael E. Moore
Paul D. Clement
William J. Brown

George Lane and Beverly Jones were disabled and could not access upper floors in Tennessee state courthouses. Lane, Jones, and several others sued Tennessee in federal district court, alleging that by denying them public services based on their disabilities, Tennessee was in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). According to Title II, no person may be denied access to "services, programs, or activities" on the basis of his disability. The act allows alleged victims of discrimination to sue states for damages.

Tennessee asked that the case be dismissed, claiming that it was barred by the 11th Amendment's prohibition of suits against states in federal courts (the sovereign immunity doctrine). The state cited Alabama v. Garrett (2001), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in granting citizens the right to sue states for disability discrimination (such as the denial of employment) under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. In that case the Supreme Court reasoned that Congress did not have enough evidence of disability discrimination by states to justify the waiver of sovereign immunity.

The district court rejected the state's argument and denied the motion to dismiss. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed. The courts reasoned that because Title II of the ADA dealt with the Due process Clause of the 14th Amendment, not the equal protection clause, the ruling in Garrett did not apply. The court found that while Congress may not have had enough evidence of disability discrimination to waive sovereign immunity for equal protection claims, it did have enough evidence of Due Process violations (such as non-handicap-accessible courthouses) to waive the sovereign immunity doctrine for Due Process claims.

No. In a 5-to-4 opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that Congress had sufficiently demonstrated the problems faced by disabled persons who sought to exercise fundamental rights protected by the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment (such as access to a court). The Court also emphasized that the remedies required from the states were not unreasonable - they just had to make reasonable accommodations to allow disabled persons to exercise their fundamental rights. Because Title II was a "reasonable prophylactic measure, reasonably targeted to a legitimate end," and because Congress had the authority under the 14th Amendment to regulate the actions of the states to accomplish that end, the law was constitutional.


Lisa M. Bassis
Paul Monroe Roadarmel, Jr.
Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr.
Deputy Attorney General

Richard Ford filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court five days before the one-year statute of limitations for his appeal ended under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). He represented himself, and his petition contained some claims that had been decided on by state courts and others that had not. The judge informed him that he could not hear the claims that had not been heard by state courts, and that Ford had several options: the judge could dismiss all the claims, allowing Ford to re-file them after he had presented the unheard claims to a state court, or he could dismiss the unheard claims, but delay proceedings on the other ones so that Ford could re-add the unheard ones after they had been heard. Ford chose the first option, but when he tried to re-file the claims after they were rejected by a state court, the judge refused to let him file them because the one-year AEDPA statute of limitations had ended. Ford appealed the decision to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the district court's decision, finding that the judge could have heard the claims if Ford had chosen the second option and that he should have warned Ford that the statute of limitations would likely end before he could re-file the claims under the first option.

No. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court ruled that a judge is not required to warn a habeas corpus petitioner who is representing himself of the consequences of his legal decision. Justice Thomas wrote, "District judges have no obligation to act as counsel or paralegal to pro se litigants." Five justices joined Thomas' opinion, while two others concurred in his judgment.


Lisa S. Blatt
Steven F. Hubachek
Daniel J. Popeo
Richard A. Samp
John Wesley Hall, Jr.
David M. Siegel
Lisa Kemler

When Manuel Flores-Montano approached the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Customs inspectors noticed his hand shaking; an inspector tapped Flores-Montano's gas tank with a screwdriver and noticed that the tank sounded solid; a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the vehicle. After a mechanic began disassembling the car's fuel tank, inspectors found 37 kilograms of marijuana bricks in the tank.

Flores-Montano was charged in federal district court in California for importing and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. Flores-Montano moved to suppress the marijuana finding on Fourth Amendment grounds. He argued that the search that yielded the marijuana finding was intrusive and non-routine and therefore required reasonable suspicion (which, he argued, was not present in his case).

Relying on U.S. v. Molina-Tarazon, a case decided by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002 (with similar circumstances), the district court agreed that the search was non-routine and thus required reasonable suspicion. The government, the court held, failed to prove that reasonable suspicion prompted its search. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Court held that the government had authority to inspect a vehicle's fuel tank at the border without suspicion. Though the Fourth Amendment "'protects property as well as privacy,'" interference with a vehicle owner's gas tank "is justified by the Government's paramount interest in protecting the border." The Court rejected the argument that the requirement of suspicion for highly intrusive searches of people be carried over to cars (especially at the border): "Complex balancing tests...have no place in border searches of vehicles."


Richard A. Cordray
Vincent J. Kozakiewicz
Austin C. Schlick

Jeff Groh, a special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, applied for a search warrant to search the Ramirez ranch for illegal weapons. On the warrant, Groh mistakenly omitted the exact items sought (though he correctly listed the items on the application itself). A federal magistrate issued the warrant.

The Ramirezes later sued Groh and the law enforcement officers involved in the search in federal court for violating their Fourth Amendment rights. They argued that the incorrectly completed warrant violated the Fourth Amendment requirement that any items searched for be described in the warrant.

The district court ruled that no constitutional violation took place. The officers, the court held, retained "qualified immunity" - meaning they are legally immune while doing their jobs unless they violate a "clearly established" constitutional right.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed. The court held that the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment and that Groh is not immune to lawsuit because he was personally responsible for using the warrant.

Yes and yes. Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the Court's 5-4 opinion holding that the search was "unreasonable" under the Fourth Amendment. Groh's warrant was invalid because it did not meet the Fourth Amendment requirement that a warrant particularly describe the persons or things to be seized. True, the magistrate judge approved a complete warrant - but what matters is that the Ramirezes did not know what the search was after. Because the particularity requirement is stated in the Fourth Amendment's text, "no reasonable officer could believe that a warrant that did not comply with that requirement was valid." Groh therefore did not have "qualified immunity" from suit.


