Bankruptcy courts cannot authorize distributions of settlement proceeds that do not follow the priority distribution scheme established in the Bankruptcy Code without the consent of the affected creditors. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the 6-2 majority. The Court held that, although the Bankruptcy Code does not explicitly state that the priority distribution rules apply to structured dismissal settlements, the priority system is so integral to the Bankruptcy Code that it should be presumed to apply absent an affirmative expression of Congress’ intent to do otherwise. Although the dismissal sections of the Bankruptcy Code grant judges some flexibility, that flexibility should be interpreted in the larger context of the statute as limited to orders that protect the reliance interests in the bankruptcy case, including those based on the priority rules. Although there have been lower court holdings that have allowed for settlement distributions that violated the priority scheme, those were interim dispositions, rather than final dispositions as in this case. Allowing a settlement distribution to deviate from the priority distribution scheme at the final distribution stage would circumvent the Bankruptcy Code’s procedural safeguards and therefore is impermissible.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the parties briefed and argued a narrower issue than they had first presented to the Court. While the original question had been the subject of multiple cases in the lower courts that had come out different ways, the narrower formulation of the question has not been extensively addressed by the lower courts and the Court should have declined to answer it. Justice Alito joined in the dissent.


The city of Miami sued Bank of America Corporation and similar defendants under the Federal Housing Act (FHA) and argued that the banks engaged in predatory lending practices that targeted minorities for higher-risk loans, which resulted in high rates of default and caused financial harm to the city. Miami also alleged that the banks unjustly enriched themselves by taking advantage of benefits conferred by the city, that their actions denied the city of expected property and tax revenues, and cost the city money that it would not have had to pay had the banks not engaged in these predatory lending practices. The district court dismissed the FHA claims and held that Miami did not fall within the “zone of interests” the statute was meant to protect, and therefore did not have standing to sue under the FHA. The district court also held that Miami had not adequately shown that the banks’ conduct was the proximate cause of the harm the city claimed to have suffered. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and held that, as long as the plaintiffs in an FHA case would have standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution, they can sue under the FHA; the statutory standing requirement is not more narrow than Article III. The appellate court also determined that Miami had sufficiently shown that the banks’ actions were the proximate cause of the harm because the harm was reasonably foreseeable as a consequence of the actions.

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The “aggrieved persons” language of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) does not impose a more narrow standing standard than Article III does and allows a city to sue, but the proximate cause standard requires the plaintiffs to show more than the possibility that a defendant could have foreseen the harm. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the 5-3 majority. The Court held that a plaintiff must meet the traditional standing requirements--an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct and can be redressed by judicial action--as well as showing that the plaintiff’s injury falls within the zone of interests the statute at issue protects. In this case, the City of Miami’s alleged injuries clearly fall within the zone of interests the FHA protects because the City alleged economic injuries that were similar to those that had been sufficient to create standing in prior cases. However, the simple foreseeability of the harm based on the conduct at issue does not satisfy the proximate cause requirement. Because the housing market is so complex and interacts with so many other economic systems, such a loose standard would drastically increase FHA litigation, and nothing in the statute suggests that Congress intended to allow that. The Court held that the proximate cause requirement is met when a plaintiff can show that there is a “direct relation” between the alleged conduct and alleged injury.
In his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the City’s alleged injuries fall outside of the zone of interests that the FHA was supposed to protect and therefore that the City cannot be an “aggrieved person.” Justice Thomas argued that similar statutory language had been interpreted to confer more limited standing than what Article III allows and that, by enacting such language, Congress did not intend to allow all persons who could claim an injury in fact to recover under the statute. The typical “aggrieved person” under the statute is a potential homebuyer or lessee, and while other people may have similar interests at stake, the interests of the City are too different from those the statute was meant to protect. Justice Thomas agreed with the majority that foreseeability was not sufficient to establish proximate cause. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Justice Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Luis Ramon Morales-Santana was born in 1962 in the Dominican Republic to a father who had become an American citizen in 1917 and a mother who was a citizen of the Dominican Republic. At the time, Morales-Santana’s parents were unmarried, and when they married in 1970, Morales-Santana was “legitimated” by his father’s citizenship, and he became a lawful permanent resident in 1975. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act in effect at the time of Morales-Santana’s birth, a child born abroad to an unwed citizen father and a non-citizen mother only had citizenship at birth if the citizen father was physically present in the United States or one of its possessions for a period totalling ten years at some point prior to the child’s birth, and at least five of those years had to be after the age of 14. Because Morales-Santana’s father was only physically present in Puerto Rico until 20 days before his 19th birthday, when he left to work in the Dominican Republic, he did not meet the requirements to transfer derivative citizenship to Morales-Santana upon his birth.
In 2000, Morales-Santana was placed in removal proceedings because he had been convicted of various felonies. He applied to have the removal withheld and argued that he had derivative citizenship from his father, but the immigration judge denied the application. Morales-Santana filed a motion to reopen and argued that the denial of derivative citizenship violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Although his father did not satisfy the requirements for unwed citizen fathers to transfer derivative citizenship, he did meet the less stringent requirements for unwed citizen mothers (which required physical presence in the United States or one of its possessions for at least a year at some point prior to the child’s birth), and the gender-based difference was a violation of Equal Protection. The Bureau of Immigration Appeals denied the motion to reopen, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and held that the gender-based difference in the physical presence requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

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The statutory distinction between the physical presence requirements for transferral of derivative citizenship for unwed citizen mothers and unwed citizen fathers of foreign-born children violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and it is up to Congress, rather than the courts, to create a uniform solution that does not disadvantage any person on the basis of gender. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that laws granting or denying benefits on the basis of the gender of the qualifying parent were subject to heightened review under the Court’s equal protection jurisprudence. To be valid, such legislation must serve an important government objective and the means of accomplishing it must be substantially related to that objective. In this case, the Immigration and Nationality Act did not meet that burden. Instead, the gender differential was based solely on the now-untenable assumption that an unwed mother is the “natural and sole guardian of non-marital children.” Although the petitioner argued that the physical presence requirements served the important interest of ensuring a connection between the foreign-born non-marital child and the United States, a gender-based description does not accomplish that goal. Because the gender-based difference was due to overbroad, disfavored generalizations about gender, it did not serve an important government objective and therefore failed to pass the heightened scrutiny test. Despite the fact that the distinction between the physical presence requirements violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the judicial branch cannot resolve the problem by determining which requirement controls. Congress must instead address that issue in legislation.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in part in which he argued that only Congress could remedy the alleged equal protection violation in this case. Because the Court could not grant the relief that Morales-Santana requested, the Court should not reach a decision on whether the requirements were constitutional. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment in part.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


In 2003, Leroy, Donna, Barry, and Suzanne Haeger were injured when one of the tires on their motorhome failed while they were driving on the highway, which caused the motorhome to swerve off the road and overturn. The tire was manufactured by The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Goodyear). In 2005, the Haegers sued Goodyear, which was represented by Basil J. Musnuff on all cases involving that particular model of tire and by Graeme Hancock as local counsel. The parties reached a settlement without going to trial in 2010.
Over a year later, the Haegers’ attorney saw an article that indicated that Goodyear had done testing on the tire in question that had not been provided to the Haegers during discovery. The attorney filed a motion for sanctions with the district court and argued that Goodyear had committed discovery fraud by knowingly concealing crucial tests. Goodyear opposed the motion and argued that it had never represented that it provided all the test records that had been conducted on the tire at issue. The district court determined that Goodyear and Musnuff had deliberately tried to frustrate attempts to resolve the case on its merits. The district court also determined that, while it could not impose sanctions because the matter was settled, it could award the plaintiffs attorney’s fees for all costs incurred after Goodyear’s responses to the first discovery request, which came to approximately $2.7 million. Musnuff and Goodyear were held jointly responsible for 80% of this figure, and Hancock for the other 20%. Musnuff and Goodyear appealed and argued that the district court could not impose such sanctions without the additional procedural protections required for the imposition of punitive sanctions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in both appeals that the district court had not abused its discretion and affirmed the award of sanction fees.

