No. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority. The Court held that the Elections Clause of the federal Constitution did not preclude an independent commission, created by initiative, from creating the map for congressional districts. Although the Elections Clause specifically mentions the state legislature, at the time the federal Constitution was ratified, direct lawmaking by the people did not occur. Since then, state Constitutions have been ratified that specifically place lawmaking power in the hands of the electorate in the form of an initiative, as the Arizona State Constitution did. Judicial precedent establishes that redistricting is a legislative function that must be performed in accordance with the state Constitution’s structure of lawmaking; because the Arizona state Constitution allows lawmaking to occur by a referendum of the electorate, Proposition 106 was an acceptable use of that power. Additionally, because the use of such an initiative would not be questioned if it were employed to redistrict for local and state elections, it should also be allowed for federal elections.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Elections Clause’s use of the word “legislature” should be read to mean “representative body,” which is consistent with other uses of the word in the federal Constitution as well as its meaning at the time of ratification. The debate surrounding the Seventeenth Amendment, which altered the Constitution to provide for the election of U.S. Senators by the people of the state rather than its legislature, strongly indicated that the state legislature and the electorate were not interchangeable lawmaking bodies. Chief Justice Roberts also argued that there was no precedent to support entirely supplanting the legislature’s redistricting role and no policy argument that such a drastic move is necessary. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Scalia wrote that the Constitution did not grant the judicial branch the power to decide separation-of-powers cases until an action by one of the governmental subunits had caused a private individual harm. Because no such action has occurred in this case, the Court did not have the jurisdiction to decide it. Justice Thomas joined in the dissent. Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent in which he argued that the majority opinion’s celebration of direct democracy conflicts with previous judicial precedent and in this case results in removing the redistricting power from the people’s elected representatives. Justice Scalia joined in the dissent.


The "three strikes" provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) prohibits a prisoner from proceeding in forma pauperis in federal court if the prisoner has, on three or more prior occasions while incarcerated, brought an action or appeal that was dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim. Andre Lee Coleman, a Michigan state prisoner, filed several claims while incarcerated. His first claim was dismissed as frivolous, and his second claim was dismissed for failure to state a claim. Coleman's third claim was also dismissed for failure to state a claim, but he appealed the judgment. Coleman's appeal of his third claim was unresolved when he subsequently filed his fourth claim and moved to proceed in forma pauperis.
The district court denied Coleman's motion and held that Coleman's three previous dismissals prevented him from proceeding in forma pauperis on his fourth claim. The court then ordered Coleman to pay the $350 filing fee. After Coleman failed to pay the fee and his fourth claim was dismissed, Coleman appealed. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed and held that the PLRA does not require that all dismissals be final to count as a "strike."

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Yes. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that a plain reading of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) indicates that a dismissal is a “strike” for the purpose of the “three strikes” provision when the case is pending on appeal. The text of the statute refers to when an action is “dismissed,” which does not normally include subsequent activity on appeal. A reading of the statute that does not include appellate action within the meaning of “dismissed” is consistent with the rest of the statute, which treats trials and appeals separately, and with the statute’s purpose of filtering out bad claims. The Court also held that there was little risk that a prisoner would erroneously be denied in forma pauperis status.


On March 17, 2010, a preschool teacher at Cleveland's William Patrick Day Head Start Center noticed some facial injuries on one of her three-year-old students. When the teacher inquired about the injuries, the student indicated that his mother's boyfriend, Darius Clark, caused them. The teacher forwarded her concerns to a child-abuse hotline, which resulted in the arrest and subsequent charging of Clark for child abuse.
Prior to trial, a judge ruled the three-year-old child was incompetent to testify but refused to exclude the child's out-of-court identification of Clark as his abuser. Clark was found guilty. On appeal Clark claimed that the admission of the child's out-of-court statements violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. The Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the lower court's ruling and held that, because state law required the teacher to report suspected incidences of child abuse, the teacher was acting as an agent for law enforcement when inquiring about the child's injuries. Therefore, the child's out-of-court statements could only be admitted if the primary purpose of the teacher's questioning was to address an ongoing emergency, as opposed to attempting to establish past events. Because the child was not in immediate danger of further injury, the out-of-court statement could not be admitted.

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No and no. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., delivered the opinion of the Court in which five justices joined. The Court held that the three-year-old’s statements to his teachers were non-testimonial because the totality of the circumstances indicated that the primary purpose of the conversation was not to create an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony. In this case, there was an ongoing emergency because the child, who had visible injuries, could have been released into the hands of his abuser, and therefore the primary purpose of the teachers’ questions was most likely to protect the child. Moreover, a very young child who does not understand the details of the criminal justice system is unlikely to be speaking for the purpose of creating evidence. Finally, the Court held that a mandatory reporting statute does not convert a conversation between a concerned teacher and a student into a law enforcement mission aimed primarily at gathering evidence for a prosecution.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment and argued that a statement that satisfies the primary purpose test alone is sufficient to be testimonial. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined this opinion. In his separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the primary purpose test was not the proper test to determine whether a statement is testimonial. Instead, Justice Thomas argued that only statements that bear “sufficient indicia of solemnity” are testimonial.


Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.

Low Income Housing Tax Credits are federal tax credits distributed to low-income housing developers through an application process, and the distribution is administered by state housing authorities. In 2009, the Inclusive Communities Project (ICP), a non-profit organization dedicated to racial and economic integration of communities in the Dallas area, sued the Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA), which administers the Low Income Housing Tax Credits within Texas. ICP claimed that TDHCA disproportionately granted tax credits to developments within minority neighborhoods and denied the credits to developments within Caucasian neighborhoods. ICP claimed this practice led to a concentration of low-income housing in minority neighborhoods, which perpetuated segregation in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
At trial, ICP attempted to show discrimination by disparate impact, and the district court found that the statistical allocation of tax credits constituted a prima facie case for disparate impact. Using a standard for disparate impact claims that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit articulated in Town of Huntington v. Huntington Branch , the court then shifted the burden to TDHCA to show the allocation of tax credits was based on a compelling governmental interest and no less discriminatory alternatives existed. TDHCA was unable to show no less discriminatory alternatives existed, so the district court found in favor of ICP. TDHCA appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and claimed that the district court used the wrong standard to evaluate disparate impact claims. The appellate court affirmed and held that the district court's standard mirrored the standard promulgated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the agency tasked with implementing the Fair Housing Act.

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Yes. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority. The Court held that the statutory language of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) focuses on the consequences of the actions in question rather than the actor’s intent. This language is similar to that used in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, both of which were enacted around the same time as the FHA and encompass disparate-impact liability. Additionally, the 1988 amendments retained language that several appellate courts had already interpreted as imposing disparate-impact liability, which strongly indicates Congressional acquiescence to that reading of the statute. Disparate-impact liability is also consistent with the FHA’s purpose of preventing discriminatory housing practices because it allows plaintiffs to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised discrimination that may be harder to uncover than disparate treatment. However, a prima facie case for disparate-impact liability must meet a robust causality requirement, as evidence of racial disparity on its own is not sufficient.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Court’s decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., on which the majority opinion based its Title VII analysis, wrongly interpreted Title VII as enabling disparate-impact liability, and therefore that opinion should not serve as the basis for the majority opinion’s interpretation of the FHA in this case. In holding that Title VII allows for disparate-impact liability and applying that analysis to the FHA, the majority relied on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s interpretation of the statute rather than the statutory language that Congress enacted. Justice Thomas also argued that racial imbalance alone is not sufficient to prove unlawful conduct and should not be punished as such. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the FHA did not encompass disparate-impact liability when it was enacted, and no further amendments or precedents have created such liability. The plain language of the statute clearly focuses on intentional discrimination rather than the racial disparity itself, and the 1988 amendments have not been interpreted as altering that understanding of the statute. Justice Alito also argued that precedent interpreting similar text has held that the use of “because of” language linking a cause to a particular reason criminalizes the intention behind discrimination rather than solely the result. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Thomas joined in the dissent.