Paul D. Clement
Stephen G. Montoya
Carter G. Phillips
Ann Elizabeth Reesman
Stephen A. Bokat
Robin S. Conrad
Ellen D. Bryant

In 1991, Joel Hernandez tested positive for cocaine use in a drug test administered by his employer. As a result of the incident, he was forced to resign. In 1994, he reapplied for a job from the company. His application was rejected. Hernandez claimed that the company was discriminating against him because of his drug and alcohol addiction (though at the time he reapplied he had been sober for two years) in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The district court sided with the company, dismissing the case before it ever went to trial. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed, however, holding that Raytheon's decision not to rehire Hernandez because of an incident related to his past addiction could constitute discrimination under the act.

Yes. The Court unanimously held that an employer may refuse to rehire an employee who was terminated in connection with drug or alcohol-related incidents as long as the refusal is based on a policy of not rehiring employees who previously violated workplace rules rather than on the worker's addiction. That is, an employer may refuse to hire someone who was terminated for coming to work under the influence, but may not refuse to hire someone whose previous addiction did not result in any workplace rule infractions. Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer took no part in this case.


Ronald Eisenberg
Albert J. Flora, Jr.
Kent S. Scheidegger

In 1982, George Banks was sentenced to death in Pennsylvania for the murder of 13 people. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the conviction, Banks unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. Reversing the district court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found Banks's death sentence unconstitutional. The court held that jury instructions during sentencing led jurors to believe they could not vote against the death penalty unless they all agreed on mitigating evidence (that is, evidence that would have inclined them to vote against the death penalty). This, the court reasoned, violated the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Mills v. Maryland (1988). The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision (in part) and remanded it. Pointing to its opinion in Teague v. Lane (1989) and the fact that Mills was decided after Banks's conviction, the Court reasoned that the appeals court did not consider whether Mills could be "retroactively" applied. The Third Circuit Court - reviewing its ruling - did not change its original opinion. It found that "Mills did not announce a new rule of constitutional law for retroactivity purposes" and that Banks's death sentence was unconstitutional.

Ruling yes on the first question, the Court did not need to reach the second question. In a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court found that the rule announced in Mills - that sentencing schemes could not prevent jurors from considering mitigating evidence that had not been accepted unanimously when deciding whether to apply the death penalty - was a new rule, because it was not compelled by previous Court decisions. As a new rule, it could only be applied retroactively if it was a "watershed rule[] of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding." Finding that it was not a watershed rule, the Court found that it could not be applied retroactively and that Beards' conviction was therefore constitutional.


Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood

Daryl J. Brand
Leonard H. Gerson
Associate Solicitor General

Pamela Hood had an outstanding debt to the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation, a loan-granting institution established by the state, when she filed for bankruptcy. The state objected to her request that the debt be forgiven ("discharged" in the terms of bankruptcy law) by the federal bankruptcy court, arguing that to discharge the debt would violate the state's sovereign immunity (that is, its right not to be sued). Hood countered that the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure allow student loan debts to be discharged if the bankruptcy filer can demonstrate that they will suffer "undue hardship" if the debt is not forgiven, and that this congressional permission is a constitutional waiver of state sovereign immunity because it falls under the power granted to Congress by the Bankruptcy Clause (Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution).

The bankruptcy court sided with Hood, finding that Congress had acted constitutionally in waiving the states' sovereign immunity. The Sixth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel affirmed, as did a normal panel of the Sixth Circuit.

In a per curiam (unsigned) opinion, the Court declined to reach the question of whether the Bankruptcy Clause gives Congress the power to waive a state's sovereign immunity. Instead, the Court ruled that discharging a debt owed to a state in a bankruptcy procedure is different from a suit and therefore not barred by sovereign immunity. "A bankruptcy court is able to provide the debtor a fresh start in this manner ... because the court's jurisdiction is premised on the debtor and his estate, and not on the creditors," wrote the Court. That is, the discharge of debt by a bankruptcy court is not a personal suit against a state (which would violate sovereign immunity) but instead merely a modification of a debtor's estate that incidentally affects a state. As such, it is permissible even without Congressional waiver of sovereign immunity.


Rebecca J. Harper
David B. Salmons
G. Eric Brunstad, Jr.

Lee Till owed $4,000 in payments on his truck when he filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Under the Bankruptcy Code, a Chapter 13 debtor must promise each creditor future payments "not less than the [claim's] allowed amount." When a repayment plan includes a series of payments (installments), as Till's did, the installments must equal the "total present value" of the amount owed. Till proposed that he make monthly payments on the truck to SCS Credit with a 9.5 percent yearly interest rate, which was slightly higher than the average loan rate to make up for the increased risk that Till would fail to make a payment (because he had already declared bankruptcy once). SCS, however, argued that it was entitled to 21 percent interest because that was how much it would have made if it had foreclosed on the loan, taken the truck, sold it, and reinvested the proceeds. SCS argued that this 21 percent plan was necessary to ensure that the payments were equal to the "total present value" or "not less than the [claim's] allowed amount." The bankruptcy court ruled for Till. The district court reversed, imposing SCS's 21 percent rate. A divided Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel modified that approach slightly, ruling that the 21 percent rate was probably correct but that the parties could introduce evidence that a higher or lower rate should apply.

In a decision that had no majority opinion, four justices held that the proper rate was the 9.5 percent one arrived at by modifying the average national loan rate to make up for the increased risk of non-payment. While this would not give the creditors the same amount of money that they might have gotten had they seized the collateral for the loan, it nevertheless met the statutory requirement that the repayments equal the "total present value." Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion that provided the fifth vote needed for judgment, found that the 9.5 percent rate was acceptable, but that it could be even lower because the Bankruptcy Code did not require the judge to accommodate for the risk of non-payment.