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Sanctions imposed by a federal court for a litigant’s misconduct in civil proceedings must be compensatory, rather than punitive in nature. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, when a federal court sanctions bad-faith conduct by ordering a litigant to pay the other side’s legal fees, the award is limited to the fees the innocent party incurred solely due to the misconduct. To issue sanctions that exceed compensation, a court would need to provide procedural protections applicable in criminal cases, such as the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof. However, courts have considerable discretion to make findings regarding the financial impact of a litigant’s misconduct. In some cases, these findings may include determining what expenses were incurred after a particular moment in time. The only constraint on a court’s award is that its sum must not exceed compensation for fees attributable to the offending litigant’s misconduct.


James Garcia Dimaya, a native and citizen of the Philippines, was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 1992. In 2007 and 2009, Dimaya was convicted under the California Penal Code for first-degree residential burglary; both convictions resulted in two years’ imprisonment. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a non-citizen convicted of an aggravated felony is subject to deportation. The INA definition of aggravated felony includes a “crime of violence,” which is any offense that involves the use or substantial risk of physical force against another person or property.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently initiated deportation proceedings against Dimaya and claimed that his burglary convictions constituted crimes of violence under the Act. The Immigration Judge held that Dimaya was deportable and that burglary constitutes a crime of violence because it always involves a risk of physical violence. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed.
While Dimaya’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States, which held that the definition of a “violent felony” in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) was unconstitutionally vague. As a result, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the INA’s crime of violence provision was unconstitutionally vague because it was largely similar to the violent felony provision in the ACCA that the Supreme Court struck down in Johnson. The appellate court found that both provisions denied fair notice to defendants and failed to make clear when a risk of violence could be considered substantial.

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The Immigration and Nationality Act’s “crime of violence” provision is unconstitutionally vague, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the 5-4 opinion as to parts . To determine whether a person’s conduct falls within a "crime of violence" under Section 16(b), courts consider the overall nature of the offense, particularly “whether ‘the ordinary case’ of an offense poses the requisite risk.” The Court found that the term “ordinary case” under the “crime of violence” was too vague in that it risked unpredictable and arbitrary interpretation. In 2015, the Court struck down as unconstitutionally vague a similar provision of a different statute, see Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), and this provision suffers from the same problems as the one in that case.
A plurality of the court (the majority minus Justice Neil Gorsuch) rejected the government’s argument removal cases deserved a less rigid form of the void-for-vagueness doctrine, largely because the penalty of deportation is so severe. Justice Gorsuch wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which he opined that even civil statutes that do not involve removal should be subject to a stringent void-for-vagueness review.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, dissented. Chief Justice Roberts argued that unlike the provision of a criminal statute that the Court struck down as overly vague in Johnson, the provision of the INA does not present the same kind of uncertainty that was present in that case.
Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, joined in part by Justices Kennedy and Alito, to express "doubt that our practice of striking down statutes as unconstitutionally vague is consistent with the original meaning of the Due Process Clause."


Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District

Endrew F. is an autistic fifth grade student who was placed in private school because his parents believed his public school education was inadequate. Endrew was placed in Firefly Autism House and his parents sued for reimbursement of Endrew’s private school tuition and related expenses pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). IDEA provides that if a free public school cannot meet the educational needs of a disabled student, the student’s parents may enroll their child in a private school and seek reimbursement for tuition and related expenses.
This case first went to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for review. The ALJ rejected Endrew’s parent’s request for reimbursement concluding that Endrew’s public school had provided him with “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) as required by the IDEA. The district court affirmed the ALJ’s ruling and held that Endrew’s parents failed to meet their burden to prove that Endrew was not provided with FAPE. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.

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In order to provide children with disabilities the free appropriate public education guaranteed by under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), school districts must offer children an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that is reasonably calculated to enable each child to make progress appropriate for that child’s circumstances. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that the inquiry into whether an IEP is reasonably calculated to allow a child to make progress is necessarily an intensive, fact-specific one and therefore neither the Court nor the statute could create a substantive standard. The Court’s decision in Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley suggests that “appropriate progress” for most children would allow them to be fully integrated into the classroom and to advance from grade to grade. This requirement is substantially more than the “de minimus” benefit that the school district argued was all it was required to provide. However, the Court also held that the standard Endrew F.’s parents argued for was too rigorous and was similar to one that the Court had rejected in its decision in Rowley. In conducting its fact-intensive inquiry, a reviewing court should give deference to the expertise of school authorities but must still ensure that an IEP is reasonably calculated to enable each child to make progress appropriate for that child’s circumstances.


The New York General Business Law prohibits surcharges on credit card transactions. Expressions Hair Design, along with four other New York businesses and their owners, sued Eric T. Schneiderman, the Attorney General of New York, as well as the District Attorneys of New York County and argued both that the statute violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and that the statute was unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court held that the statute was unconstitutional under both theories. The district court found that the statute impermissibly distinguished between surcharges and discounts, which narrowed the form of commercial speech available to the plaintiffs and violated the First Amendment. Additionally, the statute was vague because its application depended entirely on the labels plaintiffs used. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and held that the statute qualified as permissible regulation of economic activity. The appellate court determined that prices were not inherently protected speech and that, because the surcharge provision had an easily understood meaning, the provision was not unconstitutionally vague.

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The New York General Business Law’s prohibition of credit card surcharges regulates speech and therefore implicates the First Amendment, but it is not unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the challenged law regulated speech, and not just conduct, because the law specifically regulates the manner in which businesses may communicate their prices to consumers. Because the U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that the law did not regulate speech, it did not determine whether the law violated the First Amendment, so the case was remanded for reconsideration in light of this decision. The Court also determined that the law was not unconstitutionally vague because the law clearly prohibits certain types of speech and specifically the speech these businesses wish to use.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that virtually all government regulation affects speech. To determine what level of scrutiny to apply, courts generally consider the extent to which the challenged regulation affects a protected First Amendment interest. In this case, because the extent to which the New York law affects a protected First Amendment interest is unclear, Justice Breyer agreed with the majority that the case should be remanded. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in which she argued that it was not clear exactly what the New York law prohibited, and that the case could not be properly resolved until the state courts authoritatively interpreted the law. Therefore, the appellate court should have either abstained from interpreting the law or certified the question to the highest state court. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment.


Damiana Ochoa filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against her former employer, McLane Company (McLane), for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. McLane required all new employees and employees returning work after a medical leave to take a physical capability strength test for positions that are classified as physically demanding. Ochoa failed the test three times, and therefore her employment was terminated. The EEOC opened up an investigation into McLane Co. During the investigation, the EEOC issued a subpoena for information McLane withheld, including either “pedigree information” for each test-taker or reasons the test-taker’s employment was terminated. McLane continued to refuse to provide that information, so the EEOC filed a subpoena enforcement action. The district court required McLane to disclose some of the information the EEOC subpoenaed, but it refused to require McLane to divulge the “pedigree information” or reasons for termination. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part after reviewing the lower court’s decision “de novo,” or without giving deference to the lower court’s determination.

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A district court’s determination on whether to enforce an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) subpoena should be reviewed for abuse of discretion, which gives deference to the lower court’s determination. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that, when there is no explicit statutory command regarding the level of deference a lower court’s determination deserves, there are two relevant factors to consider: the history of appellate practice and whether one actor is better positioned to decide the issue in question. In reviewing a district court’s decision of whether to enforce or quash an administrative subpoena, the history of appellate practice as well as current practice is for such decisions to be reviewed under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. This standard also reflects the fact that these decisions are case-specific ones that a district court judge is in a better position to make than an appellate court. Therefore, both factors indicate that the abuse of discretion standard is the correct one for appellate courts to use when reviewing a district court’s decision to enforce or quash an EEOC subpoena. Because the lower appellate court in this case did not review the district court’s decision under the correct standard, the Court remanded the case.
In her opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that, although the abuse of discretion standard is the correct one, the lower appellate court’s decision should be affirmed. Justice Ginsburg argued that the district court’s refusal to enforce the subpoena rested on legal error, and questions of legal error are reviewed under the “de novo” standard, without deference.