Fauzia Din, who is a United States citizen, filed a visa petition for her husband Kanishka Berashk, a citizen and resident of Afghanistan. Nine months later, the State Department denied the petition based on a broad provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that excludes aliens on terrorism-related grounds. Berashk asked for clarification of the visa denial and was told that it is not possible for the Embassy to provide him with a detailed explanation of the reasons for denial.
After several other unsuccessful attempts to receive explanation of the visa denial, Din sued and argued that denying notice for aliens who were not granted a visa based on terrorism grounds is unconstitutional. The district court held that Din did not have standing to challenge the visa denial notice. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that the government is required to give notice of reasons for visa denial based on terrorism grounds.

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No. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the three-judge plurality, which held that no Constitutional rights were violated by denying a full explanation of why an alien’s visa was denied. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that no citizen may be deprived of “life, liberty, or property” without due process, but judicial precedent has held that no due process is owed when these interests are not at stake. Because none of these interests are implicated in the denial of a nonresident alien’s visa application, there is no denial of due process when the visa application is rejected without explanation. Although “liberty” has been construed to refer to fundamental rights, there is no precedent that supports the contention that the right to live with one’s spouse is such a fundamental right.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that the notice of the denial of the visa application was sufficient to satisfy the due process requirement. Because the decision was made based on a “facially legitimate and bona fide reason,” the courts do not need to look further, especially when national security is involved. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the concurrence in the judgment.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Due Process Clause entitles a citizen to procedural due process when a liberty interest flows implicitly from the Due Process Clause or when a statute creates the expectation that the interest will not be denied without due process. The right at issue in this case—the right to live with one’s spouse—satisfies those requirements, and therefore entitles Din to procedural due process. Because a statement of the reasons for a decision is a fundamental element of due process, its denial in this case amounts a denial of due process. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.


City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan

Teresa Sheehan suffered from a mental illness and lived in a San Francisco group home. After Sheehan threatened her social worker when he attempted to perform a welfare check, he became concerned that she was a danger to herself or others and summoned the police for help transporting her to a mental health facility for a 72-hour involuntary commitment. When the police officers arrived, they entered Sheehan's room without a warrant to take her into custody. Sheehan grabbed a knife and threatened to kill the officers. They were forced to withdraw outside her room and call for backup, but instead of waiting for the backup to arrive, they drew their weapons and forced their way back into her room. When Sheehan again threatened the officers with a knife, they shot her several times.
Sheehan sued the officers and the city for violations of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from warrantless searches and seizures as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and Sheehan appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that there were triable issues of material fact regarding whether the officers' second entry into Sheehan's room was reasonable under the circumstances and whether the officers failed to reasonably accommodate Sheehan's disability as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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No, and unanswered (because the oral arguments did not address the Americans with Disabilities Act). Justice Samuel A. Alito delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that public officials are entitled to qualified immunity unless they have violated a clearly established constitutional or statutory right. A right is not clearly established unless a reasonable official in that public official’s shoes would have understood his actions to be in violation of that right. In this case, the officers’ second entry into Sheehan’s room without a warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment because law enforcement officers may enter a home without a warrant in an emergency situation when there is potential for injury to the occupant. The Court also held that the officers’ use of force was reasonable under the circumstances, even to the extent of firing multiple rounds.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the Court should have dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted so as not to reward the petitioners for presenting a question that induced the Court to grant the writ and then failing to brief or argue that question. Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Hector Ayala, a Hispanic man, was charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder stemming from a failed robbery. During jury selection for his trial in California state court, the prosecution used seven preemptory challenges to exclude each black or Hispanic prospective juror. Ayala challenged the prosecution's use of preemptory challenges as a violation of the Supreme Court's decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which held that the exclusion of jurors on the basis of race was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In accordance with Batson, if a party can make a prima facie showing that preemptory challenges are being used in a racially motivated way, the other party must give a non-racially motivated reason for their use of the preemptory challenges. The state court allowed the prosecution to give their non-racially motivated reasons in a closed hearing, from which Ayala and his attorneys were excluded, and subsequently found the prosecution's use of preemptory challenges was not racially motivated. Ayala was not given the prosecution's reasoning or a transcript of the meeting until after the conclusion of his trial. Additionally, after the trial it was discovered that the vast majority of the questionnaires all the potential jurors had to fill out had been lost. Ayala was found guilty of the majority of the charges against him and sentenced to death.
On appeal, the California Supreme Court found that the state court erred in excluding Ayala from the Batson hearing, but that error as well as the loss of the questionnaires were harmless, and therefore upheld Ayala's conviction. Ayala appealed to the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and argued that the Batson hearing procedure and loss of the questionnaires violated his constitutional rights. In accordance with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the appellate court found that the California Supreme Court had not adjudicated Ayala's claims of federal constitutional violations on the merits largely on the basis that the California Court had determined the procedure used for the Batson hearing violated California state law; therefore the appellate court reviewed Ayala's claims de novo and found that the exclusion of Ayala from the Batson hearing, as well as the loss of the questionnaires, violated Ayala's constitutional rights. To determine whether the errors were harmless, the Court of Appeals applied the standard set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson , which asked whether the errors had a substantial and injurious influence on the jury's verdict, and found that the exclusion of Ayala from the Batson hearing deprived him of the ability to prevail on a compelling Batson challenge.

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Yes, no. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the 5-4 majority. The Court held that habeas petitioners are not entitled to relief unless they can establish that the alleged error resulted from “actual prejudice,” which is the standard established in Brecht v. Abrahamson. The standard requires that the reviewing court find that there was more than a “reasonable possibility” that the error was harmful; there must be “grave doubt” as to whether the error had a substantial or injurious effect or influence on the jury’s determination. The Court also held that the California Supreme Court had adjudicated the case on the merits based on the statutory language of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which means that the highly deferential AEDPA standard applies to a federal habeas petition to review the state court’s decision. Therefore, a federal court cannot overturn a state court’s determination unless the decision was contrary to clearly established law or based on an unreasonable view of the facts. Because the record supports the state court’s interpretation of the facts, the federal appellate court erred in holding that the prosecutions use of peremptory strikes was not harmless.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that there is a great deal of focus on the adjudication of guilt or innocence but not enough on the conditions prisoners face in prison, particularly solitary confinement and its long-term effects on their mental health. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote a separate concurrence in which he addressed the concerns Justice Kennedy raised by noting that any prison accommodations are more comfortable than those afforded to the victims of Ayala’s crimes.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that the majority opinion’s analysis is based on a consideration of whether Ayala’s attorney’s could have raised successful arguments had they been present at the Batson hearing rather than whether they were erroneously excluded. Had Ayala’s attorney’s been present, they likely could have raised potentially significant arguments and at the very least could have added to the record in a manner that would have been helpful on appeal. Because the procedural error of excluding Ayala’s attorneys from the Batson hearing likely prevented Ayala from raising significant arguments, the appellate court could properly review the state court’s determination and find that the errors were not harmless. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.


In 1995, Kevan Brumfield was convicted of the murder of a Louisiana police officer and sentenced to death. After the Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, which held the execution of mentally retarded criminals violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, Brumfield filed for post-conviction relief on the basis that he was mentally retarded. Brumfield also requested funds to help develop his Atkins claim. The Louisiana state court found that Brumfield was not entitled to an Atkins hearing because Brumfield did not present enough evidence to establish he was mentally impaired. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied his appeal without explanation.
Brumfield next filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court and argued that the state courts had erred in failing to give him a full Atkins hearing. He also requested funding to enable him to fully present his claims, which was granted. A federal magistrate found that, while the state court had correctly ruled that Brumfield's initial evidence regarding his mental retardation was not adequate for the court to have granted Atkins relief, the additional funds enabled Brumfield to establish a prima facie case of mental retardation. The federal magistrate subsequently recommended that the district court admit Brumfield's new evidence when determining his habeas claim; the district court did so and ruled in favor of Brumfield by forbidding Louisiana from executing him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and held that the state court's ruling on Brumfield's Atkins claim constituted a decision on the merits, so the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act prevented the district court from reviewing the decision unless the state court's decision was contrary to clearly established federal law or based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Because the state denied Brumfield additional funds to develop his case due to his failure to establish a prima facie case of mental retardation, the decision was not a violation of Brumfield's constitutional due process rights nor based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.