Kevin C. Newsom
Carter G. Phillips
H. Candace Gorman
Gregory G. Garre
Kevin Newsom
Barbara R. Arnwine
Thomas J. Henderson
Michael L. Foreman
Kristin M. Dadey
Dennis Courtland Hayes
Vincent A. Eng
Ann Elizabeth Reesman

In November of 1996, Edith Jones and several other African Americans filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court against R.R. Donnelley and Sons, a commercial printing company. They claimed they had suffered racial discrimination in violation of section 1981 of United States Code (U.S.C.), which had no specified statute of limitations. Donnelley and Sons, however, argued that the section was bound by a two-year statute of limitations established by Illinois for all personal injury claims. The suit fell outside that statute of limitations, and the company argued that it should therefore be dismissed.

Jones, however, argued that a separate section of U.S.C. extended the statute of limitations to four years for any civil suit brought under an act of Congress passed after 1990. Because the 1991 Civil Rights Act had broadened the definition of section 1981, she argued, the four-year statute of limitations should apply to that section and the suit should therefore not be thrown out. Donnelley and Sons countered that the 1991 Civil Rights Act had merely amended the section, not created a new law, and that the four-year statute of limitations therefore did not apply.

A federal district court sided with Jones. A Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed.

It also applies to amendments of previously existing laws. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice John Paul Stevens stated "[a]n amendment to an existing statute is no less an 'Act of Congress' than a new, stand-alone statute." The four-year statute of limitations therefore applies to any act or amendment to an act passed by Congress after 1990.


Verizon Communications, Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinco, LLP

Richard G. Taranto
Theodore B. Olson
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.
Robert H. Bork

Curtis Trinko was an AT&T customer but received service on lines owned by Verizon, which AT&T was permitted to use for a fee under the anti-monopoly 1996 Telecommunications Act. Trinko claimed that Verizon discriminated against AT&T customers by providing them worse service than it provided to its own customers. He claimed that this violated both the Telecommunications Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which prohibits monopolies from aggressively defending their monopoly position in the market. A federal district court ruled that Trinko had no grounds to sue because he was not a direct customer of Verizon. A 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel, however, reinstated the charges leveled under the Sherman Act.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held that the complaint alleging breach of Verizon's Telecommunication Act duties to share its network with competitors did not state a claim under the Sherman Act. The Court reasoned that the 1996 act did not alter antitrust law or add new claims and that Verizon did not violate preexisting antitrust standards. The justices declined to add a new claim by making an exception to the rule that businesses need not aid competitors.


Paul D. Clement
Frank W. Dunham, Jr.
Karen B. Tripp

In the fall of 2001, Yaser Hamdi, an American citizen, was detained by the United States military in Afghanistan. He was accused of fighting for the Taliban against the U.S., declared an "enemy combatant," and was held in Guantanamo Bay. Upon learning he was an American citizen, he was transferred to a military prison in Virginia. Hamdi’s father, Esam Fouad Hamdi, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus naming himself as Hamdi’s “next friend,” in an attempt to have Hamdi’s detention declared unconstitutional. The district court granted Hamdi’s petition, and appointed the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, Frank Dunham, Jr., as counsel for the petitioners. He argued that the government had violated Hamdi's Fifth Amendment right to Due Process by holding him indefinitely and not giving him access to an attorney or a trial. The government countered that the Executive Branch had the right, during wartime, to declare people who fight against the United States "enemy combatants" and thus restrict their access to the court system.

The district court refused to answer the question of whether the declaration of "enemy combatant" was sufficient to justify his detention without review of materials and criteria used in making the determination. It ordered the government to produce these materials for a review by the court. Not wanting to produce these materials, the government appealed. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed, finding that the separation of powers required federal courts to practice restraint during wartime because "the executive and legislative branches are organized to supervise the conduct of overseas conflict in a way that the judiciary simply is not." The panel therefore found that it should defer to the Executive Branch's "enemy combatant" determination.

Yes and no. In an opinion backed by a four-justice plurality and partly joined by two additional justices, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that although Congress authorized Hamdi's detention, Fifth Amendment due process guarantees give a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant the right to contest that detention before a neutral decisionmaker. The plurality rejected the government's argument that the separation-of-powers prevents the judiciary from hearing Hamdi's challenge. Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, concurred with the plurality that Hamdi had the right to challenge in court his status as an enemy combatant. Souter and Ginsburg, however, disagreed with the plurality's view that Congress authorized Hamdi's detention. Justice Antonin Scalia issued a dissent joined by Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented separately.


Securities and Exchange Commission v. Edwards

Charles Edwards founded a company that sold pay telephones and then leased them back from the purchasers for a fixed monthly fee. After Edwards filed for bankruptcy, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him for selling securities (considering the telephones to be investments on the part of the purchasers and therefore securities) in violation of the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws.

A federal district court froze Edwards' assets in a preliminary injunction. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the district court's injunction for lack of jurisdiction. The SEC, the court reasoned, failed to show that Edwards' selling pay telephones was an "investment contract" under federal securities laws. In defining "investment contract," the court used the Supreme Court's ruling in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. (1946), that a financial interest is an "investment contract" if it involves (1) an investment of money, (2) in a common enterprise, (3) with the expectation of profits to be derived solely from the efforts of others. The 11th Circuit ruled that the SEC could not meet the test's third part because the purchasers received a fixed fee that was guaranteed by contract and therefore not dependant on Edwards' success.

Yes. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that an investment scheme promising a fixed rate of return can be an "investment contract" and thus a "security" subject to federal securities laws. The test the Court uses for determining whether a scheme is an "investment contract" is "whether the scheme involves an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others." Because the test does not distinguish between promises of fixed returns and promises of variable returns, the scheme at issue here can be defined as an "investment contract."