The respondents in this case are a group of male, non-U.S. citizens, most of whom are Muslim of Middle Eastern origin who were detained after the September 11, 2001 attacks and treated as “of interest” in the government’s investigation of these events. In their original claims, the plaintiffs alleged that they were detained without notice of the charges against them or information about how they were determined to be “of interest,” that their access to counsel and the courts was interfered with, and that they were subjected to excessively harsh treatment during their detention. They also asserted that their race, ethnicity, and national origin played a determinative role in the decision to detain them. The plaintiffs sued a number of government officials and argued that the government used their status as non-citizens to detain them when the government’s real purpose was to investigate whether they were terrorists and that the conditions of their confinement violated their Constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. After a series of motions to dismiss, the district court dismissed the claims regarding the length of confinement but allowed the Constitutional claims to proceed. Both the plaintiffs and defendants appealed various aspects of that ruling.
While that appeal was pending, some of the plaintiffs settled their claims against the government and the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which held that a complaint must allege sufficient facts to be plausible on its face and to allow a court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the claimed conduct. Based on these events, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the length of confinement claims but remanded the conditions of confinement claims and allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint. The appellate court again dismissed some of the claims and allowed others to proceed.

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In suits against government officials for personally violating the Constitution, “context” should be defined narrowly for the purpose of determining whether a claim arose in a “new context,” and the government officials in this case are entitled to qualified immunity. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 4-2 majority. The Court held that Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents established an implied right of action to sue a federal official for money damages when the official violated constitutional rights. However, the Court had declined to extend the Bivens precedent because Congress had not enacted a statute that allowed for this type of remedy. Therefore, in order to respect the separation of powers, the situations in which a court determined that there was an implied right of action for monetary damages against a federal official should be rare. If there were “special factors counselling hesitation,” a court should not determine that a Bivens remedy was available. Although the Court had not defined “special factors,” they must be present in cases in which is is doubtful that Congress intended to allow for money damages against federal officials. Based on this background, for the purposes of determining whether a Bivens claim arises in a “new context” and must be subject to a special factors analysis, the term “context” should be defined narrowly. Because this case differed in a meaningful way from those that the Court has decided under Bivens previously, it arose in a new context and the special factors analysis should apply. The national security, policy, and separations of powers concerns here were all special factors that counseled against a determination that a Bivens implied right of action was appropriate in this case. The Court also determined that the government officials in this case were entitled to qualified immunity because reasonable officials in their positions would not have known that their conduct was unlawful under clearly established law regarding how a conspiracy applies to a governmental entity.
In his opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he agreed with the majority that the Bivens precedent did not extend to this case. However, Justice Thomas argued that the qualified immunity analysis diverged from what Congress had intended. Instead of determining whether a reasonable official would have known that his actions violated clearly established law, qualified immunity for constitutional violations should be determined by what the common law historically would have covered.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a dissent in which he argued that the plaintiffs in this case pleaded facts that were well within the scope of established Bivens law, and therefore the claims should be allowed to proceed. A case did not fall under Bivens if it arose out of a new context, which meant that the case was fundamentally different from those that the Court had considered before. In this case, the harms the plaintiffs claim to have suffered were very similar to those that the Court addressed in Bivens, and Congress had not indicated that it intended to withdraw the Bivens remedy in such a situation. Even if this case arose in a new context, the Bivens remedy should still be available because there was no alternative, existing process for protecting their interests and vindicating the harms they already suffered. Justice Breyer also argued that the Bivens precedent included sufficient safeguards to prevent judicial overreach and therefore there were no “special factors” that counseled hesitation from the courts. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


The state of Colorado, like most states, imposes certain monetary penalties upon persons convicted of a crime. Shannon Nelson and Louis Madden were both separately arrested and charged with sexual assault crimes. Nelson was acquitted of all charges, and Madden was acquitted of one of two charges against him. Both requested refunds from the state for the penalties they had been charged, since their convictions were overturned. The trial court determined it lacked jurisdiction in Nelson’s case and only returned the funds taken from Madden in connection with the one charge on which he was acquitted. The Colorado Court of Appeals found that the state must refund the money Nelson and Madden had paid respective to their sexual assault charges that had been thrown out. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the decisions in both cases and held that, under the state’s Exoneration Act, an individual may only recover monetary losses from an arrest if they can “prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that [they were] ‘actually innocent.’”

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Colorado’s Exoneration Act, which requires exonerated persons to “prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that they were ‘actually innocent’” in order to refund their money, is invalid under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court returned to its reasoning in Mathews v. Eldridge, in which the Court looked at three factors: the private interest affected, the risk of erroneous deprivation of the defendants’ interests if the Exoneration Act is their only remedy, and what is at stake for the government. Nelson and Madden clearly had an interest in getting back the money they paid to the state upon their convictions. With regard to the second factor, the Court noted that the Exoneration Act did not allow the defendants to be presumed innocent, a presumption to which they are entitled. Finally, the Court held that Colorado has no claim of right to Nelson and Madden’s funds.
In his concurrence, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., looked to the historical, common-law tradition rather than using the Mathews framework. Generally, when an individual’s judgment is later reversed, the money is repaid; this general rule also applied to criminal cases. Because Colorado’s Exoneration Act provided defendants whose convictions are reversed with “no realistic opportunity to prove they are deserving of refunds,” it did not comport with the Due Process Clause.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the defendants had failed to show that they had a substantive entitlement to the money paid to the state upon their convictions. Justice Thomas argued that there had been no demonstration as to why exonerated individuals should automatically receive a refund of money that was paid pursuant to their then-valid convictions, nor had the defendants showed how they have been “deprived of a protected property interest” under the Fourteenth Amendment.


Simon Tam and his band, The Slants, sought to register the band’s name with the U.S. Trademark Office. The Office denied the application because it found that the name would likely be disparaging towards “persons of Asian descent.” The office cited the Disparagement Clause of the Lanham Act of 1946, which prohibits trademarks that “[consist] of or [comprise] immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” Tam appealed the trademark officer’s decision, and the name was refused a second time by a board comprised of members of the office. Tam appealed to a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which found that the trademark officials were within their rights to refuse the trademark application under the Disparagement Clause. The appellate court then reviewed the case en banc and found that the trademark office was incorrect in refusing the trademark application and that the Disparagement Clause violated the First Amendment.