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Yes. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the 5-4 majority. The Court held that the state trial court’s decision that Brumfield did not present sufficient evidence of mental impairment was an unreasonable determination of the facts, and therefore the federal district court could review the state court’s decision. The state court’s decision rested on its determination that Brumfield’s IQ score was not low enough to prove that he had subaverage intelligence and that Brumfield did not show that his adaptive skills were impaired. However, an IQ test has a margin of error that, if applied to the score in this case, would place Brumfield in the category of subaverage intelligence; therefore, the state court could not definitively preclude the possibility that Brumfield satisfied this criterion, and to hold otherwise was unreasonable. Additionally, the factual record presented to the state court provided sufficient evidence to question Brumfield’s adaptive skills. Because Brumfield only needed to raise reasonable doubt regarding his intellectual capacity to be entitled to an evidentiary hearing, the state court’s decision that Brumfield did not meet that low threshold was unreasonable.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that judicial precedent establishes that, as long as the factual record supports the state court’s decision, a federal court cannot rule that decision unreasonable simply because it would have concluded differently. In this case, the record showed that Brumfield’s IQ score was not low enough for him to be declared of subaverage intelligence and that he did not have impaired adaptive skills because he had a normal capacity to learn when given time for repetition. Because the factual record supported the state court’s determination that Brumfield was not intellectually disabled based on the relevant state standards to prove intellectual disability, the determination was reasonable. Justice Thomas also wrote that Brumfield’s claim could not succeed based on the argument that the state court’s decision was contrary to clearly established federal law, which is a high standard that requires the habeas petitioner to show that the state court confronted a set of facts “materially indistinguishable” from a Supreme Court case and nonetheless reached a different conclusion. In this case, Brumfield could not show that the Supreme Court had ever decided a case with facts materially indistinguishable from this one, and the state court’s decision was in line with existing precedent; therefore the state court’s decision was not contrary to clearly established federal law. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia joined in the dissent. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. also joined Justice Thomas’ dissent in part and wrote separately to note that Justice Thomas’ inclusion of the life story of the victim’s son in his dissent should not be considered a part of the legal analysis.


Tony Henderson was a former United States Border Patrol Agent who was charged with, among other crimes, distribution of marijuana. On June 9, 2006, two days after he was arrested, Henderson voluntarily turned 19 firearms over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which he argued was for "safekeeping as a condition of the bond." He later pled guilty to his narcotics charges.
In 2008 and 2009, Henderson requested that the FBI return his firearms so that he could transfer them to a purported buyer, but the FBI refused to do so. Henderson then moved the district court to allow him to transfer the firearms to the 2009 buyer or his wife. The magistrate judge recommended denial of the motion because Henderson was a convicted felon, and the district court adopted the recommendation. Henderson appealed and argued that, because he had not been given notice that his guilty plea would disqualify him from firearm ownership, he is entitled to relief. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the decision of the lower court.

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No. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that a court may order the transfer of a felon’s lawfully owned firearms to a third party as long as the court is satisfied that the defendant will neither use them nor direct their use. While a felony conviction does not prevent the felon from owning firearms, it prohibits both actual and constructive possession of firearms, so a court may not order a transfer to a third party if the felon will continue to exert authority over the firearms in a manner that amounts to constructive possession. However, if the transfer to a third party represents merely a sale or disposition of the firearms, the prohibition on possession is not implicated, and the court may order the transfer.


During her candidacy for County Court Judge in Hillsborough County, Florida, Lanell Williams-Yulee personally solicited campaign contributions. She stated that she served as the "community Public Defender" – although her title was "assistant public defender" – and inaccurately stated in the media that there was no incumbent in the judicial race for which she was running.
The Florida Bar filed a complaint against Williams-Yulee and alleged that her actions during the campaign violated the rules regulating The Florida Bar. A referee was appointed who suggested that Williams-Yulee receive a public reprimand. Williams-Yulee appealed the referee's finding, and the Supreme Court of Florida held that Williams-Yulee violated bar rules for directly soliciting funds for her judicial campaign. Williams-Yulee appealed and claimed that The Florida Bar rule prohibiting a candidate from personal solicitation of funds violated the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech.

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No. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority. The Court held that rules limiting speech in charitable solicitation contexts have typically been subjected to strict First Amendment scrutiny because such speech often deals with issues of public concern in precisely the manner the First Amendment was meant to protect. Therefore, the government may only restrict the speech of a judicial candidate when the restriction is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. The Court held that the restriction in this case serves the compelling state interest of preserving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and is sufficiently narrowly tailored to that interest. Although Williams-Yulee claimed that the rule’s underinclusivity was evidence that it was not sufficiently narrowly tailored, First Amendment jurisprudence does not require that a state take an all-or-nothing approach to regulating problematic speech.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the Court’s doctrine of tiers of scrutiny, such as the strict scrutiny applied in this case, should be viewed as a guideline rather than a mechanical test.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which she argued that there was no need to apply an exacting standard of scrutiny to a state’s endeavor to distinguish between political and judicial elections. Therefore, states should be granted broad latitude to regulate judicial elections, particularly with respect to campaign finance issues, as vast amounts of spending in judicial elections threatens the appearance and reality of an independent judiciary. Justice Breyer joined in the opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the First Amendment protects all speech unless widespread and longstanding tradition permits its regulation, which is not the case here. Because the rule in question presumptively violates the First Amendment, the Court can only uphold it if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. In this case, there is no evidence that banning personal requests for contributions in a judicial election increases public faith in judicial integrity, and the rule bans much more speech than would be narrowly tailored to serve such an interest. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the First Amendment protections of speech should especially apply in an electoral context and that the majority opinion erred in its application of strict scrutiny analysis because the rule in question was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. also wrote a separate dissent to emphasize that the rule in question fails the test of strict scrutiny.


Oneok, Inc. et al. v. Learjet, Inc. et al.

Learjet, Inc. and other retail buyers of natural gas (Learjet) sued Oneok, Inc. and other energy trading companies (Oneok) for artificially increasing energy prices during the 2000–2002 energy crisis in violation of several states' antitrust laws. Learjet claimed that Oneok reported false data and engaged in "wash sales," which are prearranged sales in which traders execute a trade on an electronic trading platform, and then immediately offset that trade by executing an equal and opposite trade. Oneok moved to dismiss Learjet's claims and argued that the claims were pre-empted by the federal Natural Gas Act (NGA). The Natural Gas Act regulates interstate, wholesale natural gas trade, but it does not apply to retail sales of natural gas. The district court granted Oneok's motion to dismiss and held that Learjet's claims were pre-empted by the NGA because Oneok's actions affected wholesale prices as well as retail prices. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that, because Learjet suffered harm in retail transactions, which the NGA does not regulate, Learjet's claims were not pre-empted.