Miguel A. Estrada
David C. Mattax
George Parker Young
James A. Feldman
David Mattax

Juan Davila sued his HMO in state court because it had refused to provide certain procedures, and the refusal led to certain injuries. He brought the suit under a Texas law that requires HMOs "to exercise ordinary care" for their patients. The HMO asked that the case be moved to federal court, arguing that the case should be governed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) rather than the Texas law, because ERISA is a federal law the takes precedence over any state laws dealing with the same subject matter. Davila objected, arguing that the case did not fall under ERISA and should be heard in state court. The federal district court sided with the HMO, finding that ERISA prohibits individuals from filing state suits against HMOs when they refuse to pay for a particular treatment. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed.

Yes. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court held that Congress intended ERISA to provide a uniform system for regulating retirement schemes and benefits. If a state law conflicts with ERISA, therefore, ERISA must be used in its place. Justice Thomas wrote, "[A]ny state-law cause of action that duplicates, supplements or supplants the ERISA civil enforcement remedy conflicts with the clear congressional intent to make the ERISA remedy exclusive and is therefore preempted."


A state trial court sentenced Reese to 33 years in prison. An appellate court lowered the sentence to 24 years. In another appeal to a state appellate court, Reese argued his federal Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel was violated at trial and on appeal. The appellate court refused to reverse Reese's sentence. Reese appealed to the state supreme court and failed.

Reese appealed to a U.S. District Court. Ruling against Reese, the Court held that Reese did clearly say to the state supreme court his claims were federal. Federal law requires state prisoners to "fairly present" federal constitutional claims in each state court before appealing to federal courts. A federal appellate court reversed, ruling that the state supreme court had had the opportunity to read the state appellate court decision - had the court done this, it would have understood Reese's claims were federal.

Yes. In an 8-1 opinion delivered by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court held that Reese did not "fairly present" his Sixth Amendment ineffective counsel claim to state courts. Federal law thus barred Reese from turning to federal courts. The state court could have understood Reese's claims were federal if the court had read the lower court opinion. However, a state prisoner does not "fairly present" a federal claim to a state court if that court must read beyond what the prisoner files. There is no federal requirement that courts read lower court opinions.


South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians

Timothy S. Bishop
Jeffrey P. Minear
Dexter W. Lehtinen

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians and the Friends of the Everglades sued the South Florida Water Management District under the Clean Water Act (CWA) in federal district court. The suit alleged that the water district violated the Clean Water Act by releasing pollutants from a pump system without a discharge elimination system permit. The Clean Water Act prohibits the "addition of any pollutant... from any point source" without a specific permit. The water district defended its action by claiming that it was not actually adding pollutants to the water, but merely transporting polluted water from one body of water to another, less polluted, body.

The district court ruled against the water district and found that it had violated the CWA by using the pump. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on this point, "conclud[ing] that the release of water caused by the... pump station's operation constitutes an addition of pollutants from a point source."

In an opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court sent the case back to the district court to consider whether the water conservation area and the canal used to transport the water are distinct. If the district court decides the two are not distinct, then the water district will not need a permit under the Clean Water Act. The Court rejected the water district's argument that the act covers a point source only when pollutants originate from that source, not when pollutants originating elsewhere pass through the point source. A point source need only convey the pollutant to navigable waters. The Court was unanimous in sending the case back to district court. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from part of the Court's reasoning.


F. Hoffman-LaRoche, Ltd. v. Empagran S.A.

R. Hewitt Pate, III
Stephen M. Shapiro
Thomas C. Goldstein
Pate

Under the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act of 1982 (FTAIA), the Sherman Act (which regulates monopolies and attempts to unfairly raise prices) does not apply to foreign commerce unless that commerce significantly harms domestic commerce, American imports, or American exporters. In this case, several companies that purchase and resell vitamins sued several vitamin manufacturers for illegal attempts to raise prices, both within the United States and in foreign countries. The manufacturers asked the district judge to dismiss several of the vitamin purchasers from the case because they only did business in other countries and, the manufacturers argued, could therefore not bring claims under the Sherman Act. The purchasers countered that the foreign price-fixing attempts were linked to the domestic attempts and could therefore be heard under the exception to the FTAIA. The district court sided with the manufacturers. On appeal, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed, finding that the price fixing schemes were independent of each other but that Congress' intent had been to prevent price-fixing both at home and abroad, and that even the foreign claims could therefore be brought under the exception to the FTAIA.

No. The Court unanimously ruled that Congress' intent in passing the FTAIA was to prevent American courts from interfering in foreign commerce. Congress made an exception for foreign commerce that affected domestic commerce, but the exception should not be read as a general prohibition against price-fixing in all parts of the world. In the majority opinion (Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia filed a separate opinion concurring in judgment), Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote, "Why should American law supplant, for example, Canada's or Great Britain's or Japan's own determination about how best to protect (their own) customers from anticompetitive conduct engaged in" by their own companies?


Barbara B. McDowell
Andrew J. Harakas
H. Bartow Farr, III
Barbara McDowell
Warren L. Dean, Jr.

Abid Hanson was allergic to second-hand smoke. On an Olympic Airways flight, he and his wife, Rubina Husain, sat in non-smoking seats. However, because the seats were close to the smoking section, Mrs. Husain requested she and her husband be moved. Her request was denied twice, even after the smoke began bothering Hanson. Hanson died during the flight. Husain filed suit in California federal district court. She sought damages under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, which allows damages recovery for international air travelers for accidents on airplanes. The district court agreed that Hanson's death was an "accident" as defined by the convention and awarded Husain $1.4 million. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

Yes. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the Court's 6-2 opinion that the events on the airplane were an "accident" under the Warsaw Convention's Article 17. The Court cited its 1985 decision in Air France v. Saks, in which it decided any "injury is the product of a chain of causes" and that an accident occurs when "some link in the chain was an unusual or unexpected event external to the passenger." The Court rejected Olympic Airways' argument that only the cigarette smoke was relevant and that no "accident" took place because the flight attended simply did not act. The flight attendant's refusal three times to reseat Husain was a "link in the chain" of causes leading to his death and the attendant's rejection of an explicit request for assistance was an "event."