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The Disparagement Clause prohibits trademarks that disparage the members of a racial or ethnic group and violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that, the plain meaning of the text clearly indicated that the Disparagement Clause applied to racial and ethnic groups, and therefore the Clause applied to the mark at issue in this case. The Clause also facially discriminated based on viewpoint, as giving offense constitutes a viewpoint. Because the PTO simply approved trademarks, they were not government speech--to which the First Amendment prohibitions on viewpoint regulation did not apply--and holding otherwise would constitute a massive and unwise expansion of the government speech doctrine. Similarly, PTO approval of a trademark did not constitute government-provided subsidy, an area of cases in which viewpoint discrimination was sometimes determined to be constitutional. The Disparagement Clause was also not a permissible regulation of commercial speech because it was not narrowly drawn to serve a substantial interest. Any asserted interest of avoiding offense clearly contravened the purpose of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, and the Clause was too broad to serve the government’s other stated interest of protecting the orderly flow of commerce.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which he argued that the First Amendment’s protections against viewpoint discrimination clearly applied in this case. There are very narrow and specific categories in which the government may regulate speech--such as fraud, defamation, and incitement--and the trademark at issue here did not fall within these categories. Instead, the Disparagement Clause specifically singled out a subset of messages that the government determined to be offensive and prohibits them, which was plainly unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Justice Kennedy also wrote that the majority opinion does not govern how any other provisions of the Lanham Act should be interpreted under the First Amendment, nor was the government speech doctrine at issue in this case. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. In his separate opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that all government regulation of commercial speech should be analyzed under the strict scrutiny standard.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Levon Dean, Jr. and Jamal Dean were brothers who agreed to participate in a robbery of a local drug dealer known as J.R. with Jessica Cabbell and Sarah Berg. On April 15, 2013, Levon and Jamal accompanied Berg to the Palmer House Motel in Sioux City, Iowa, to confront J.R. Jamal pulled a gun on J.R. and hit him on the head with the firearm. Berg, Jamal, and Levon fled the scene with J.R.’s car, cell phone, and methamphetamines. Later that month, Levon and Jamal robbed another methamphetamine dealer, C.B., at gunpoint in his home. In a similar manner, Jamal hit C.B. with his gun and fled the scene in C.B.’s car with $300, methamphetamines, and other electronics. During this robbery, the Deans ordered Hope Marsh who was living at the residence to come with and live with them. The Deans were eventually arrested in May of 2013.
The Deans were convicted of multiple crimes including robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act, which requires that a crime “obstruct, delay, or affect commerce.” Levon Dean, Jr. was sentenced to 400 months, including a 360-month mandatory minimum consecutive sentence pursuant to the sentence for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime under 18 U.S.C. §924(c). Without the mandatory minimum, Levon’s sentence guideline would have been 84-105 months. On appeal, Levon Dean challenged the sufficiency the evidence to establish a nexus to interstate commerce as the Hobbs Act requires, the sufficiency of evidence for his firearm convictions, and the reasonableness of his sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision to follow the precedent it established in United States v. Hatcher, which held that the district court did not have discretion to reconsider mandatory minimums in sentences. The appellate court held that the district court’s sentence of 40-months to be served consecutively with the 360-month sentence was “substantively reasonable and not an abuse of the district court’s discretion.”

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A sentencing court may use its discretion when calculating an appropriate sentence for a felony serving as the basis for a conviction under 18 U.S.C. §924(c). Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that §924(c) did not prevent sentencing courts from exercising the discretion that they have traditionally enjoyed when tasked with evaluating factors of a case. Although the government argued that sentencing should be calculated purely for each individual offense under §924(c), which made it a separate offense in a drug trafficking crime to use or possess a firearm, without considering the sentences the defendant might be facing on other counts, the Court determined that the law did not require such an approach. Therefore, a sentencing court could consider the other sentences, and their mandatory minimums, that a defendant might be facing in determining an overall appropriate sentence under 18 U.S.C. §924(c).


On June 7, 2010, Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, a fifteen-year-old Mexican national, was playing with friends on the cement culvert of the Rio Grande that separates El Paso, Texas from Juarez, Mexico. Hernandez and his friends took turns running up the incline of the culvert to touch the barbed-wire fence on the U.S. side of it and then running back down the incline to the Mexican side. Jesus Mesa, Jr., a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, arrived on the scene and detained one of Hernandez’s friends at the U.S. border, while Hernandez retreated to the Mexican side of the River and hid behind the pillars of the Paso del Norte bridge. Mesa, still standing on the U.S. side of the border, fired at least two shots at Hernandez, one of which struck him in the head and killed him.
Six months after Hernandez’s death, his parents sued Mesa in federal district court in Texas and alleged that Mesa violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution through the use of deadly force and the failure to use of reasonable force when making arrests. Mesa moved to dismiss and argued that Hernandez lacked constitutional protection because he was an alien without voluntary attachments to the United States who was standing in Mexico when he was killed. Applying a formalist test, the district court concluded that the Constitution’s deadly-force protections stop at the border for non-citizens like Hernandez. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part and held that the Fifth Amendment protections against deadly force applied but not the Fourth Amendment protections. The appellate court also held that Mesa was not entitled to qualified immunity. Rehearing the case en banc, the appellate declined to answer the Fifth Amendment question, but held that Mesa was entitled to qualified immunity and that Hernandez could not assert a claim under the Fourth Amendment because he was a Mexican citizen without a significant voluntary connection to the United States who was on Mexican soil when he was shot and killed.

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Qualified immunity may not be granted based on facts that were unknown to the officer at the time of the incident, and a court should consider whether an implied right of action is appropriate under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents before addressing sensitive Fourth Amendment questions. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that the lower appellate court erred in addressing the Fourth Amendment question in this case before considering whether there was an implied right of action under the Bivens precedent. Although this approach is appropriate in many cases, in this case the resolution of the Fourth Amendment question has such potentially far-reaching consequences that it may not be appropriate for the judicial branch to answer. Recent precedent established that a Bivens remedy is not available when there are “special factors counseling hesitation” from the courts, which might apply in this case. The Court also held that, because qualified immunity analysis was based on whether a reasonable officer would know that his actions were unlawful, the only relevant facts were what the officer knew at the time of the incident.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that a remedy under the Bivens precedent should only be available in cases that are meaningfully similar to Bivens. Because this case was not, a Bivens remedy should not be available. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he argued that precedent had established that the extraterritorial reach of the Constitution was determined by functional concerns, not formal ones. In this case, because the officer was a U.S. official who did not know whether he was shooting at an American citizen or whether the bullet would land in U.S. or Mexican territory, the constitutional protections of the Fourth Amendment should apply. Not applying the Fourth Amendment to the facts of this case based solely on the location of the injury relative to the border line would create an anomalous precedent that would be difficult to apply to other border cases. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


On October 22, 2011, Brian Lewis was driving southbound on Interstate 95 in Norwalk, Connecticut, when William Clarke crashed into him while driving a limousine owned by the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. Lewis sued Clarke, claiming that he was injured as a result of Clarke’s negligent and careless driving. Clarke filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and argued that, because he was driving the limousine as an employee of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because he was entitled to tribal sovereign immunity. The trial court denied the motion and held that it did not lack subject matter jurisdiction under the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity because Lewis sought damages from Clarke personally, not from the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed and held that tribal sovereign immunity extended to Clarke as a member of the tribe acting within the scope of his employment as a limousine driver with the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority.

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Tribal sovereign immunity is not implicated in a suit against a tribal employee in his individual capacity, and an indemnification provision cannot extend tribal sovereign immunity to conduct that it would not otherwise cover. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the fact that an employee was acting within the scope of his employment for the tribe when the tort was committed was not sufficient to give rise to tribal sovereign immunity. In deciding whether sovereign immunity applies, courts traditionally look at whether the relief sought is actually from the sovereign. Because an individual-capacity lawsuit is only against that individual, the sovereign is not a real party in interest and the individual cannot assert sovereign immunity. These principles apply equally to tribal sovereign immunity cases. The Court also held that an indemnification provision does not alter who is the real party in interest and cannot extend tribal sovereign immunity to conduct that it would not otherwise cover.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that tribal sovereign immunity does not extend to suits arising out of commercial activity conducted off of the tribal territory. In her separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that tribes interacting with non-tribal members outside of the tribal territory should be subject to general non-discriminatory state laws.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Juan Esquivel-Quintana was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2000. In 2009, he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under the relevant statute in California. In California, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor is defined as an act of sexual intercourse with a person who is a minor and not the spouse of the perpetrator. The statute further provides that anyone who is convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is more than three years younger than the perpetrator is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony.
After 2009, Esquivel-Quintana moved to Michigan, which is where the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him based on the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA states that a non-citizen may be removed from the United States if he is convicted of an aggravated felony such as sexual abuse of a minor. An Immigration Judge ruled that Esquivel-Quintana’s conviction under California law constituted sexual abuse of a minor and ordered his removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed and held that the term “sexual abuse of a minor” in the INA encompassed convictions under the relevant California statute without looking at the individual facts of the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the BIA’s decision. The appellate court determined that the BIA’s decision was entitled to deference as a permissible interpretation of an ambiguous statute under the Supreme Court’s precedent in Chevron, USA, Inc v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., and that the rule of lenity--requiring that statutory ambiguity be resolved in the defendant’s favor--did not apply in a civil case.

