Between April 11 and April 15, 1985, a trailer containing 32,000 blank videocassette tapes was stolen from an Overnight Express yard in South Holland, Illinois. On April 17, 1985, Guy Rufus Huddleston contacted a business owner in Michigan and offered to sell her a large number of blank videocassette tapes for significantly under market value. Huddleston was later charged with possessing and selling stolen videocassette tapes across state lines. At trial, the government presented evidence that Huddleston had previously trafficked in stolen goods. In response, Huddleston argued that he had not known any of the goods were stolen. The district court then instructed the jury that the evidence of prior bad acts could only be used to establish Huddleston’s knowledge, not to prove his character. The jury convicted Huddleston for possession of stolen goods.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit initially reversed the conviction and held that the government failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the goods in the prior instances were in fact stolen. The Court of Appeals granted a rehearing and subsequently affirmed the conviction, holding that the government only needs to meet a preponderance of the evidence standard.

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No. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist delivered the opinion for the unanimous court. The Supreme Court held that requiring the trial court to make a preliminary ruling before admitting character evidence is contrary to Article IV of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Character evidence must meet the relevancy requirements of Rules 401-403. To add additional limitations would unnecessarily increase the burden on the prosecution and conflict with the legislative intent behind the rule.


New Energy Company of Indiana v. Limbach

An Indiana law gave a tax credit against the Ohio motor vehicle fuel sales tax for each gallon of ethanol sold by fuel dealers, provided that the ethanol was produced in Ohio or in a state that grants similar tax advantages as the Ohio scheme.

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Yes. The unanimous Court held that the law's primary purpose was to confer favorable tax treatment on Ohio-produced ethanol which imposed "an economic disadvantage upon out-of-state sellers." Ohio was unable to advance a legitimate local purpose for the law


In 1982, Congress passed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA). The statute removed the federal income tax exemption for interest earned on publicly offered long-term bonds issued by state and local governments unless they were issued in registered form. South Carolina declared that both bearer and registered bonds issued by states and municipalities had been free from taxation since Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust Co (1895). The federal government claimed that the Act did not eliminate the state's power to issue bonds free from taxation; rather it regulated the types of bonds to be exempt.

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The Court found that its subsequent decisions overruled Pollock so that state bond interest is not immune from a nondiscriminatory federal tax. Therefore, the owners of state bonds have no constitutional authority to exempt taxes on the earned income. TEFRA imposes no direct tax on the states; it is only collected from bondholders. The Act is nondiscriminatory because the regulations are imposed on the federal government as well as the state governments.


On January 5, 2004, Stephen Law filed for bankruptcy. He claimed that there were two liens on his property consuming all of the property's value beyond a homestead exemption. A homestead exemption protects equity in a house when filing for bankruptcy. One of these liens turned out to be a fictional construction involving a woman in China. Alfred Siegel (the Trustee) claimed that, in exposing the false lien, he incurred $465,000 in attorney fees. Because these costs resulted from Law's misconduct and misrepresentation, the Bankruptcy Court added a surcharge equal to the full amount of Law's homestead exemption to offset the Trustee's costs.
Law appealed the decision to the Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit (BAP). Under the Bankruptcy Act of 1978, federal appeals courts may create panels of judges to hear appeals from Bankruptcy Court. The BAP affirmed the order and held that the surcharge was necessary to protect the Bankruptcy Court's integrity. Law appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the BAP decision.

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No. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Supreme Court held that, while a Bankruptcy Court has the authority to issue any order, process, or judgment necessary to carry out the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, it may not contravene specific statutory provisions. In this case, the Bankruptcy Court exceeded the limits of its authority by awarding the Law’s homestead exemption to Siegel. Although the statute does not require a debtor to establish a homestead exemption, once he has done so the Bankruptcy Court may not refuse to honor that exemption. Even in the case that a debtor is dishonest, the Bankruptcy Court may not impose sanctions that would violate the terms of the Bankruptcy Code, such as the debtor’s ability to establish a homestead exemption.