Deborah Jane Chuang
John P. Elwood
Tara K. Allen

Police interviewed Michael Alvarado, 17, without his parents at a police station about his involvement in a crime. Police neither arrested nor Mirandized Alvarado. During the interview, Alvarado confessed involvement. Based, in part, on these statements, Alvarado was convicted of second-degree murder and attempted robbery. After failed appeals in the California courts, Alvarado unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court in California. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. Recognizing the "in custody" standard to be whether a reasonable person would feel free to end interrogation, the appeals court held that a juvenile is more likely to feel he is in custody. Because Alvarado was "in custody," the Fifth Amendment required that his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (1966) be read to him.

No. In a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court ruled that the purpose of the Court's Miranda decision was to provide an objective rule readily understandable by police officers: when interrogating a suspect who is "in custody," an officer must first read the suspect his Miranda rights. Determining whether a suspect is actually in custody has always been based on objective criterion like whether he had been brought to the police station by police or had come of his own accord. Requiring officers to consider individual characteristics of a suspect when determining whether he is "in custody," such as the suspect's age or previous history with law enforcement, would make the test a subjective one that would be more difficult for officers to understand and abide by. Justice Kennedy wrote that the Miranda decision "states an objective rule designed to give clear guidance to the police, while consideration of a suspect's individual characteristics - including his age - could be viewed as creating a subjective inquiry."


Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) designated 2.5 million acres of land in Utah as "Wilderness Study Areas" under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). Under the Act, the BLM is required to manage this land "so as not to impair the suitability of such areas for preservation as wilderness."

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and several other environmentalist groups brought suit in federal district court under section 706 (1) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which allows federal courts to compel government action when an agency has failed to meet its legal duties. SUWA claimed that the BLM had failed to take a "hard look," as required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, at the effects of off-road vehicles on the Wilderness Study Areas. It also claimed that the permitted off-road vehicle use was in fact damaging the study areas in violation of the agency's FLPMA obligations.

The district court dismissed the case, holding that SUWA's charge that the bureau had failed to adequately protect the study areas was not specific enough for the court to hear under the Administrative Procedure Act. On appeal, a divided panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. It held that the bureau's discretion was limited to deciding how to implement the act, not if to implement it, and that SUWA could therefore bring suit to force it at least to take a "hard look" at the effects of the off-road vehicle policy.

Yes, but only to a limited extent. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that the APA only allows courts to examine government agencies' failures to meet specific statutory requirements. A general complaint based on policy differences - like SUWA's view that the off- road vehicles made the Wilderness Study Areas unsuitable for preservation as wilderness - could not be heard under the APA. Justice Scalia wrote, "If courts were empowered to enter general orders compelling compliance with broad statutory mandates ... it would ultimately become the task of the supervising court, rather than the agency, to work out compliance with the broad statutory mandate, injecting the judge into day-to-day agency management."


Jose Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after returning from Pakistan in 2002. He was initially detained as a material witness in the government's investigation of the al Qaeda terrorist network, but was later declared an "enemy combatant" by the Department of Defense, meaning that he could be held in prison indefinitely without access to an attorney or to the courts. The FBI claimed that he was returning to the United States to carry out acts of terrorism.

Donna Newman, who had represented him while he was being held as a material witness, filed a petition for habeas corpus on his behalf. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Newman had standing to file the petition despite the fact that Padilla had been moved to a military brig in South Carolina. However, the court also found that the Department of Defense, under the President's constitutional powers as Commander in Chief and the statutory authorization provided by Congress's Authorization for Use of Military Force, had the power to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant. The district judge rejected Newman's argument that the detention was prohibited by the federal Non-Detention Act, which states that no "citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress."

On appeal, a divided Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed the district court's "enemy combatant" ruling. The panel found that the Authorization for Use of Military force did not meet the requirement of the Non-Detention Act and that the President could not, therefore, declare American citizens captured outside a combat zone as enemy combatants.

The Court did not reach a decision on the merits in this case. Instead, in 5-to-4 opinion written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court found that the case had been improperly filed. Under federal law, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus can only be filed against the person directly responsible for a prisoner's confinement or, put another way, the person with the power to bring the prisoner to court. In most cases this person is the warden of the petitioner's prison; in this case, it was the commander of the military brig in which Padilla was held. Because Padilla's attorney had listed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the defendent, instead of the brig commander, and because the suit was filed in New York instead of in South Carolina, where the commander lived and worked, the Court found that the case would have to be re-filed in a federal district court in South Carolina.

Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer dissented, finding that an exception should be made to the jurisdictional rule because the government had moved Padilla to South Carolina without giving his attorney notice to file the habeas writ.


Amy M. Bartholow
Karen K. Mitchell
Irving L. Gornstein

Patrice Seibert was convicted of second degree murder for the death of 17 -year-old Donald Rector, who died in a fire set in the mobile home where he lived with Seibert. Several days after the fire, Seibert was interrogated by a police officer. The officer initially withheld her Miranda warnings, hoping to get a confession from her first. Once she had confessed, the officer took a short break from questioning, then read her her Miranda rights and resumed questioning her after she waived those rights. He prompted her to restate the confession that she had made earlier. Based on this second, Mirandized confession, Seibert was convicted.

She appealed, charging that the officer's intentional use of an un-Mirandized interrogation to get the initial confession made the later confession, though it occurred after she had waived her Miranda rights, inadmissable. The prosecution cited Oregon v. Elstad to argue that an initial, un-Mirandized confession did not make a defendant incapable of voluntarily waiving her Miranda rights and confessing later.

The Supreme Court of Missouri agreed with Seibert, overturning the conviction.