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The crime of “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” as defined by California law cannot be categorically considered the aggravated felony of “sexual abuse of a minor” for the purpose of mandatory removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that, to determine whether an underlying conviction qualifies as an aggravated felony for the purpose of removability under the INA, courts presume that conviction rested upon the least of the acts criminalized by the statute. In the case of the California law criminalizing “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor,” a minor is someone 18 years old or younger, so the minimum activity that the statute criminalizes was consensual sex between an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old. The Court held that, in the context of statutory rape offenses that criminalize sexual intercourse based solely on the ages of participants, the term “sexual abuse of minor” refers to minors under the age of 16. The language and structure of the statute, as well as related federal statutes and state criminal codes all support this interpretation. Because the least criminal activity that the California law criminalizes is not included under the INA’s definition of “sexual abuse of a minor,” the California law cannot be categorically considered “sexual abuse of a minor for the purpose of removal under the INA.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


In 2014, Aleida Johnson filed for bankruptcy in Alabama bankruptcy court under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. In 2003 and years prior, Midland Funding had purchased a bundle of debt worth almost $2,000 from Johnson, so after she filed for bankruptcy, Midland Funding filed a proof of claim in the same court. Because the date of the last transaction in the account in question occurred in 2003 and the statute of limitations for collecting unpaid debt in Alabama is six years, Johnson sued Midland Funding in federal district court argued that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prevented bankruptcy actions that had passed their statutes of limitations.
Midland Funding moved to dismiss, and the district court granted the motion. The district court determined determined that, while the FDCPA prohibited the filing of a proof of claim known to be barred by the statute of limitations, the U.S. Bankruptcy Code allowed a creditor to file a proof of claim even after the statute of limitations has run. The district court resolved that conflict by holding that the creditors’ right to file a claim precluded debtors from challenging that practice under the FDCPA. Johnson appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the case. The appellate court found that, although the Bankruptcy Code allowed creditors to file claims barred by the statute of limitations, that did not preclude them from liability under the FDCPA for filing the claim.

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The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) does not prevent a creditor from filing a proof of claim on an unpaid debt in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding even after the statute of limitations on that debt has run. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 5-3 majority. The Court held that the FDCPA only prohibits a debt collector from asserting any “false, deceptive, or misleading representation” or using an “unfair or unconscionable means” to collect on an unfair debt. Filing a proof of claim on a debt that is unenforceable because the statute of limitations has run does not count as “false” or “misleading” under the FDCPA. Although a claim is defined as a “right of payment” in the Bankruptcy Code, there is no requirement that the claim be enforceable. The Code treats the unenforceability of a claim as an affirmative defense, but the claim may still be filed and does not give rise to the type of practices the FDCPA was enacted to prevent. The Court also held that, while there is precedent that established that the filing of a claim that is known to be time barred was unfair in the civil suit context, that precedent does not extend to Chapter 13 proceedings. The Bankruptcy Code and the FDCPA have different purposes, and to allow an FDCPA suit to proceed in this case would upset the balance between the two pieces of legislation.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that a creditor who knowingly tries to collect a time-barred debt in bankruptcy proceedings has violated the FDCPA. Because invoking the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, creditors have historically sought to collect on time-barred debts by filing claims and hoping that either the debtors do not respond or do not invoke the defense, which allows creditors to collect default judgments. This is precisely the type of practice that the FDCPA was enacted to prevent, and it has been interpreted as doing so in the civil suit context. Justice Sotomayor argued that the FDCPA should also prevent this practice in bankruptcy court because there are no additional protections for the debtor in that context that make the time-barred nature of the claim more likely to be noticed than there are in a civil suit. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark

Olive Clark and Joe Wellner were both residents at the Fountain Circle Care and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home operated by Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership (Kindred Nursing) in Winchester, Kentucky. Prior to their admission to the facility, each had designated their relatives as attorneys-in-fact, which gave the relatives broad authority to enter into transactions and agreements on their behalf. Their relatives, Janis E. Clark and Beverly Wellner, used their status as attorneys-in-fact to sign an alternative dispute resolution agreements with the facility that stipulated that any disputes arising from the Olive’s and Joe’s stays at the facility would be resolved through arbitration.
Olive and Joe both passed away in the spring of 2009, and Janis and Beverly each filed lawsuits against Kindred Nursing for personal injury and wrongful death on their behalf. Kindred Nursing moved to compel arbitration based on the agreements that Janis and Beverly had signed. The state trial court initially dismissed both judicial actions in favor of arbitration, but later reversed in accordance with the precedent the Supreme Court of Kentucky established in Ping v. Beverly Enterprises, Inc. In that case, the Supreme Court of Kentucky held that the power of attorney that authorized an attorney-in-fact to manage the principal’s “financial affairs” and “health-care decisions” did not include the authority to bind the principal to an optional arbitration agreement. The Supreme Court of Kentucky affirmed the lower court’s decision.

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The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts Kentucky state-law precedent that requires a clear statement in the power of attorney agreement in order to grant an attorney-in-fact the power to bind her principal to an arbitration agreement. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that, under the FAA, arbitration agreements may only be found invalid and unenforceable based on legal rules that would apply to any contract. Rules that apply only to arbitration agreements, even if they do not do so explicitly but focus on contracts that have the characteristics of arbitration agreements, violate the FAA and are therefore preempted. Because Kentucky’s clear statement rule focuses exclusively on the primary characteristic of an arbitration agreement--the waiver of the right to a jury trial--it does not put arbitration agreements on equal footing with other contracts, and therefore the FAA preempts it. To hold otherwise would allow states to undermine the express purpose of the FAA.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the FAA did not apply in state court proceedings and therefore did not preempt the state-law precedent in this case.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Lester Packingham was convicted of taking “indecent liberties” with a minor in 2002, as a 21-year-old college student. Per North Carolina law, he was sentenced to a standard 10-12 month imprisonment, followed by a 24-month supervised release. Aside from being told to “remain away from” the minor, his conviction entailed no special stipulations. Packingham was arrested in 2010 after authorities came across a post on his Facebook profile, thanking God for having a parking ticket dismissed. He was arrested for violating North Carolina’s laws regarding convicted sex offenders, which barred the offender’s access to social media websites.
In his defense, Packingham argued that the law violated his First Amendment rights. He was convicted in trial court, which found that the state had a weighty interest in keeping sexual predators off of social media websites for the “protection of minors.” The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed and held that the social media website provision of the law was unconstitutional. The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed and held that the law was constitutional by finding that the law was a “limitation on conduct” and not a restriction of free speech. The court found that the state had a sufficient interest in “forestalling the illicit lurking and contact” of registered sex offenders and their potential future victims.