Pom Wonderful, LLC v. The Coca-Cola Company

Pom Wonderful, LLC (Pom Wonderful), a California-based beverage company, sold various types of juice, including a pomegranate blueberry juice blend. In 2007, Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) announced its own version of a pomegranate blueberry juice. In 2008, Pom Wonderful sued Coca-Cola in federal district court and argued that Coca-Cola misled consumers into believing that Coca-Cola's product contained pomegranate and blueberry juices when it actually contained 99% apple and grape juices and only 0.5% pomegranate and blueberry juice. Specifically, Pom Wonderful claimed that Coca-Cola violated provisions of the Lanham Act, a federal law prohibiting false advertising, as well as California's false advertising and unfair competition laws. The lawsuit challenged the name, labeling, marketing, and advertising of Coca-Cola's product.
The district court held that Pom Wonderful's claims regarding the name and label of the juice were barred by a separate law, the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA). The FDCA allows the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the labels on, among other items, juices. Because the FDA has exclusive authority to file claims for violations of the FDCA, the court feared that a decision under the Lanham Act would undercut the FDA's authority to regulate juice labels. After both parties gathered evidence, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Coca-Cola on the name and label issues. Although the court gave Pom Wonderful the opportunity to proceed to trial on the remaining issues, Pom Wonderful conceded that it could not win without the name and label issues. Pom Wonderful appealed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision to bar Pom Wonderful's claim with respect to the name and labeling of Coca-Cola's juice. It vacated the lower court's ruling in favor of Coca-Cola, instead allowing Pom Wonderful's case to proceed on the remaining claims.

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Yes. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that, while it is the duty of the courts to harmonize statutes, the best way to do that in this case does not entail barring POM Wonderful's Lanham Act claims. Neither the Lanham Act nor the FDCA explicitly forbids or limits Lanham Act claims on labels that the FDCA regulates. The Court held that, because the Lanham Act and the FDCA have coexisted since the passage of the Lanham Act in 1946 without Congress addressing the issue, Congress has evidently not seen a problem with their potential interferences. Therefore, holding that the FDCA precludes the operation of the Lanham Act would represent a disregard for the legislative intent of having the two statutes complement one another.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not take part in the discussion or decision of this case.


Limelight Networks v. Akamai Technologies

In the late 1990s, two professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tom Leighton and Daniel Lewin, began to research techniques to provide stable internet services during periods of high traffic. These men eventually founded Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Akamai) to capitalize on this research. Akamai is an internet content delivery company that owns and maintains thousands of servers around the United States and contracts with internet service providers. By contracting with these companies, Akamai can deliver stable, fast internet to far-reaching customers with less danger of internet slowdown or failure. On July 14, 1998, the two men filed a patent through MIT for a method designed to alleviate Internet congestion by delivering content from multiple available servers. MIT then licensed this patent to Akamai.
Shortly thereafter, several other internet companies filed patent applications for internet content delivery systems. This led to a series of litigations that spanned from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. In 2004, in the midst of these court battles, Akamai entered into negotiations to purchase Limelight Networks, Inc. (Limelight). In 2006, however, Limelight informed Akamai that it no longer wished to be purchased. Akamai subsequently sued Limelight in district court for violating 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) and § 271(b), federal laws prohibiting patent infringement. Specifically, § 271(a) prohibits general patent infringement and § 271(b) prohibits inducing patent infringement.
The case proceeded to trial and a jury awarded Akamai a $41.5 million verdict based on lost profit, lost royalties, interest, and price erosion damages. After a series of post-trial motions, the district court ultimately ruled in favor of Limelight and held that, although Akamai's patent was violated, much of the violation occurred when Limelight's customers took the key steps to violate the patent. Although Limelight allowed these steps to occur, it did not control its customers' actions and therefore was not liable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed and held that an entity accused of patent infringement must either perform all of the steps of the claimed method, either personally or through its direct control.