No. In a decision with no majority, a four-justice plurality found that the post-Miranda confession is only admissible - even if the two-stage interview was unintentional, as it was in Elstad - if the Miranda warning and accompanying break are sufficient to give the suspect the reasonable belief that she has the right not to speak with the police. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a concurring opinion that provided the fifth vote, found that evaluating the warning and accompanying break was only necessary if the police used the two-stage interrogation intentionally. Justice Kennedy wrote, "The admissibility of postwarning statements should continue to be governed by Elstad's principles unless the deliberate two-step strategy is employed. Then, the postwarning statements must be excluded unless curative measures are taken before they were made."


Randall Scarborough won a case against the Department of Veterans Affairs. He then applied for attorney's fees to the U.S. Veterans' Court under the federal Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Under the EAJA, the government must pay attorney's fees to anyone who wins against the federal government in litigation unless the government can show that its position was "substantially justified." However, Scarborough's attorney submitted an incomplete application, neglecting to assert that the government's position was not substantially justified. Though he amended and resubmitted it, he did so after the 30-day filing deadline. The Veterans' Court dismissed the application for "lack of subject matter jurisdiction" - that is, because it was not filed in its complete form within the 30-day deadline. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.

Yes. In a 7-to-2 opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that the statement on the application that the government's position had not been "substantially justified" was merely procedural. There was no need to prove the assertion - the applicant merely had to make the claim to shift the burden of proof to the government. Because the government was not harmed by the initial omission of the statement - filing the claim made it obvious that the applicant thought the government's position was not substantially justified, even without the specific statement - Scarborough should be able to amend his application even after the 30-day filing period had passed.


Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Group, L.P.

Atlas Global Group was a limited partnership company created under Texas law. They filed a suit in federal court against Grupo Dataflux, a Mexican corporation. The suit dealt with a state law, but Atlas filed the case in federal court because, it claimed, the court had "diversity jurisdiction" (when a case involves citizens of two different states, or an American citizen and a foreign citizen, it is heard in federal court). However, at the time the case was filed, two of Atlas's partners were Mexican citizens (they left the partnership before the trial began). After the case was decided, but before the judgment was announced, Grupo Dataflux filed a motion to dismiss the case because the court did not have diversity jurisdiction. The judge granted the motion, finding that Atlas was a Mexican "citizen" at the time of filing because of the citizenship of its partners, and that the federal courts therefore did not have jurisdiction. On appeal, Atlas argued that even if the necessary diversity had not been present at the time of filing, it was present before the trial began and the court should therefore ignore the error under an exception for cases that have already been decided. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel agreed, reversing the decision.

No. In a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that allowing diversity jurisdiction to change after a case is filed would create uncertainty and expensive litigation that dealt with jurisdiction rather than the merits of the case. "Uncertainty regarding the question of jurisdiction is particularly undesirable, and collateral litigation on the point particularly wasteful," wrote Justice Scalia. "The stability provided by our time tested rule (of requiring diversity at the time of filing) weighs heavily against the approval of any new deviation."


Thomas L. Casey
Corinne A. Beckwith
Alphonse A. Gerhardstein

Prison officials sentenced Muhammad, a state prisoner, to seven days of special detention and 30 days of restricted privileges for insolence toward Close, a prison guard. Muhammad filed suit with a magistrate judge under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, seeking $10,000 in damages. Muhammad alleged Close had charged him with threatening behavior in retaliation for other proceedings against Close. Muhammad did not challenge his insolence conviction or punishment. The magistrate judge ruled that Muhammad lacked evidence proving Close acted in retaliation. The U.S. District Court agreed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling for a different reason, citing the U.S. Supreme Court decision Heck v. Humphrey (1994). In Heck the Court held that when a prisoner seeks damages in a case that questions his sentence, the prisoner must first have successfully challenged the sentence itself or the conviction itself. The Court of Appeals held that because Muhammad's damages case questioned his sentence, he must first successfully appeal the sentence itself. Going further the Court of Appeals held that Heck applies to all challenges to prison disciplinary proceedings.

No. In a unanimous per curiam opinion, the Court ruled that prisoners - whose suits do not question their sentences - do not need to successfully challenge those sentences before challenging prison disciplinary proceedings. The Court rejected the argument that Heck necessarily requires successful sentence appeals before any challenges can be made to prison disciplinary proceedings. Muhammad's suit sought damages for prison disciplinary proceedings but in no way challenged his sentence.


Two Australians and 12 Kuwaitis were captured by the American military in Pakistan or Afghanistan during the United States' War on Terror. The captives were transported to the American military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When their families learned of the arrests, they filed suit in federal district court seeking a writ of habeas corpus that would declare the detention unconstitutional. They claimed that the government's decision to deny the men access to attorneys and to hold them indefinitely without access to a court violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The government countered that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case because the prisoners were not American citizens and were being held in territory over which the United States did not have sovereignty (the Guantanamo Bay base was leased from Cuba indefinitely in 1903, and Cuba retains "ultimate sovereignty").

The district court agreed with the government, dismissing the case because it found that it did not have jurisdiction. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the district court's decision.

Yes. In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court found that the degree of control exercised by the United States over the Guantanamo Bay base was sufficient to trigger the application of habeas corpus rights. Stevens, using a list of precedents stretching back to mid-17th Century English Common Law cases, found that the right to habeas corpus can be exercised in "all ... dominions under the sovereign's control." Because the United States exercised "complete jurisdiction and control" over the base, the fact that ultimate sovereignty remained with Cuba was irrelevant. Further, Stevens wrote that the right to habeas corpus is not dependent on citizenship status. The detainees were therefore free to bring suit challenging their detention as unconstitutional.