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The North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing various websites, where minors are known to be active and have accounts, regardless of whether or not the sex offender directly interacted with a minor violates the First Amendment. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion of the 5-3 majority. The Court held that, in order to be valid under the First Amendment, a content-neutral regulation of speech must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. In other words, the law cannot burden substantially more speech than necessary to advance the government’s legitimate interest. In this case, although the government has a legitimate interest in protecting children from abuse, this law too broadly restricted access to all sorts of websites. Even if it were limited only to social media websites, the law would still unconstitutionally restrict speech because of the vast number of functions that social media websites perform in the modern world. First Amendment jurisprudence has never allowed for such a broad regulation of speech, and similarly broad restrictions have been struck down. However, a state could accomplish the same goal by enacting a more narrowly written statute.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that the majority opinion erred in equating the entire internet with a traditionally public forum instead of recognizing the importance of allowing states to regulate certain types of websites. The government certainly has a compelling interest in protecting children from potential sexual predation, and the internet is a place that allows sexual offenders to contact children in ways that they might not otherwise be able, so the government should be able to regulate sex offenders’ use of the internet to an extent. However, the North Carolina law at issue here went too far because it encompassed websites that were unlikely to facilitate a sex crime against a child. Because the North Carolina law prohibited more speech than necessary to further the government’s significant interest, it violated the First Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Coventry Health Care of Missouri, Inc. v. Nevils

Jodie Nevils was a federal employee with a Coventry Health Care of Missouri (Coventry) health insurance plan that was governed by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Act (FEHBA), which expressly preempts state laws and regulations governing health insurance and benefits plans. After Nevils was awarded a settlement in a personal injury case, Coventry enforced a claim to the settlement money. Nevils sued Coventry and argued that Missouri law prevented insurance companies from claiming the proceeds of personal injury settlements. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the insurance company and held that the FEHBA preempted state law regarding insurance companies’ claims to the proceeds of personal injury settlement. The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed and held that the FEHBA did not preempt state law in this case because an insurance company’s claim to a personal injury settlement does not clearly relate to “the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits.”
After the Supreme Court of Missouri’s decision, the Office of Personnel Management created a new formal rule. That rule stated that an insurance carrier’s rights and responsibilities with respect to the settlement of an individual covered by that insurance carrier’s plan “relate to the nature, provision, and extent of coverage or benefits” for the purpose of the FEHBA. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari for this case and vacated and remanded the lower court’s decision for reconsideration in light of this new rule. On remand, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that there is no precedent that establishes that a federal agency’s interpretation of a preemption clause receives judicial deference. Therefore, the Supreme Court of Missouri again determined that the FEHBA did not preempt Missouri state law.

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The Federal Employees Health Benefits Act (FEHBA) preempts state laws that prohibit insurance companies from claiming the proceeds of personal injury settlements pursuant to their contracts, and the express preemption clause of the FEHBA does not violate the Supremacy Clause. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the relevant contractual provisions “relate to the nature, provision, or extent of coverage or benefits,” including with respect to the payment of benefits, under the language of the FEHBA. Because the contractual provisions at issue grant the insurance carriers rights to payments in exchange for the benefits they provide, they clearly fall within the language of the statute. The Court also held that Congress used the language “relate to,” which has traditionally been interpreted broadly with respect to federal preemption of state laws. The statutory context and purpose, along with the significant federal interests at stake, also support this interpretation. Because the federal statute--not the contract at issue--overrides the state law, the Court determined that this scheme did not violate the Supremacy Clause.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a statute that conferred an executive agency the power to create contracts that preempt state law might be an unconstitutional grant of power to the Executive Branch. However, because Nevils did not make that argument, the Court did not address it.
Justice Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


In October 2010, Deputies Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to a tip from an informant that wanted parolee Ronnie O’Dell had been seen in front of the nearby residence of Paula Hughes. The officers were informed that Angel Mendez and Jennifer Lynn Garcia lived together in the backyard of the Hughes residence. Although they did not have a search warrant, other officers directed Deputies Conley and Pederson to search the backyard. After determining that O’Dell was not in any of the three storage sheds in Hughes’ backyard, the deputies proceeded to a wooden shed surrounded by an A/C unit, clothes locker, clothes, and other belongings. The deputies did not knock and announce their presence. Deputy Conley, upon opening the door, saw the silhouette of a person holding a rifle through a curtain in the shed. Conley yelled “Gun!” and both deputies proceeded to shoot Mendez and Garcia. Whether Mendez was merely moving the gun or was pointing it at the deputies was subject to conflicting testimony at trial. As a result, Mendez required amputation of his right leg below the knee, and Garcia was shot in the back.
Mendez and Garcia sued Conley and Pederson and alleged that the deputies, in their official capacity, deprived them of their Fourth Amendment rights by performing an unjustified warrantless search and that the deputies failed to adhere to the knock-and-announce rule, which requires that officers announce their presence before they enter a home. The district court found for the plaintiffs on both these allegations and also held that, although the officers’ use of force was reasonable under the circumstances, they were liable for the shooting under the Ninth Circuit’s provocation rule. That rule holds an officer liable for use of deadly force where the officer intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation via a Fourth Amendment violation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s determination that the search violated the Fourth Amendment but reversed the knock-and-announce rule holding that because there was no controlling Ninth Circuit precedent on whether officers must announce themselves again at a separate residence on the same property. The appellate court also held that the officers were liable under the provocation rule because their unjustified search of the occupied shed led to the shooting.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s provocation rule has no basis in the Fourth Amendment, and the lower court erroneously conflated multiple Fourth Amendment violation claims. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that provocation rule essentially asks whether, once an officer’s use of force has been determined to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, there was a different Fourth Amendment violation that made the otherwise reasonable use of force unreasonable. Because this rule uses one constitutional violation to manufacture an excessive use of force claim that has already been rejected under established Fourth Amendment precedent, it is an improper rule that lacks a constitutional basis. If the defendant has multiple Fourth Amendment violation claims, they should each be analyzed separately. The Court also held that, in its proximate cause analysis regarding the warrantless entry, the lower court erroneously conflated distinct Fourth Amendment claims.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Water Splash, Inc. is a Delaware corporation that makes aquatic playgrounds known as “splash pads” that are popular in urban areas. Tara Menon is a Canadian citizen who lives in Quebec, Canada, and at one point worked for Water Splash as a regional sales representative. Later, Menon began to work for South Pool, a Water Splash competitor. Sometime in 2012, Water Splash learned that South Pool had used some of its drawings and designs when it submitted a bid to the City of Galveston to construct splash pads at two of its city parks, and Water Splash subsequently sued Menon in Texas state court. Water Splash served Menon by mail, as allowed by a Texas Rule of Civil Procedure. When Menon did not respond, the trial court award Water Splash a default judgment.
Menon filed a motion for a new trial seeking to set aside the default judgment because service was not accomplished pursuant to the Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (the “Hague Service Convention”), a treaty that governs service of process from one member state to another. Both the United States and Canada are signatories to the treaty. The trial court denied Menon’s motion for a new trial but the Texas Court of Appeals reversed and held that the Hague Service Convention did not authorize service by mail. The Texas Court of Appeals denied a motion for a rehearing en banc, and the Supreme Court of Texas denied review.

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The Hague Service Convention does not prohibit service of process by mail. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that the Hague Service Convention allows for different methods of service, and Article 10(a) specifically mentions postal channels as a method of sending judicial documents as long as the receiving nation does not object. Although the text of the Article does not expressly refer to service of process, the text and structure of the Hague Service Convention as a whole indicate that it deals with service of process. Therefore, Article 10(a) must be construed as allowing service of process by mail. Even if the relevant language were interpreted as ambiguous, the drafting history, the Executive Branch’s interpretation, and the interpretation of foreign courts support the reading that the Hague Service Convention does not prohibit service of process by mail.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) protects employees from unexpected losses in their retirement plans by putting in place required safeguards on plans that qualify for ERISA protections. Church plans are exempted from the Act and its protections to prevent excessive entanglement of the government with religion through regulation.
Maria Stapleton and the other plaintiffs in this case are a group of employees who work for Advocate Health Care Network (Advocate), which operates hospitals, inpatient, and outpatient treatment centers through northern Illinois, and are members of Advocate’s retirement plan. Advocate formed in 1995 as the result of a merger between two religiously affiliated hospital systems (though neither system was owned or financially operated by the church with which it was affiliated). Advocate is also affiliated with a church, and though it is not owned or financially operated by the church, it maintains contracts with the church and “affirms [the church’s] ministry.” The plaintiffs in this case sued Advocate and argued that the Advocate retirement plan is subject to ERISA, and therefore Advocate has breached its fiduciary duty by failing to adhere to ERISA’s requirements. The defendants moved for summary judgment because the Advocate plan fell under the ERISA exemption for church plans. The district court denied the motion because it determined that a plan established and maintained by a church-affiliated organization was not a church plan within the meaning of the statutory language. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, and this case was consolidated with two other ones presenting the same issue before the Supreme Court.