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Yes. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that liability for inducement can only be found when there is direct patent infringement. Because patent rights extend only to the claimed combination of steps, there is no direct patent infringement unless all the steps are carried out. The Court also held that conduct that would be infringing in altered circumstances cannot be the basis of liability for inducement. The Court declined to rule on the merits of the Federal Circuit's rule for direct patent infringement, which states that a single party must perform or exercise "control or direction" over each step of the patented process.


During an economic crisis in 2001, the Republic of Argentina (Argentina) failed to make payments on bonds owned by foreign investors. One such bondholder, NML Capital, Ltd. (NML), later prevailed in several actions it filed against Argentina in federal district court, which entered judgments totaling more than US$2 billion in NML's favor. In order to execute the judgments against Argentina, NML served subpoenas on two banks requesting information about Argentina's assets held worldwide. Argentina moved to quash the subpoenas and argued that they violate the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) by requiring the disclosure of assets that are immune from collection by NML. The district court ordered the banks to comply with the subpoena requests. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the FSIA did not apply to the subpoena because it was a discovery order directed at commercial entities that did not have a claim to sovereign immunity.

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No. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that, under the FSIA, property held within the United States by foreign nations cannot be attached to a civil claim except under a narrow exemption, which requires the property to be used for a commercial activity as well as satisfying one additional condition such as the foreign nation waiving its immunity from attachment. However, the fact that some property may be immune from attachment does not mean the property is also immune from discovery. While NML and Argentina may disagree as to whether property within the United States is covered by the FSIA's immunity, the level of immunity given to a foreign nation's property held outside the United States may be different in non-U.S. jurisdictions. Because the FSIA only grants immunity to property held within the United States, NML may be able to find foreign property held outside the United States that is attachable under the law of the foreign jurisdiction but that would be immune from attachment if held in the United States.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in which she argued that the majority should not assume that foreign jurisdictions may allow the attachment of property which could not be attached under United States law. Therefore, based on the FSIA, Justice Ginsburg wrote that the discovery request should have been limited to property used in connection with commercial activity, which is a necessary requirement under U.S. law for attachment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor took no part in the decision of this case.


Benjamin Robers was involved in a mortgage fraud scheme. His role was to pose as a legitimate buyer of houses, make fraudulent loan applications⎯by misrepresenting his income and his intention to live in the house and repay the mortgage⎯then allow the loan to default by not paying it. Eventually, the bank foreclosed on the houses and then sold them to pay back the lenders. Robers was able to secure two houses under this guise.
After government officials discovered the scheme but prior to indictment, Robers pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud because the funds for the fraudulent loans were disbursed electronically (wired) by lenders. A federal district court sentenced him to three years of probation and ordered him to pay restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) in the amount of $218,952.18 for both incidents. The amount was calculated by finding the difference between each loan and the resale amount of each house that was foreclosed (the offset value). Robers appealed the restitution award and argued that the wrong offset value was used in the calculation; instead, the fair market price at the time of foreclosure should have been used. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's holding in part, vacated attorney fees and "other expenses" from the restitution sum, and remanded the case back to the district court to draw a new order with the corrected sum.

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No. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court. The Court held that the word “property” in the MVRA refers to the money lent by the banks and not to the houses the banks received as collateral for the fraudulent loans. Therefore, the district court properly calculated the restitution amount because the property (money) was not returned to the banks until the date on which the homes were actually sold.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she emphasized that, in her view, the Court’s ruling applied only to cases in which the victim intended to sell the collateral but encountered a reasonable delay in doing so. She noted that, in other cases, a defendant might be able to show that a victim intended to hold onto the collateral as an investment rather than reduce it to cash right away and should consequently bear the loss of any decline in value. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the concurring opinion.