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No. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court held that, because the Natural Gas Act (NGA) was carefully drawn so as not to dilute state power, the courts can only find that the NGA pre-empts a claim when that claim falls within a pre-empted field as enumerated by judicial precedent. In this case, because the state laws at issue are directed at practices affecting the retail rates of natural gas prices, and those are the claims the respondents raised, the state laws control and the NGA did not pre-empt the claims. Because the petitioners in this case did not argue that the state laws conflict with the NGA, the Court did not address the question of conflict pre-emption.
In his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution only allows federal laws to pre-empt state ones when the federal law falls within one of Congress’ enumerated powers. Therefore, the potential pre-emptive scope of the NGA may be impermissibly broad, though the majority opinion in this case stayed within the limits prescribed by precedent.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the majority opinion unnecessarily introduced uncertainty into precedent that has interpreted the NGA as pre-empting state law claims on issues that the federal government already exclusively regulates. Additionally, the majority opinion lacked any precedential support for its view that there are situations in which state regulation of federally regulated activity is acceptable and could not justify the sort of case-by-case analysis that it espouses. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. joined in the dissent.


B&B Hardware Inc. v. Hargis Industries Inc.

B&B Hardware (B&B) sells a fastener product in the aerospace industry under the trademark "Sealtight," which it registered in 1993. Hargis Industries (Hargis) sells self-drilling screws under the mark "Sealtite" in the construction industry. After Hargis applied to register its mark in 1996, B&B opposed the application and sued Hargis for infringement. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) eventually determined that there was a likelihood of confusion between the two marks and denied Hargis' application. On appeal, the district court held that, because the TTAB is not an Article III court, it need not give deference to the TTAB decision and refused to admit the decision into evidence. A jury then found in favor of Hargis. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed and held that, since the Eighth Circuit uses a slightly different likelihood of confusion test from the TTAB, the TTAB did not decide the same likelihood of confusion issues presented to the district court.

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Yes. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court held that, when a single issue is before a court and an administrative agency, preclusion often applies. When parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate an issue of fact and an administrative agency acting in a judicial capacity properly resolves the issue, re-litigation is precluded unless Congress has indicated otherwise. The Court determined that nothing in federal trademark law prohibited issue preclusion, although a party could seek judicial review of an agency’s decision. The Court also held that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision met the ordinary elements for claim preclusion: the likelihood-of-confusion standards for registration and infringement are the same; there was no reason to doubt the quality, extensiveness, or fairness of the agency’s procedures, and parties are likely to treat both contested registration and infringement seriously.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a concurring opinion in which she argued that, when contested registrations are decided upon a comparison of trademarks in the abstract and separate from their marketplace usage, the issue of likelihood of confusion would not be precluded.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that decisions by administrative agencies should not qualify for issue preclusion. Historically, federal courts had been hesitant to preclude issues determined by administrative tribunals. Justice Thomas noted that Congress authorized the TTAB to determine the respective rights of trademark registration only, not to decide questions of infringement, and that Congress included a provision allowing judicial review. Therefore, Congress likely did not intend preclusion to apply. Finally, Justice Thomas argued that allowing an administrative agency, part of the Executive Branch, to decide central issues in private claims may effect an unconstitutional transfer of judicial power. Justice Antonin Scalia joined the dissent.


Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk

Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro were former employees of Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. (Integrity), a company that provides warehouse space and staffing to clients such as Amazon.com. Busk and Laurie both worked in warehouses in Nevada filling orders placed by Amazon.com customers. At the end of each day, all the workers were required to pass through a security clearance checkpoint where they had to remove their keys, wallets, and belts, pass through a metal detector, and submit to being searched. The whole process could take up to 25 minutes. Similarly, up to ten minutes of the workers' 30-minute lunch period was consumed by security clearance and transition time. In 2010, Busk and Castro sued Integrity and argued that these practices violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as well as Nevada state labor laws.
The district court granted Integrity's motion to dismiss and held that time spent clearing security was non-compensable under the FLSA and that the shortened meal periods were not relevant to the FLSA because the plaintiffs did not argue that they performed work-related duties during their lunch periods. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. While the Court of Appeals agreed that the shortened lunch periods were not relevant to the FLSA, the Court of Appeals held that the district court should have assessed the plaintiffs claims that the security clearances were "integral and indispensable" to their work in order to determine if that time was compensable.

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No. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court, which held that the time spent by warehouse workers undergoing security screenings is not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act. The Portal-to Portal Act exempted employers from liability for claims dealing with activities that are preliminary or postliminary to the principle activities that an employee is employed to perform. The screenings in this case are not a principle activity and were not integral to the employees' duties; therefore the screenings are not compensable.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she stated that the screenings are not integral or indispensable activities because the employee could dispense with them without impairing his ability to perform the principle activity safely and effectively. Justice Elena Kagan joined the concurring opinion.


Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund

Plaintiffs were investors who bought Omnicare securities in a December 15, 2005 public offering. At the same time, Omnicare offered 12.8 million shares of common stock and made related filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings were incorporated into a Registration Statement. The plaintiffs sold all the securities by January 31, 2006. Plaintiffs brought suit under §11 of the Securities Act of 1993 claiming Omnicare materially misled or omitted material information on the registration statement because they were engaged in illegal activities that included kickback arrangements with pharmaceutical manufacturers and submitting false claims to Medicare and Medicaid. Plaintiffs further allege that Omnicare failed to comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which resulted in a substantial overstatement of the company's revenue affecting the 2005 public offering.
The original suit filed in the district court had multiple claims from which this case arose, but all were dismissed in favor of Omnicare. The claims were dismissed because the plaintiffs failed to plead that the defendants had knowledge of wrongdoing when they materially falsified information on the registration statement. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissals except one filed under §11 for materially misleading or omitting material information because that claim was filed under a strict liability statute which did not require pleading to knowledge of wrongdoing. The Court held that plaintiffs had met their burden for making a prima facie case under §11 and remanded the case to district court.

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No. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held a statement of opinion, even if shown to be objectively false, cannot constitute an untrue statement of fact because of the different nature between opinions and facts. Facts are intended to express certainty; opinions are not. Therefore, an opinion can only constitute an untrue statement of fact if a plaintiff can show that the entity which put forth the opinion does not actually hold the stated opinion. Because the determination of whether a statement is misleading depends on a reasonable investor’s perspective, the Court remanded the case in order for the lower court to determine whether Omnicare omitted facts that a reasonable investor would find misleading.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which he emphasized that a statement of opinion, which does not convey additional facts, only implies two facts: (1) that the speaker genuinely believes the opinion; and (2) that the speaker believes his/her basis for the opinion is sufficient. Only if a plaintiff can show that one of these two implications is false may a statement of opinion, which does not convey additional facts, constitute an untrue statement of fact.


Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne

Brian Wynne and his wife are Howard County, Maryland residents who own stock in Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc. (Maxim), a company that provides health care services nationally. Maxim's income is "passed through" to its owners, and the owners are then taxed individually. In 2006, Maxim filed income tax returns in 39 states and allocated a share of taxes paid to each shareholder. The Wynnes claimed the share of Maxim's income taxes that they paid as a credit against their Maryland individual income tax, which includes Maryland state taxes and Howard County taxes. The Comptroller of Maryland determined that the Wynnes had incorrectly calculated their county tax credit by including the taxes they had paid to other states and issued an assessment for the remaining tax owed. The Wynnes appealed to the Hearings and Appeals Section of the Comptroller's Office, which noted that the wrong county tax rate had been applied initially and revised the assessment, but nonetheless affirmed that the tax credit was limited to Maryland state taxes and not applicable to Howard County taxes.
The Wynnes appealed to the Maryland Tax Court and argued that the limitation violated the dormant Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Tax Court rejected the Wynnes' argument and affirmed the revised assessment. The Wynnes then appealed to the Maryland Circuit Court for Howard County. The Circuit Court reversed the Tax Court's decision and held that the county tax without a credit violated the dormant Commerce Clause. The Comptroller appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals and argued that the Commerce Clause was not implicated by the county tax. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed the Circuit Court by finding that the county tax implicates the dormant Commerce Clause because it affects the interstate market for capital and business investment and the overlapping power to tax income from such sources. The Maryland Court of Appeals held that the county tax without a credit violated the Commerce Clause because the county tax is not fairly apportioned, since taxpayers who earn income from interstate activities would be taxed at higher rates than taxpayers who earn income exclusively in Maryland while the tax covers income earned wholly outside of Maryland. The Maryland Court of Appeals also held that the county tax is discriminatory against interstate commerce since it favors businesses that do business primarily in Maryland.