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The “church plan” exemption of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) applies to plans that are maintained by a qualifying church-affiliated organization, even if that organization did not originally establish the plan. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the clear language of the statute stated that a church plan “includes” a plan maintained by a church-affiliated organization in the exemption. The plain meaning of that language was therefore that a plan maintained by a church-affiliated organization qualified for the exemption, regardless of whether that organization established it. This reading gave full effect to the language Congress chose and was supported by legislative history.
In her concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that, while she agreed with the interpretation of the statutory text, the outcome was troubling because it resulted in employees of large healthcare organizations that in nearly all respects function as secular organizations being denied ERISA’s protections. Since so many “church-affiliated” organizations bear little resemblance to the organizations that Congress was originally considering when it enacted the statutory language, Congress might choose to take a different path.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Terry Honeycutt was a salaried employee who worked at Brainerd Army Store, which was owned by his brother, Tony Honeycutt. In 2008, when Terry noticed an increase in the number of “edgy looking” people purchasing Polar Pure, an iodine-based water purification product, he called the local police station to find out if there was anything he should know about it. The police confirmed Terry’s suspicion that Polar Pure was being used to manufacture methamphetamine and that he shouldn’t sell it if he felt uncomfortable. Brainerd Army Store was the only place that sold Polar Pure locally, and the product was kept behind the counter, so only the Honeycutt brothers sold it. Over the course of the next year, the Honeycutt brothers sold increasing amounts of Polar Pure. The Drug Enforcement Administration began investigating the brothers and the store, which culminated in a search warrant in 2010. The search warrant revealed that Polar Pure was the store’s highest grossing item and that it generated $260,000 of profit. After the DEA agents seized the store’s inventory of Polar Pure, the number of area meth labs using the iodine method dropped to “insignificant” levels. A grand jury indicted both brothers. Tony pled guilty, and Terry went to trial, where he was convicted on 11 of the 14 counts with which he was charged. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to concurrent terms of 60 months for each count, but the jury did not order any forfeiture of the proceeds of the sales, because it found that, as a salaried employee, Terry did not reap the proceeds of the conspiracy.
On appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part by holding that the doctrine of joint and several liability applied to co-conspirators for the purpose of forfeiture of the proceeds of drug sales. For the purposes of the forfeiture statute, a defendant may be jointly and severally liable for the proceeds of drug sales obtained by others with whom the defendant participated in the crime. Therefore, in this case, the district court erred in not ordering forfeiture of the proceeds.

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The federal forfeiture statute does not require joint and several liability among co-conspirators for any reasonably foreseeable proceeds of conspiracy. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the plain text and structure of the relevant sections of the statute indicated that Congress did not intend for the statute to require joint and several liability. The statute limited forfeiture to property flowing from or used in the crime itself; in other words, forfeiture was limited to tainted property. Joint and several liability, however, would require the forfeiture of untainted property. Similarly, the language the statute used to describe forfeitable property was best interpreted as referring to only property that the defendant individually obtained. This interpretation also conformed with the structure of the broader statute, in which Congress provided for the forfeiture of substitute property, which would not have been necessary if Congress had intended to incorporate joint and several liability. Interpreting the statute as requiring joint and several liability would not only run counter to its language but would also circumvent the statutory scheme that Congress intended to establish.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc.

Lexmark International, Inc. (Lexmark) owns many patents for its printer toner cartridges. The customers who buy Lexmark’s cartridges may choose a cartridge subject to a “Return Program,” which is a combination single-use patent and contract license, and those who purchase the Return Program are given a discount on the cartridge in exchange for agreeing to use the cartridge once and then return the empty cartridge to Lexmark. Otherwise, customers may choose a cartridge free of restrictions on its use. Some of Lexmark’s cartridges sold abroad and all of the domestically-sold cartridges at issue were subject to both a discount and the Return Program. Impression Products, Inc. (Impression) acquired the cartridges at issue after a third party physically changed the cartridges to enable re-use in violation of the single-use Return Program. Then, Impression Products acquired the cartridges abroad and resold them in the United States.
Lexmark sued Impression and alleged that Impression infringed on Lexmark’s patents because Impression Products acted without authorization from Lexmark to resell and reuse the cartridges. Impression argued that, under the doctrine of exhaustion, Impression’s resale of the cartridges is non-infringing because Lexmark, in transferring the title by selling the cartridges initially, granted the requisite authority. The district court granted Impression’s motion to dismiss as it related to the domestically sold cartridges and held that the patent-holder’s rights were exhausted when the initial sale was authorized and unrestricted. The motion was denied as it related to the foreign-sold cartridges, however. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part by holding that Lexmark’s sale did not “confer authority” to Impression to resell without infringing on the patent. The appellate court also held that Lexmark’s foreign sales did not confer authority to import, sell, or use the cartridges, and it did not waive Lexmark’s rights to its patent.

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A patentee’s decision to sell an item exhausts all of its patent rights in that item, even if the e patentee purports to impose post-sale restrictions, and regardless of whether the sale occurs domestically or internationally. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the Patent Act had long recognized the common law doctrine of patent exhaustion as a way to limit patentees’ power to exclude others from using their patented products. Under the doctrine, once a patentee sold an item, that item was the property of the buyer, and the buyer could act according to the rights and benefits that come with ownership. Therefore, even when a patentee sold an item with an express restriction on its later use, that restriction could not be enforced under patent law, though it might be enforceable under contract law. Such patent exhaustion was uniform and automatic, regardless of how the patentee attempted to create and enforce an express restriction. The Court also held that an authorized sale outside of the United States triggered the doctrine of exhaustion just as a sale within the United States did because the common law doctrine does not have a territorial limit.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which she argued that a foreign sale should not exhaust a U.S. inventor’s patent rights because patent law is territorial. When a patentee had a U.S. patent that it wanted to exercise abroad, the patentee had to apply to each individual country in which it wanted to have an exclusive right to sell the product. Because U.S. patent law protection did not accompany a U.S. patentee’s sales abroad, U.S. patent law consequences should also not follow such foreign sales.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


In 1984, the body of Catherine Fuller was discovered in an alley. She had clearly been badly beaten and raped. The police were unable to recover physical evidence that would identify the perpetrators, and the medical examiner was unable to determine how many people were involved. After investigating and conducting over 400 interviews, the police developed a theory that Fuller had been assaulted and killed by a large group of teens who had originally set out to rob her. A total of 13 teens were initially indicted and two of them, Harry Bennett and Calvin Alston, pled guilty and agreed to testify for the government. These two witnesses agreed on the outline of events but differed significantly on some of the details. Turner and several of the other defendants put forth alibi defenses, but some of their alibis conflicted with each other. The jury found Turner and nine of the other defendants guilty, and their convictions were affirmed on direct appeal.
Nearly 25 years later, Turner and several of the other original defendants moved to have their sentences vacated and claimed that they had not received fair trials because the government had withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, which established that it was a violation of due process for the prosecution to suppress evidence favorable to the defense that is material to either guilt or punishment. Additionally, Turner and the other defendants argued that newly discovered evidence, including the recantations of Bennett and Alston, established that they were actually innocent of the crime. The trial court denied the motion, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed because Turner and the other former defendants had not shown a reasonable probability that the outcome of their trials would have been different had the government disclosed the evidence in question and that the new evidence established their actual innocence by a preponderance of the evidence. The Supreme Court consolidated this case with another suit by one of the other original defendants.