E. King Poor
Kent L. Jones
James R. Figliulo
Henry J. Sommer

Andrew Kontrick filed for bankruptcy after he and his partner, Robert Ryan, dissolved their plastic surgery practice. Ryan notified the court that Kontrick owed him money before the 60-day filing deadline set by Bankruptcy Rule 4004. More than three months later (after the deadline for filing had passed) Ryan filed an amended complaint charging that Kontrick was diverting paychecks into his wife's account so that he wouldn't have to pay Ryan. Ryan's attorneys claimed that they were not making a new claim - the diversion had been alluded to in other court documents - but that they were merely refocusing the judge's attention. Furthermore, they argued that the deadline for filing could be - and had been - waived by the judge. Kontrick's attorneys, on the other hand, argued that the amended complaint was a new filing and that the deadlines for filing could not be waived. The bankruptcy court ruled for Ryan. The district court and a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel both affirmed, holding that the deadline was subject to waiver.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that Kontrick lost the right to invoke Rule 4004's time limitation because he did so after the bankruptcy court reached the merits of Ryan's objection. The Court rejected Kontrick's claim that Rule 4004 is "jurisdictional" and that it trumps other considerations whenever raised in proceedings.


Gary E. Bair
Sri Srinivasan
Nancy S. Forster
Steven R. Shapiro
Lisa Kemler

A police officer stopped a car for speeding, searched the car, and seized money from the glove compartment and cocaine from behind the back-seat armrest. The officer arrested the car's three occupants after they denied ownership of the drugs and money. A state court sentenced Pringle, the front-seat passenger, for possessing and intending to distribute cocaine after he signed a written confession. The state appellate court reversed the conviction, holding that the mere finding of cocaine in the back armrest when Pringle was in the front-seat of a car being driven by its owner was insufficient to establish probable cause for arrest for possession.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Court ruled that because the officer had probable cause to arrest Pringle, the arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court reasoned that "a reasonable officer could conclude that there was probable cause to believe that Pringle committed the crime of possession of cocaine."


Jay Shawn Johnson, on trial in California for murder, objected to the district attorney's use of peremptory challenges to eliminate all three black prospective jurors. Johnson argued the eliminations were based on race. The judge denied Johnson's motions and held that Johnson had failed to show a "strong likelihood" that the dismissals were race-based. The judge relied on People v. Wheeler, the 1978 case in which the California Supreme Court ruled that to establish a prima facie case of racial bias in peremptory challenges, the objector had to show "strong likelihood" that the challenges were race- based. The jury found Johnson guilty of second-degree murder.

Johnson appealed and argued that the "strong likelihood" standard in Wheeler was at odds with the 'reasonable inference" standard the U.S. Supreme Court set in Batson v. Kentucky (1986). The appeals court agreed and reversed Johnson's conviction. The California Supreme Court reversed and ruled that the two standards were the same.

In a per curiam opinion, the Court ruled it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the case.


Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conserv. v. EPA

Thomas G. Hungar
Jonathan S. Franklin
Deputy Solicitor General Hungar

Under the Clean Air Act, state agencies must determine the best way to prevent air pollution in areas that have met national clean air standards. In part, they must require that polluting companies use the "best available control technology" to limit pollution whenever they construct new facilities. In 1998, Teck Cominco Alaska, a mining company, requested a permit to build an additional generator at one of its mines. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) issued the permit, which called for Cominco to use "Low NOx" technology on all its generators, not just the new one. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, stepped in, arguing that a better technology was available. ADEC appealed the EPA's decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the EPA did not have the right to interfere with the state agency's decision. The Ninth Circuit sided with the EPA.

Yes. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that the Clean Air Act authorized the EPA to bar the construction of the polluting facility in Alaska. Though Alaska determined the facility's use of "Low NOx" met the act's requirement that facilities use "best available control technology," the EPA was reasonable to reject this claim. Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered a dissent joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.


Engine Manufacturers' Association v. South Coast Air Quality Management District

Carter G. Phillips
Theodore B. Olson
Seth P. Waxman

The Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) sued the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) - established under the California Health and Safety Code - in federal district court. The EMA alleged that the Clean Air Act (CAA) preempted SCAQMD's "fleet rules" - rules that required new commercial vehicles to meet specific emissions standards - and that the rules were therefore illegal. The EMA pointed to section 209 of the act, which prohibits states from enforcing "any standard relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles." Reasoning that the regulations affected the standards at which engines could be sold, not the standards to which they must be manufactured, and finding that Congress's purpose was to protect manufactures from "having to build engines in compliance with a multiplicity of standards," the district court ruled that the CAA did not preempt California's fleet rules. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

Probably. In an 8-to-1 opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that distinguishing between rules governing the standards to which engines must be made and the standards at which they may be sold was unreasonable. Justice Scalia wrote, "A command ... that certain purchasers may buy only vehicles with particular emission characteristics is as much an 'attempt to enforce' a 'standard' as a command ... that a certain percentage of a manufacturer's sales volume must consist of such vehicles." Justice Scalia reserved judgment on the specific regulations at issue in the case, however, sending the case back to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the holding that regulating the standards engines must meet to be sold is no different from regulating the standards at which they must be manufactured.


Marvin S. Cohen
Thomas G. Hungar
Samuel Goddard
Terry Goddard
Deputy Solicitor General Hungar

Several Arizona residents challenged in federal district court an Arizona statute that allows tax credits for money spent toward parochial schools. They alleged that the statute violates the religious establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The district court dismissed the case and ruled that it lacked jurisdiction for two reasons: First, the federal Tax Injunction Act (TIA) prohibits federal district courts from ruling on the "assessment, levy or collection of any tax under state law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such state." And second, the court pointed to the comity doctrine - that is, the deference that federal courts should generally give to state tax laws. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that neither the TIA nor comity place the case outside federal jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the TIA was inapplicable because invalidating a tax credit would not harm Arizona's ability to raise revenue.