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Yes. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the 5-4 majority. The Court held that the dormant Commerce Clause prohibited a tax scheme like Maryland’s, which discriminates against interstate commerce without Congressional approval. This decision is directly in line with previous dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence. The Court held that, to be permissible under the dormant Commerce Clause, a tax scheme must satisfy the “internal consistency test,” which asks whether the tax scheme in question would disadvantage interstate commerce if it were applied identically in every state. If so, then the tax is unconstitutional. Because Maryland’s tax scheme fails the internal consistency test, it is therefore unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that the dormant Commerce Clause does not exist in the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly gives the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, but it does not say anything about prohibiting state laws that burden interstate commerce. The supposed doctrine also lacks a governing principle as well as internal consistency. Justice Scalia also noted that following precedent would require the tax in this case to be held unconstitutional only if it discriminated against interstate commerce on its face and was indistinguishable from a tax the Court had previously held unconstitutional. Because those factors are not met in this case, the tax should be upheld. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Thomas wrote that laws passed by the same legislators that ratified the Constitution would have violated the dormant Commerce Clause under the majority’s analysis. Therefore, that reading of the dormant Commerce Clause, assuming it exists at all, cannot be correct. Justice Scalia joined in the dissent. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also wrote a separate dissent in which she argued that the dormant Commerce Clause does not prevent the operation of a tax scheme when the discriminatory effect is the result of the combination of two otherwise-lawful tax schemes, as is the case here. Although Maryland chooses not to offer tax credits for taxes paid out of state, it is still entitled to tax that income. Justice Ginsburg also noted that the Court has not rigidly enforced the “internal consistency test” and need not do so here. Justice Scalia and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.


Reed et al. v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona et al.

Clyde Reed, pastor of Good News Community Church (Good News), rented space at an elementary school in Gilbert, Arizona, and placed about 17 signs in the area announcing the time and location of Good News' services. Gilbert has an ordinance (Sign Code) that restricts the size, number, duration, and location of certain types of signs, including temporary directional ones, to prevent improper signage. After Good News received an advisory notice from Gilbert that it violated the Sign Code, Good News sued Gilbert and claimed that the Sign Code violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The district court found that the Sign Code was constitutional since it was content-neutral and was reasonable in light of the government interests. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed and held that, even though an official would have to read a sign to determine what provisions of the Sign Code applied, the restrictions were not based on the content of the signs, and the Sign Code left open other channels of communication.

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Yes. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the 9-0 majority. The Court held that the restrictions were subject to strict scrutiny because they were content-based restrictions, or restrictions that were applied differently depending on the message of the sign. Because these restrictions were content-based on their face, the Court need not examine justifications or the government’s motives in determining whether the restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny. Despite the Town of Gilbert’s argument that the restrictions do not single out a specific nonprofit or church but restrict all, the Court stated that the First Amendment prohibits censorship of all speech on a whole topic. The Court also held that the restrictions cannot survive strict scrutiny because they had no compelling interest in adding restrictions to only a certain type of sign.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that this decision does not preclude towns from continuing to regulate signs, but it does stop them from restricting them in an unconstitutional manner. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the concurrence. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that content discrimination should have been the consideration and legal analysis, and that this case did not trigger strict scrutiny. The presumption against constitutionality is too strong to use automatically and was unnecessary in this case as there was another, more appropriate method of analysis available. In her separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that constantly using strict scrutiny to judge government-regulated communication is too restrictive and would water down the meaning of strict scrutiny. The risk that the government will limit the public’s ability to debate ideas with these regulations is very low and does not warrant strict scrutiny. In this case, the restrictions were not brought on by any reason or need, and so they did not pass any level of scrutiny. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Breyer joined in the concurrence in the judgment.


In 2006, Gregory Warger was involved in an automobile collision with another car driven by Randy Shauers. Warger filed suit against Shauers for damages resulting from the crash, and Shauers filed a counter-suit. After an initial mistrial, a jury found for Shauers. Warger appealed on the basis that, following the verdict, Warger's attorney had been contacted by a jury member who expressed concern that the jury foreperson had improperly gained the sympathy of the other jurors by informing them all that her daughter had been in a similar type of automobile accident and that the verdict would have had a negative impact on her life had she been found responsible. Warger claimed that the foreperson's alleged misconduct should result in a new trial because it was improper outside influence, which tainted the jury's verdict, and because it was evidence that the foreperson had lied during jury selection.
The district court ruled that the concerned jury member's statement was inadmissible based on Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which bars the testimony of a juror concerning any statements made during the jury's deliberations for purposes determining the validity of a verdict, with an exception for testimony regarding whether an improper outside influence was used to persuade any juror. Specifically, the court ruled that the past life experiences of the foreperson did not constitute improper outside influence. While 606(b) does not explicitly bar juror testimony for the purposes of proving dishonesty by a potential juror during jury selection, in this case the evidence was barred by 606(b) because it was based on statements the foreperson made during the jury's deliberations. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

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Yes. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that a plain reading of Rule 606(b) precludes the use of juror testimony when a party is seeking a new trial on the basis of juror dishonesty during voir dire. Prior to Congress' enactment of the rule, judicial precedent had established the inadmissibility of testimony of jury misconduct for the purpose of impeaching a verdict, and the legislative history of Rule 606(b) indicates that Congress intended the rule to apply broadly. The Court also held that the rule did not raise any issue of constitutionality because juror impartiality continued to be assured by either party's ability to bring forward evidence of juror bias at any time before the verdict is rendered.


North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission

The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (Board) is a statutorily created agency that regulates the practice of dentistry. It is composed of six dentists⎯who are elected by other dentists in North Carolina⎯one dental hygienist, and one consumer member. The Board may bring an action in the North Carolina Superior Court to enjoin the conduct of any individual the Board suspects of engaging in the unlawful practice of dentistry.
In 2003, non-dentists began offering teeth-whitening services to consumers in mall kiosks and salons across the state. After dentists complained, the Board sent 47 cease and desist letters to 29 non-dentist teeth-whiteners. The non-dentists ceased offering the service, and manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter teeth-whitening products exited the North Carolina market.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) subsequently charged the Board with violating the Federal Trade Act by excluding the non-dentists. An Administrative Law Judge found that the Board had engaged in unfair competition and enjoined the Board from issuing any more cease and desist letters; the FTC upheld that ruling on appeal. The Board petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to review the FTC decision and argued that, as a state agency, it was exempt from federal antitrust laws. The Court of Appeals declined to review the case and held that, when a state agency is operated by market participants who are elected by other market participants, the agency is a private actor and subject to federal antitrust laws.

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Yes. Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority. The Court held that, because the Board was made up of market participants, the Board could only claim immunity from federal anti-trust actions if the Board were subject to active supervision by the State. Under the Court's decision in Parker v. Brown, when a state acts to regulate activity within its boundaries, that regulation is immune from federal anti-trust actions. However, when the regulatory action is undertaken by an entity made up of non-state actors, courts must ensure the regulatory action is attributable to state policy. Courts must determine whether the state has clearly authorized to the entity to regulate and whether the entity is subject to active supervision from the state. While an entity may be excused from the active supervision requirement in some situations, such as when the entity is electorally accountable, none of these considerations applied to the Board. Because the Board was not subject to active supervision from the state, the Board could not claim immunity from federal anti-trust actions.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. authored a dissent in which he argued that the case should be controlled by Parker v. Brown, and thus the Court should limit its inquiry to whether or not the Board constituted a state agency. Because the Board is a state-created agency, empowered by the state to regulate dentistry within the state, the Court should have found the Board was immune from federal anti-trust actions. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.