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The precedent of Brady v. Maryland does not require that the convictions in this case be overturned because the withheld evidence in question is not material under the standard established in Brady. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the 6-2 majority. The Court held that, under Brady v. Maryland, the government violated a defendant’s due process rights if it withheld evidence that was favorable to the defense and material to guilt or punishment. Evidence was material for the purpose of the Brady analysis when there was a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed, the proceeding would have had a different outcome. The burden was on the defendant to show that the suppression of the evidence in question prejudiced the trial such it undermined confidence in the outcome. In this case, considering the suppressed evidence in the context of the entire record, the Court held that the evidence in question was not sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome and therefore did not meet the standard for materiality under Brady.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion in which she argued that evidence was material under Brady when there was a reasonable probability that, had the undisclosed evidence been disclosed, the case would have resulted in either an acquittal or a hung jury rather than a conviction. Because all that was required was that the evidence convince a few jury members, the undisclosed evidence in this case clearly met the Brady materiality standard. Had the evidence been disclosed, the defendants would have been able to present a more unified defense, and there was a reasonable probability that such a defense would have persuaded one or more jurors that the prosecution had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the dissent.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Jae Lee came to the United States from South Korea with his family in 1982 and has lived in the United States legally ever since, though he did not become a citizen. He eventually moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he got involved in the drug trade. In 2009, after a successful sting operation, Lee was arrested and charged with possession of ecstasy with intent to distribute. The government’s case against Lee was very strong, and on the advice of his attorney, Lee pled guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Lee’s attorney had assured him that the guilty plea would not have immigration consequences; however, Lee’s guilty plea constituted a conviction of an aggravated felony, which is a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Lee subsequently appealed his conviction and argued that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel under the standard established in Strickland v. Washington, which provides for a two-pronged test: whether the attorney’s counsel was deficient and whether the deficiency prejudiced the defendant. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Lee’s conviction and determined that Lee could not satisfy the second prong of the Strickland test because there was not sufficient evidence that the outcome of Lee’s case would have been substantially different had he known about the risk of deportation.

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Under Strickland v. Washington, when a defendant claims that his plea was caused by ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant can demonstrate that he was prejudiced by showing a reasonable probability that, but for his counsel’s errors, he would have gone to trial rather than accepting a plea. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the relevant question was not whether the defendant would have been acquitted at trial but whether, had the defendant been properly advised, he would have chosen to exercise his right to a trial. Even if a defendant were highly likely to lose at trial, as was the case here, inadequate assistance of counsel may still prejudice his ability to weigh his options and their potential consequences in deciding whether to take a plea. Because this inquiry was necessarily a fact-specific one that must be conducted on a case-by-case basis, the Court declined to create a sweeping, per se rule. In this case, Lee successfully demonstrated that avoiding deportation was a determinative issue in his decision-making, and therefore he met the standard to demonstrate that he suffered prejudice under the Strickland v. Washington standard for ineffective assistance of counsel.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of adequate assistance of counsel did not require counsel to provide accurate advice about the consequences of taking a plea. However, even under Sixth Amendment analysis, the majority opinion erred by applying a standard that did not require the defendant to show that the ineffective assistance of counsel he received prejudiced the outcome of the proceeding. Precedent established that the prejudice inquiry was not limited to the stage of the proceeding at which the defendant received the ineffective assistance; instead, there must be a reasonable probability that the outcome of the whole proceeding would have been different. In this case, there is not sufficient evidence to show a reasonable probability that the result of the criminal proceeding would have been different. Therefore the defendant failed to show prejudice under the Strickland v. Washington standard. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Food Brands Group LLC

TC Heartland LLC (Heartland) is a company organized under Indiana law and headquartered in Indiana. Kraft Food Brands LLC (Kraft) is a company organized under Delaware law and with its principal place of business in Illinois. Heartland sold liquid water-enhancing products that it shipped to Delaware, pursuant to two of its contracts. Kraft sued Heartland in federal district court in Delaware and argued that these products infringed on Kraft’s patents for similar products. Heartland moved to dismiss the claim and argued that the Delaware lacked personal jurisdiction over the lawsuit because Heartland is not registered to do business in Delaware, has no local presence in Delaware, and does not solicit business in Delaware. The district court held that, under U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit precedent, the subsection of the general venue statute that allows a defendant to reside in many jurisdictions for the purpose of establishing jurisdiction applies to the patent venue statute. However, this precedent runs counter the the Supreme Court’s decision in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., which held that the definition of corporate residence is limited to the jurisdiction of incorporation and that the subsection of the general venue statute does not expand jurisdiction under the patent venue statute. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision and held that Congress’ amendments to the general venue statute post-dated and therefore superseded the Fourco precedent.

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The subsection of the general venue statute that allows a corporation to reside in many jurisdictions for the purpose of establishing jurisdiction does not apply to the patent venue statute. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that its interpretation of the patent venue statute in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp. was still controlling precedent. Although the general venue statute has been amended since that time, Congress has not amended the patent venue statute since its interpretation in Fourco, and the amendments to the general venue statute did not explicitly apply to patent venue. Additionally, the history of the patent venue statute indicated that it was not meant to dovetail with other venue statutes.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of the case.


John Howell, a veteran, and his ex-wife Sandra Howell divorced in 1991. The Arizona Superior Court granted Sandra half of John’s Military Retirement Plan (MRP) funds when the payments were to begin. John retired from the Air Force in 1992 and began receiving his retirement funds soon after. In 2005, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs determined that John suffered from degenerative joint disease in his shoulder, that the cause of the disease was directly related to his service, and that it caused him a net loss of 20% in his earnings. Because of this, he was entitled to tax-exempt military disability payments. To receive the disability payments, John had to waive an equal portion of his MRP benefits, which he did in July of 2004.
In 2013, Sandra sued John and claimed that she was still entitled to a full 50% of the MRP benefits John received, regardless of his waiver of a portion of his benefits due to disability. Both the Arizona Superior Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed in Sandra’s favor. John appealed and cited the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling in Mansell v. Mansell, which held that the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA) preempted state courts from allowing the former spouses of veterans to claim interest in the waived portion of the veteran’s MRP. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s decision and stated that, while the Mansell standard was applicable before divorce proceedings were finalized and during the proceedings, courts were split regarding the rules after a divorce had been granted. The Court found that, because the lower court did not grant Sandra an interest in the disability sum itself, but rather an interest in John’s overall assets in an equal sum, then Sandra was free to require payment from John to make up for the losses she would suffer due to his waiver of a portion of the benefits shared between them.

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The Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act preempts a state court’s order for a veteran to pay a former spouse that spouse’s full portion of the veteran’s military retirement pay despite the veteran’s post-divorce waiver of the retirement pay in order to receive service-related disability benefits. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that its decision in Mansell v. Mansell controlled and prevented state courts from treating the waived portion of military retirement pay as a divisible community asset for the purpose of divorce proceedings. Although the waiver in this case occurred after the divorce proceedings, the temporal difference does not alter the fact that the state court only had the power to award the former spouse an interest in the military retirement pay that was subject to later reduction; the state court could not eliminate this potential contingency.
In his opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that examining the purposes and objectives of Congress’ decision to preempt state law with federal law is an illegitimate basis to determine that a federal law preempts states’ laws. Regardless, such analysis was unnecessary to reach the decision in this case.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


On August 10, 2003, Germaine Rucker was shot and killed. Kentel Myrone Weaver later admitted to shooting Rucker after the police questioned him. During jury selection for Weaver’s trial, the court officer closed the court to Weaver’s family and other members of the public due to overcrowding. Weaver was subsequently convicted of murder in the first degree. In 2011, Weaver filed a motion for a new trial and claimed that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his counsel failed to object to the closure of the courtroom in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.The trial court denied Weaver’s motion. On direct appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed Weaver’s conviction. The court held that Weaver had not shown that he suffered prejudice from his counsel’s failure to object to the court closure. Although a Sixth Amendment violation typically constitutes a “structural error,” which is automatically presumed to be prejudicial, the court held that, when the structural error resulted from alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must show that he suffered prejudice.

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