No. In a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that the intention of the Tax Injunction Act (TIA) was to prevent taxpayers from trying to avoid their state taxes through federal litigation. TIA was not intended, however, to prevent all federal interference with state taxation. Justice Ginsburg wrote, "Third-party suits not seeking to stop the collection of a tax imposed on plaintiffs were outside Congress' purview. ... Nowhere does the [legislative] history announce a sweeping congressional direction to prevent federal-court interference with all aspects of state tax administration." (emphasis original) Establishment clause challenges to state tax exemptions for religious eduction could therefore be challenged without violating TIA.


Household Credit Services, Inc. v. Pfennig

Seth P. Waxman
Barbara B. McDowell
Sylvia Antalis Goldsmith

Sharon Pfennig went over her $2000 credit limit. The company that issued Pfennig her credit card, Household Credit Services, Inc., charged her a fee of $29 for each month that her balance remained over $2000. This fee was listed in the "Purchases" category on her monthly statement rather than as a "finance charge." Under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), any charges "incident to the extension of credit" must be listed separately as "finance charges."

Household Credit Services chose not to list the over-limit fee as a "finance charge," however, based on the Federal Reserve Board's definition of the term, which explicitly excludes "charges ... for exceeding a credit limit." Pfenning countered that the Board's definition was an unreasonable interpretation of TILA's plain language and should therefore be disregarded.

The district court sided with Household Credit Services, finding that the the Federal Reserve Board had properly exercised its authority under TILA to define the term, that the definition was a reasonable interpretation of TILA, and that the credit company was therefore justified in relying on its definition. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

Yes. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court found that the Board's definition of "finance charge" was reasonable under the language of TILA. Because neither side challenged the authority of the Board to interpret the act (Pfennig just challenged its end result as unreasonable), under Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, the Court would have to find that the Board's regulation was clearly contrary to the unambiguous intent of Congress in order to overturn it. Finding that Congress's intent with respect to over-limit fees was ambiguous, Justice Thomas wrote that the regulation was entitled to deference and the credit company's reliance on it could therefore not be punished.


Abel Galletti and his wife, along with another couple, the Briguglios, formed a business partnership. The partnership underpaid its federal employment taxes, and the IRS assessed the unpaid taxes against the partnership (meaning the partnership would be forced to pay the taxes). According to the Internal Revenue Code, if a tax debt is assessed within three years after the return was filed, the government has 10 additional years to collected the money.

More than three years later, the Gallettis and the Briguglios separately filed for bankruptcy. The IRS made a claim in bankruptcy court against the two couples for the taxes assessed against the partnership. The couples objected, arguing that because the partners themselves had not been separately assessed, the statute of limitations had not been extended to the partners.

The bankruptcy court ruled against the IRS, holding that the IRS must assess tax claims against individual partners, not just the partnership, in order to later collect on those claims from the individuals. The district court and a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel both affirmed the decision.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court held that the IRS' assessment against the partnership was sufficient to extend the statute of limitations by 10 years to collect the money from the partners themselves. The Internal Revenue Code does not require the government to make separate assessments of a single debt against people or entities secondarily liable in order to extend the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations extension is attached to the debt - without reference to the entities who owe the debt.


Randall J. Roske
David B. Salmons
Timothy A. Baughman

On July 15, 1998 police officers, with a warrant, knocked on the door of suspected drug dealer Lashawn Banks. They waited between 15 and 20 seconds, and when Banks did not come to the door they smashed it open with a battering ram. Banks was arrested but, before his trial, he filed a motion to suppress the evidence found in his apartment because, he claimed, the forced entry had been unlawful. When the request was denied, he pled guilty, but eventually attempted to retract his guilty plea on the advice of a new attorney. The new attorney, Randall Roske, argued that the search was unconstitutional because officers did not wait long enough before breaking down the door, and had no evidence that waiting longer would have had negative consequences. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling the search unconstitutional and suppressing the evidence found during it.

The Court unanimously held that 15 to 20 seconds was a reasonable period for police to wait before entering by force when they were investigating drug charges because waiting any longer was likely to result in the destruction of evidence. Justice David Souter, writing for the court, stated that "while we agree... that this call is a close one, we think that after 15 to 20 seconds without a response, police could fairly suspect that cocaine would be gone if they were reticent any longer."


National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish

Patricia A. Millett
James Hamilton
Allan J. Favish
Karen B. Tripp

Vincent Foster, a high-ranking White House lawyer involved in the investigation of possible fraud by the Clinton family in the Whitewater real estate venture, was found dead in a Virginia park. Two government investigations subsequently found that the death had been a suicide. Allan Favish questioned the findings of the government investigations, claiming that they were part of a government cover-up of murder. Under the Freedom of Information Act, Favish requested access to 150 photos of Foster's body in the park and during the autopsy. He later reduced his request to 129 photos.

The government initially denied him access to all the photos, but eventually gave him access to 118 of them. It withheld the rest, arguing that the privacy interest of Foster's family members in relation to Foster's death trumped the public interest served by providing Favish access to the photos. The government stated that the photos were very graphic and that releasing them would upset the family. Favish countered by arguing that the family did not have a relevant privacy interest; the only person whose privacy interests would be violated by the release of the photos was Foster, Favish argued, and Foster's death had rendered him incapable of exercising that interest.

After a series of appeals in which a Ninth Circuit panel held that the Foster family's right to privacy was relevant to the case but that the district court must look at the specific photos in order to weigh the privacy rights against Favish's right to access government information, the Ninth Circuit eventually decided that Favish should be given access to all but four of the photos. The government, joined by the Foster family, appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

Yes. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court held that the Foster family's interest in privacy outweighed the public interest in seeing pictures from Vincent Foster's death scene. The public interest could only trump privacy interests if Favish could present evidence that the government might have acted improperly. Favish failed to do so. The Court acknowledged that citizens seeking access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act normally need not explain why they seek the information. The act, however, exempts from disclosure records that would present an unwarranted invasion of privacy. In ruling that the act protected the privacy of the Foster family, the Court rejected Favish's argument that the act only protected Vincent Foster's privacy (an interest that Favish argued died with Foster).