David Leon Riley belonged to the Lincoln Park gang of San Diego, California. On August 2, 2009, he and others opened fire on a rival gang member driving past them. The shooters then got into Riley's Oldsmobile and drove away. On August 22, 2009, the police pulled Riley over driving a different car; he was driving on expired license registration tags. Because Riley's driver's license was suspended, police policy required that the car be impounded. Before a car is impounded, police are required to perform an inventory search to confirm that the vehicle has all its components at the time of seizure, to protect against liability claims in the future, and to discover hidden contraband. During the search, police located two guns and subsequently arrested Riley for possession of the firearms. Riley had his cell phone in his pocket when he was arrested, so a gang unit detective analyzed videos and photographs of Riley making gang signs and other gang indicia that were stored on the phone to determine whether Riley was gang affiliated. Riley was subsequently tied to the shooting on August 2 via ballistics tests, and separate charges were brought to include shooting at an occupied vehicle, attempted murder, and assault with a semi-automatic firearm.
Before trial, Riley moved to suppress the evidence regarding his gang affiliation that had been acquired through his cell phone. His motion was denied. At trial, a gang expert testified to Riley's membership in the Lincoln Park gang, the rivalry between the gangs involved, and why the shooting could have been gang-related. The jury convicted Riley on all three counts and sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, affirmed.

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Yes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence, neither of which is at issue in the search of digital data. The digital data cannot be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer, and police officers have the ability to preserve evidence while awaiting a warrant by disconnecting the phone from the network and placing the phone in a "Faraday bag." The Court characterized cell phones as minicomputers filled with massive amounts of private information, which distinguished them from the traditional items that can be seized from an arrestee's person, such as a wallet. The Court also held that information accessible via the phone but stored using "cloud computing" is not even "on the arrestee's person." Nonetheless, the Court held that some warrantless searches of cell phones might be permitted in an emergency: when the government's interests are so compelling that a search would be reasonable.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which he expressed doubt that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the sole or primary purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence. In light of the privacy interests at stake, however, he agreed that the majority's conclusion was the best solution. Justice Alito also suggested that the legislature enact laws that draw reasonable distinctions regarding when and what information within a phone can be reasonably searched following an arrest.
Learn more about the Roberts Court and the Fourth Amendment in Shifting Scales, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.


Prior to the 2010 general election, Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), a nonprofit, pro-life organization, announced that it intended to put up a billboard in the district of then-Congressman Steven Driehaus. The planned billboard would have asserted that Driehaus's vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act amounted to a vote in favor of taxpayer-funded abortion. Citing threats of legal action by Driehaus's counsel, the company that owned the billboard space refused to put up the ad. Driehaus filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission alleging that SBA List violated Ohio's campaign laws by making false statements about his voting record. SBA List filed an action in federal district court arguing that the Ohio statutes infringed upon its rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment. Driehaus withdrew his complaint upon losing his bid for re-election and subsequently moved to Swaziland for an assignment with the Peace Corps. The district court dismissed the suit by SBA List for lack of standing and ripeness. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed.

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Yes. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that pre-enforcement challenges are justiciable when circumstances indicate that threatened enforcement of the statute is sufficiently imminent. If the threatened enforcement is sufficiently imminent, the petitioners have alleged sufficient injury for Article III standing and justiciability. In this case, the petitioners' political speech focused on the issue of support for the Affordable Care Act, not simply on Driehaus, and thus was likely to continue despite Driehaus' departure. The Court determined that there was a threat of future enforcement even though petitioners maintained their statements were true. Moreover, because the respondents did not disavow enforcement if petitioners carried out their speech in the future, the Court held that the prospect of enforcement was not "imaginary or speculative" and that petitioners had shown sufficient injury for pre-enforcement review. The Court also held that the petitioners' suit was prudentially ripe because their challenge was purely legal, the issue would not be clarified by future factual development, and denying prompt judicial review would force them to choose between refraining from political speech or risking burdensome Commission proceedings and criminal prosecution.


Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International

Alice Corporation (Alice) is an Australian company that owns the '479, '510, '720, and '375 patents, all of which have to do with a computerized trading platform that deals with financial transactions in which a third party settles obligations between two others so as to settlement eliminate risk. Settlement risk is the risk to each party in an exchange that only one party will pay its obligation. Alice's patents address that risk by using the third party as the guarantor.
On May 24, 2007, CLS Bank International (CLS) sued Alice and sought a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the '479, '510, and '720 patents. Alice countersued and claimed infringement. CLS moved for summary judgment by arguing that any possible infringement could not have occurred in the United States and that Alice's claims were drawn from ineligible subject matter. Alice filed crossmotions, and the district court denied both motions. In the meantime, the '375 patent processed, and Alice amended its complaint to include this patent. Both parties renewed their crossmotions. For the purposes of these motions, the district court assumed that all asserted patent claims required electronic implementation and granted summary judgment in favor of CLS. The district court held that Alice's patents were invalid because they were directed at an abstract idea and that those claims could preempt the use of the abstract concept of a neutral intermediary to facilitate exchange and eliminate risk. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.

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No. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that patent law should not restrain abstract ideas that are the "building blocks of human ingenuity" and held all of Alice's claims ineligible for patent protection. Because using a third party to eliminate settlement risk is a fundamental and prevalent practice, it is essentially a building block of the modern economy. The Court held that Alice's claims did no more than require a generic computer to implement this abstract idea of intermediated settlement by performing generic computer functions, which is not enough to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she argued that any claim that merely describes a method of doing business should not be patentable. In this case, Justice Sotomayor agreed that the method claims at issue pertained to an abstract idea. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the concurrence.


In 2001, Heidi Heffron-Clark inherited a $300,000 individual retirement account (IRA) from her mother's estate. The U.S. tax code provides special rules for IRAs that are inherited by someone other than the spouse of the deceased. These rules prohibit additional contributions to the inherited account and require the beneficiary to withdraw, and pay taxes on, a minimum amount from the account each year. Heidi and her husband (the "Clarks"), filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and claimed the inherited IRA was exempt from creditor claims. A bankruptcy judge ruled that retirement funds must be held for the current owner's retirement in order to qualify as an exempt retirement fund under Section 522 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Because the Clarks were required to withdraw money from the inherited IRA before their retirement, the judge held that the account was subject to creditor claims in the bankruptcy proceeding. The federal district court reversed and held that Heidi's inheritance of the IRA did not change its status as a protected retirement fund. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed.

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No. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that an inherited IRA account did not qualify as a retirement fund for the purposes of exemption under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Since the Bankruptcy Code does not explicitly define the term "retirement fund," the Court held that it should retain its ordinary meaning—a fund that is set aside for an individual's retirement. Inherited IRAs do not fit this definition because the individual cannot invest more money in the account and is required to draw money from the account regardless of how far the individual is from retirement. The Court held that allowing an inherited IRA to be exempt from creditor claims would undermine the purpose of the Bankruptcy Code.


The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) served five summonses to top officers of the Dynamo Holdings Limited Partnership (Dynamo) during its investigation into the company's tax liabilities. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted enforcement of the summonses. Dynamo opposed the summonses by arguing that it was entitled to a hearing to determine whether the summonses were proper. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated the decision that allowed the summonses to be enforced and remanded the case back to the district court for a hearing on whether the investigation was launched under an improper purpose, which would render enforcement of the summonses unlawful.

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No. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that a simple allegation of improper purpose was not sufficient to entitle a taxpayer to examine IRS officials; however, the taxpayer does have the right to such an examination if the taxpayer can point to specific facts or circumstances that could plausibly result from bad faith on the part of the IRS. Because the summons stage is necessarily a preliminary one, the taxpayer does not need to present a fully fleshed-out case, but neither should a summons dispute turn into a search for wrongdoing.