Edison International is a holding company for electric utilities and energy interests. Since 1999, Edison International and its related benefits and investment committees (collectively, Edison) have offered retail-class mutual funds as part of its 401(k) employee benefits plan, even though otherwise identical institutional-class funds that charged lower fees were available. Those mutual funds also give a portion of the fees collected back to plan service providers, including Edison's, which thereby reduces Edison's administrative costs.
In 2007, Glenn Tibble and other Edison employees (Employees) sued under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which requires fiduciaries of an employee benefit plan to administer the plan prudently for the exclusive benefit of the participants. The Employees argued that the continued inclusion of the higher-cost funds in the benefit plan was a "continuing violation" of ERISA. Edison argued that ERISA's statute of repose, which bars claims filed more than six years after the date of the last action which constituted a part of the violation, prevented Employees' claim. The district court granted summary judgment for Edison and held that there was no "continuing violation" theory under ERISA. The court stated that the act of designating an investment for inclusion started the six-year period, and since Edison had not made any misstatements or actively concealed any breach following the initial inclusion, the six-year period had passed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

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No. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that the nature of the fiduciary duty under trust law creates a continuing obligation to monitor trust investments and remove imprudent ones. Because this continuing duty is separate from the initial duty to choose investments carefully, violation of the continuing duty counts as a breach of the fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). As long as the breach of the continuing duty occurred within six years of the filing of the lawsuit, ERISA’s statute of repose does not bar the claim.


Alabama Department of Revenue v. CSX Transportation, Inc.

Alabama imposes a 4% sales tax on the gross receipts of retail businesses and a 4% use tax on storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property. Accordingly, rail carriers that purchase diesel fuel within the state are subject to a 4% sales tax. However, motor and water carriers that purchase fuel in Alabama pay an excise tax of $0.19 per gallon.
In 2008, CSX Transportation, Inc. (CSX) sued the Alabama Department of Revenue for violating the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1974 (4-R Act), which targeted local and state taxation schemes that discriminated against rail carriers. CSX argued that the sales tax was discriminatory because it required the rail carriers to pay more than their competitors for purchasing diesel fuel in the state. The district court dismissed the case and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal by citing precedent that held that a railroad could not challenge its competitors' exemptions from a sales tax as discriminatory under the 4-R Act. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, overturned the ruling, and remanded the case. On remand, the district court conducted a bench trial and issued an order holding that the state's sales tax does not discriminate against rail carriers for the purposes of the 4-R Act, because the amount that motor carriers paid was roughly equal to that paid by rail carriers. The Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision and held that the tax is discriminatory because the state had not offered sufficient justification for exempting CSX's competitors from the sales tax.

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Unanswered, and yes. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court held that the appellate court correctly examined the railroad's situation in relation to its comparison class of competitors in the transportation industry. The Court also held that, in determining whether discrimination occurred, a court must look at the state's tax scheme as a whole rather than just the challenged provision. A provision may seem discriminatory when examined in isolation, but the tax code as a whole may subject a competitor to a comparable tax. Because the appellate court did not examine the state's justifications for its tax regime, the Court remanded the case for further proceedings to determine whether discrimination in violation of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1974 occurred.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the majority opinion's definition of discrimination was overly broad and could lead to inconsistent applications of the statute. Because the railroad was unable to prove that the tax "targets and singles out" the railroad as compared to other taxpayers, there was no discrimination. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.


On April 29, 2010, Sergeant Darisse of the Surry County Sheriff's Department observed Maynor Javier Vasquez driving north on I-77 with a broken brake light. When Darisse pulled over the vehicle, he noticed another man, Nicholas Heien, lying under a blanket in the backseat. Darisse spoke with the two men, felt that their stories did not match up, and was concerned that Heien had not gotten up from the back seat. Darisse asked for permission to search the vehicle. Heien agreed, and Darisse found a bag containing 54.2 grams of cocaine in the car.
A grand jury indicted Heien for two counts of trafficking cocaine. Heien filed a motion to suppress the evidence discovered during the search of his vehicle, and the trial court denied the motion. The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and held that the traffic stop was not objectively reasonable because North Carolina law only required one working brake light. The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed and held that when an officer's mistake of the law is reasonable, it may give rise to the "reasonable suspicion" required for a traffic stop of a vehicle under the Fourth Amendment. That North Carolina Supreme Court sent the case back to the state Court of Appeals.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals found no error in the trial court's judgment. A dissenting judge, however, stated that the North Carolina Supreme Court's ruling created "fundamental unfairness" because it held citizens to the traditional rule that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" while allowing police to be ignorant of the law. Based on this dissent, Heien again appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court which rejected Heien's appeal.

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Yes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., delivered the opinion for the 8-1 majority. The Court held that a search or seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when an officer has made a reasonable factual or legal mistake. Because Fourth Amendment jurisprudence turns on the question of reasonableness, governing officials have traditionally been allowed leeway to enforce the law for the community's protection. As long as the mistake of fact or law in question was reasonable, the Fourth Amendment does not hold such mistakes to be incompatible with the concept of reasonable suspicion. However, the Court also held that those mistakes must be objectively reasonable; an officer cannot gain the benefits of Fourth Amendment reasonableness through a sloppy or incomplete knowledge of the law.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Elena Kagan emphasized that the majority opinion's analysis was limited to when the mistake of law in question is an objectively reasonable one. Justice Kagan also wrote that the test to determine whether an officer made an objectively reasonable mistake is much more stringent than the one to determine whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the concurring opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion in which she argued that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has traditionally focused on the officer's factual conclusions rather than understanding of the law. Expanding leeway allowed to police officers with respect to their factual assessment to the meaning of the laws they are meant to enforce runs the risk of eroding the Fourth Amendment's protections. In the absence of any evidence that holding police officers to this standard would prevent effective enforcement of the law, mistakes of law should not be considered reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.


In 2002, Manachem Zivotofsky was born in Jerusalem to parents who are United States citizens. Manachem's parents requested that the U.S. State Department record his place of birth on his passport as "Israel," in accordance with Section 214(d) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2003 (Act). The State Department refused and instead issued Manachem a passport that listed "Jerusalem" as his place of birth. His parents sued the Secretary of State on his behalf and sought the enforcement of Section 214(d). The district court dismissed the case on the grounds that it presented a non-justiciable political question. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Zivotofsky v. Clinton, reversed that holding and remanded the case. On remand, the district court held that Section 214(d) "impermissibly intereferes" with the President's exclusive power to recognize foreign states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed and held that the section goes beyond the scope of Congress's passport power to affect United States foreign policy, which is a realm the Constitution reserves for the executive branch.

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Yes. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority holding that the federal statute unconstitutionally usurped the President’s power to recognize foreign nations as it relates to passports. The Court held that, although the Constitution does not explicitly address the issue of recognition of foreign nations, the Reception Clause in Article II of the Constitution—which states that the President will receive foreign ambassadors—grants the President the power to recognize foreign states. The fact that Article II also vests the President with the power to make treaties and appoint ambassadors gives the President further control over recognition decisions. Although Congress has a role to play in other aspects of foreign policy, often by granting the President’s formal recognition practical effect, Congress has no such power to initiate international diplomacy without involving the President. Because the question of whether the American government recognizes a foreign nation must have only one answer, the President’s power is assumed to be exclusive, and therefore Congress cannot act in a manner that contradicts Executive branch policy regarding recognition. The Court also held that precedent and history support the view that the formal recognition power belongs exclusively to the President. Because the Executive branch has maintained a neutral position by not recognizing any nation’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, the federal statute in question unconstitutionally infringes on the President’s recognition power.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that this case presented a political question beyond the purview of the judiciary, but because precedent precluded political resolution, he joined in the majority opinion.
On a second issue -- whether the statute unconstitutionally usurped the President's power to recognize foreign nations in relation to consular reports -- the Court answered 5-4 in the affirmative with Justice Clarence Thomas joining the dissenters arguing that the federal statute in question was an unconstitutional usurpation of the President’s recognition power with regard to passports but not consular reports of birth abroad. The historical record indicates that any residual foreign affairs powers that were not explicitly allocated were assumed to be vested in the President. While passport regulation has traditionally been an executive function and falls squarely within the residual foreign affairs power reserved to the President, the consular reports are part of the naturalization powers that are granted to Congress. Therefore, the enforcement of the statute in question as it relates to passports would violate the separation of powers doctrine, but it may be constitutionally applied to consular reports of birth abroad.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that, in order for the President to constitutionally ignore the express will of Congress, the President must be exercising a power that the Constitution “conclusively and preclusively” granted to the Executive branch. Because the history and the precedent regarding the power to recognize foreign states is at best conflicting, Chief Justice Roberts argued that the Constitution does not conclusively and preclusively grant the President the power to recognize foreign states. Even if the President did have that power, the statute in question would not be unconstitutional because an optional passport designation does not amount to official recognition. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that, to the extent that the Constitution grants the President the power to recognize foreign states, the power is not exclusive. The Constitution grants Congress such a power in the form of its authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Regardless, the statute in question does not implicate the recognition power; it merely directs the State Department to make an accommodation regarding a geographic description that is in line with similar accommodations the State Department already offers. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito joined in the dissent.


Gregory Holt (also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad) was an inmate of the Arkansas Department of Corrections and a practicing Salafi Muslim. He sought an injunction and temporary relief from the enforcement of the Arkansas Department of Corrections' grooming policy, which allowed trimmed mustaches and quarter-inch beards for diagnosed dermatological problems but otherwise no facial hair. Holt argued that growing a beard was a necessary part of the practice of his religion, that the grooming policy significantly burdened his ability to do so, and that the grooming policy was therefore a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Holt was willing to limit his beard to a length of one-half inch as a form of compromise with the policy.
The district court granted temporary relief but then dismissed the complaint upon being presented with evidence of the other ways in which Holt was allowed to practice his religion and the extent to which the grooming policy was necessary to maintain prison security. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

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Yes. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 9-0 majority. The Court held that the Arkansas Department of Corrections policy on beards violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). The Court held that, while providing substantial protection of religious exercise, RLUIPA allows prison officials to test the sincerity of religious beliefs to prevent these from being used for illicit conduct. In this case, Holt met the standard for accommodation established in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. —that an accommodation must be based on a sincerely held religious belief—because he was neither slight nor idiosyncratic with the tenets of Islam. Further, the Court held that the district court erred in suggesting that Holt's other religious privileges demonstrated a reasonable accommodation of Holt's beliefs. The prison officials had the burden to prove that preventing inmates from growing beards furthered a compelling government interest and that this policy was the least restrictive means of interference, but the Court held that prison officials did not satisfy that burden in this case because other steps could be taken to ensure quick identification and an inability to hide contraband.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that, while RLUIPA does not require prison officials to refute every less restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest, Arkansas officials responded inadequately to the Holt's objections. However, Justice Sotomayor disagreed with the majority opinion's dismissal of the explanations of the prison officials. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a concurring opinion in which she objected to the majority opinion's use of the Hobby Lobby decision, because in this case the requested accommodation would not affect the religious beliefs of others.


Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.

On February 23, 2007, Larry and Cheryle Jesinoski refinanced their Eagan, Minnesota, home by borrowing $611,000 from Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. The Jesinoskis received a Truth in Lending Act (TILA) disclosure and a Notice of the Right to Cancel, which gave them until midnight on February 27, 2007, to rescind the loan. The Jesinoskis did not exercise their right to cancel the loan, and they used the money to pay off several consumer debts. On February 23, 2010, the Jesinoskis attempted to rescind the loan and argued that they did not receive sufficient copies of the TILA disclosure and the Notice of the Right to Cancel. After the request to rescind the loan was denied, the Jesinoskis sued Countrywide Home Loans for failure to rescind their loan on February 24, 2011.
Countrywide Home Loans sought a judgment on the pleadings and argued that the Jesinoskis did not file their suit within the three-year time period allowed by TILA. The Jesinoskis argued that, because they attempted to rescind the loan within the three-year time period, their suit fulfills that requirement and should be allowed to proceed. The district court found in favor of Countrywide Home Loans; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

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Yes. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. The Court held that the three-year period required by the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is satisfied when the borrower notifies the lender of his intent to rescind the loan within that period, even if a lawsuit has not yet been filed. The plain language of TILA specifies that a borrower need only notify the creditor of his intent to rescind the loan; it does not require the borrower to file a lawsuit. Although common law recession traditionally requires the borrower to return what was borrowed (as would result from a lawsuit), modern jurisprudence does not require that a statute be interpreted as implementing its common law analog.


In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began investigating Samuel Johnson based on his involvement in an organization called the National Social Movement. Later in 2010, Johnson left that group to found the Aryan Liberation Movement. In November of that year, Johnson told an undercover FBI agent that he manufactured napalm, silencers, and other explosives for the Aryan Liberation Movement in addition to possessing an AK-47 rifle, several semi-automatic weapons, and a large cache of ammunition. In April 2012, Johnson was arrested at a meeting with his probation officer and admitted to possessing some of the previously mentioned weapons.
A grand jury charged Johnson with six counts of firearm possession, three of which relied on his classification as an "armed career criminal." This classification was based on the fact that he had three prior felony convictions that the district court designated as "violent felonies"—attempted simple robbery, simple robbery, and possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), Johnson was then subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years. Johnson argued that the convictions in question should not be considered violent felonies and that the ACCA was unconstitutionally vague. The district court held that the felony convictions in question were in fact violent felonies and that Johnson was an armed career criminal for the purposes of the mandatory minimum sentence required by the ACCA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

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Yes. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the residual clause of the Armed Criminal Career Act (ACCA)—that defines a “violent felony” as one involving “conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another”—is unconstitutionally vague. Judicial precedent has held that laws that do not give ordinary people fair notice of what conduct is punished or can be enforced arbitrarily violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Because the residual clause of the ACCA gives no guidelines for how the court can assess whether the conduct in question poses a “serious potential risk of physical injury” and therefore qualifies as a violent felony, the residual clause allows for unpredictable and arbitrary enforcement in violation of the Due Process Clause. The Court also held that it was not bound to follow precedent that upheld the residual clause because subsequent cases had shown that the judicial interpretation of the clause was not sufficiently predictable.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the residual clause of the ACCA is unconstitutionally vague under both a categorical approach and a records-based approach. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that the case does not need to be resolved on Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause grounds; instead, the ACCA should not apply in this case because unlawfully possessing a short-barreled shotgun does not constitute a violent felony. Because the elements of the offense and records of convictions for possessing a short-barreled shotgun do not support the contention that the offense is inherently dangerous, the risk of harm is too remote from the conduct for the offense to constitute a violent felony. Therefore, the majority opinion did not need to nullify the residual clause in order to hold that Johnson should not be punished under the ACCA. Justice Thomas also argued that the field of vagueness jurisprudence has expanded to the point where it is used to invalidate democratically enacted laws and is now potentially beyond the bounds of due process jurisprudence.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that a statute is unconstitutionally vague only when it is vague in all of its applications. Because the residual clause of the ACCA can be construed in a manner that makes it constitutional by reading its language in the context of similar language in state and federal laws that direct a court to make fact-specific determination, the residual clause does not violate the Due Process Clause. Additionally, judicial precedent has upheld the residual clause, and this case presents no reason to overturn that precedent. Because the residual clause is constitutional and Johnson’s previous convictions constitute violent felonies, Justice Alito argued that the ACCA can be properly applied to his case.


Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Company LLC v. Owens

On October 30, 2012, Brandon W. Owens filed a class action petition in state court that alleged that Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Company and Cherokee Basin Pipeline underpaid the members on the class on royalties they were owed from wells. The petition alleged that this underpayment constituted a breach of contract and sought damages without specifying an amount.
On December 5, 2012, the defendants removed the case from state court to federal district court and cited that federal jurisdiction existed under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA). CAFA requires that three elements be established for a class action case to fall under federal jurisdiction: at least one plaintiff and one defendant must be citizens of different states, the class must consist of at least 100 members, and the amount in controversy must exceed $5 million. The defendants in this case claimed that they met the requirements for removal to federal court under CAFA because the amount in controversy exceeded $8 million, but did not include specific evidence in the notice of removal. The federal district court held that defendants had not provided evidence that the amount in controversy exceeded $5 million in the notice of removal and therefore remanded the case back to state court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the district court should not have remanded the case because requiring the party requesting the removal to produce evidence that the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million creates an evidentiary burden. The Court of Appeals held that that such evidence is wholly unnecessary unless the removal is contested. A party requesting that a case be removed to federal court need only allege that the grounds for removal exist and need only prove those allegations if they are contested.

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No. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority. The Court held that a defendant's notice of removal to federal court must only include a plausible allegation that the amount in controversy exceeds the federal jurisdictional threshold, not evidentiary proofs. Because the requirements for a notice of removal track those for a normal pleading, the defendant seeking removal should similarly be allowed to allege in good faith that the amount in controversy is sufficient. Evidence only becomes necessary in response to a plaintiff's contestation of the removal.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that the only issue properly before the Court was whether the appellate court abused its discretion. Because the majority opinion addressed the district court's analysis, it presumed the basis for a lower court's decision, which violates previously established standards of review. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent. In his separate dissent, Justice Thomas wrote that the Court did not have the jurisdiction to review the appellate court's decision because the Court can only review "cases" that were before an appellate court. This case does not qualify for such review because it was never before the court seeking a remedy or redress for legal injury; instead, the appellate court denied the application for permission to appeal a remand order.


In 1990, Stephen Kimble obtained a patent for a Spider-Man toy that was set to expire in May 2010. Kimble claimed that he discussed the idea with the president of Marvel Enterprises Inc., and that he would be compensated for use of his ideas. Although no agreement was reached, Marvel produced a toy that was similar to Kimble's design. In 1997, Kimble sued for patent infringement, and the parties settled in 2001, with Marvel agreeing to purchase the patent and pay royalties to the petitioner without an expiration date. The case was subsequently dismissed. In 2006, Marvel entered a licensing agreement with Hasbro Inc. that gave it the right to produce the toy. Disagreements arose between Kimble and Marvel concerning the royalty payments, and Kimble claimed that the original patent would be infringed if royalties were not paid. Kimble sued Marvel in Arizona state court, and the case was then removed to the federal district court.
The magistrate judge determined that settlement agreement was a "hybrid" agreement, in which patent and non-patent rights were inseparable, and that the Supreme Court decision in Brulotte v. Thys Co. applied. In that case, the Court ruled that, when patents are sold in return for a royalty payment, the purchaser was not obligated to continue these payments beyond the expiration date of the patents because doing so would over-compensate the seller of the patent and improperly extend the patent monopoly beyond the intended time limit. On recommendation of the magistrate, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Marvel and ruled that the settlement agreement transferred patent rights, but that it was unclear if non-patent rights were transferred. Kimble appealed and argued that the settlement agreement transferred both patent and non-patent rights and that, while royalty payments ended for the patent, they did not end for the toy itself. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision of the district court.

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No. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority. The Court held that the precedent established in Brulotte v. Thys Co.—that a patentee cannot receive royalty payments after the patent has expired—should be upheld because there was no sufficient reason to overturn it. Patent law jurisprudence has typically struck down statutes that overly limit free access to formerly patented inventions, and the Brulotte decision was in line with these cases. Because no subsequent legal developments have made the rule announced in that decision obsolete and it has remained workable, there is no reason to overturn the decision. The Court also noted that Congress had ample opportunity to enact a statute that forecloses the Brulotte rule but has not done so.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that, because the Brulotte rule impermissibly interferes in parties’ abilities to negotiate licensing agreements that reflect the true value of the product, the decision has no precedential weight and should be overturned. The Brulotte rule represents a poor interpretation of the Patent Act and promotes economic inefficiency, so the decision lacks the support of legal standing as well as public policy, and therefore the Court should not uphold it. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.


On July 19, 1988, Houston Police Officer Elston Howard was in the midst of arresting the clerk of an adult bookstore when Robert Mitchell Jennings entered the store intending to rob it. Jennings shot Officer Howard four times and then proceeded to rob the store. The trial court jury subsequently convicted Jennings of capital murder. In the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecution presented evidence of Jennings' long criminal history as an aggravating factor. The defense called the jail chaplain to testify to his opinion that Jennings was not "incorrigible," and the defense did not present any further evidence of mitigating factors.
In 1996, Jennings filed a state habeas petition and argued that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel at the punishment phase because his attorneys had failed to contact his family to provide evidence of a disadvantaged background and had failed to find and present a 1978 psychological report that suggested that Jennings had a "mild organic brain dysfunction." The state court held that Jennings' attorneys had conducted a sufficient investigation into his background, and that their decision not to introduce this testimony and evidence was a reasonable trial strategy. The state court recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals deny the request for habeas relief, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals acted accordingly.
In 2009, Jennings filed a federal habeas petition with the district court. The district court granted the petition and held that Jennings had received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorneys failed to present evidence of his disadvantaged background and possible mental incapacities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and held that Jennings' counsel's decision not to pursue these avenues of argument was a legitimate trial strategy. The Court of Appeals also held that a federal habeas petitioner must file a certificate of appealability in order to respond to arguments concerning the state's appeal.

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Yes. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority. The Court held that, when an appellee does not cross-appeal, he may urge a defense of his judgment on alternative grounds without filing a certificate of appealability unless doing so would enlarge his rights or lessen those of his adversary as provided by the previous judgment. In this case, allowing Jennings to urge a defense of his judgment did not materially affect either his rights or those of the state. The Court held that this rule provides sufficient procedural safeguards to prevent a proliferation of frivolous habeas claims. Additionally, the statutory language that created the certificate of appealability requirement only dealt with the taking of appeals, not with a defense of a judgment from which an appeal has already been taken. Therefore, that requirement was not relevant in cases such as this one.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that Jennings' argument in defense of a previous judgment constituted a cross-appeal because it altered the grounds on which he could obtain relief. Because the argument was essentially a cross-appeal, a certificate of appealability should be required. Adhering to this standard rule not only aligns with previous habeas corpus jurisprudence but also prevents a rise in the number of frivolous appeals. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent.


On August 17, 2007, John L. Yates and his crew prepared his fishing vessel for a commercial fishing trip into federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. On August 23, 2007, Officer John Jones, a field officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who was empowered to enforce federal fisheries laws, boarded the vessel and noticed red grouper fish that appeared to be smaller than the requisite 20 inches. Officer Jones measured the grouper that appeared smaller and found a total of 72 fish that measured under 20 inches. Officer Jones placed these fish in wooden crates, issued Yates a citation, and informed Yates that the National Marine Fisheries Service would seize these fish upon the vessel's return to port. Contrary to Officer Jones' directions, Yates instructed his crew to throw the fish in question overboard and replace them with larger fish. When the vessel returned to port and the fish were measured on August 27, Officer Jones suspected that Yates had disposed of the fish he had measured.
Yates was charged with destruction and falsification of evidence. At trial he argued that the fish thrown overboard were not actually undersized because Officer Jones had measured the fish with their mouths closed, which shortens the length of fish. The district court found Yates guilty of disposing of undersized fish and therefore in violation of a statute that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal "a tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence" a governmental investigation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

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