In 1980, in response to concerns about the repercussions of toxic waste dumping, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which was designed to establish a comprehensive response mechanism and to shift the cost of the clean-up to the parties responsible. In 1986, Congress amended CERCLA by adding a section stating that, if a state statute of limitations allows the period in which action may be brought to begin before the plaintiff has knowledge of the harm, CERCLA preempts the state statute and allows the period to begin only from the point at which the plaintiff has knowledge.
CTS Corporation (CTS) manufactures and disposes of electronics and electronic parts. From 1959 to 1985, CTS operated the Mills Gap Road Facility (Facility) in Asheville, North Carolina, where notable quantities of carcinogenic solvents were stored. In 1987, CTS sold the Facility and promised the realtors that the property was environmentally safe and clean. Subsequently, the land was sold to David Bradley, Renee Richardson, and others (landowners), who learned that the land was contaminated and that their well water contained concentrated levels of carcinogenic solvents in 2009. The landowners sued CTS in federal district court and argued that CTS should be required to remove the toxic contaminants as well as pay monetary damages. CTS moved to dismiss the case by arguing that North Carolina's ten-year statute of limitations on real property actions resulting from physical damage to a claimant's property prevented the suit from going forward. Although the landowners argued that CERCLA preempted the limitation, the district court held that the ten-year limitation was actually a statute of repose, which limits legal action to a particular timeframe regardless of when the harm becomes apparent. The district court granted the motion to dismiss. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and held that CERCLA's preemption applied to both statutes of repose, in which a plaintiff's knowledge of the harm is not relevant to when the time period begins, as well as to statutes of limitation, in which a plaintiff's knowledge of the harm is relevant.

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No. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court explained the differences between statutes of limitations, which begin to run when the injury was discovered, and statutes of repose, which place an absolute bar on lawsuits regardless of whether any injury has been discovered. The Court held that statutes of limitations reflect a policy of encouraging a plaintiff to pursue his or her rights diligently and may be paused if an extraordinary circumstance prevents a plaintiff from bringing his or her claim. Statutes of repose, however, reflect a policy of freeing defendants from potential liability and generally cannot be paused even in extraordinary circumstances. Although the Court recognized that Congress has used the terms interchangeably in the past, in CERCLA Congress only used the term "statute of limitations" despite the Study Group Report's use of both terms. Given Congress' awareness of the distinction, the Court held that CERCLA could not be extended to pre-empt "statutes of repose."
In Part II-D of the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy argued that when a pre-emption clause is open to more than one plausible reading, courts tend to disfavor pre-emption and interpret the clause narrowly, especially when the law covers subject matter that is traditionally covered by state law. Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan joined in Part II-D. Justice Antonin G. Scalia wrote a separate concurring opinion with respect to Part II-D and argued that pre-emption clauses should be interpreted simply by applying their ordinary meaning. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined the separate concurrence.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissenting opinion in which she argued that the statute of repose was essentially a statute of limitations and should be pre-empted by CERCLA because CERCLA's purpose would be defeated if it did not pre-empt statutes of repose as well as statutes of limitations. Justice Ginsburg also wrote that the majority decision gave contaminators an incentive to conceal the hazards they have created. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the dissent.


Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc.

Biosig Instruments, Inc. (Biosig) holds the '753 Patent, which refers to a heart rate monitor associated with exercise equipment and procedures. Biosig sued Nautilus, Inc. (Nautilus) in federal district court and alleged that Nautilus infringed on several claims of the patent. Nautilus moved for summary judgment on two issues: whether there was infringement, and whether the patent was invalid due to its vagueness. The district court denied Nautilus' motion as far as the issue of infringement due to lack of discovery and granted the motion as it related to the patent's invalidity because of its vagueness. Biosig appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals held that a patent claim could only be considered legally indefinite when it is "insolubly ambiguous," or not possible for a person of ordinary skill in the area to understand and resolve.

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No, unanswered. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court first held that determining whether a patent claim is sufficiently definite must be done by evaluating the patent with the perspective of an individual learned in the relevant field, a standard that accepts a certain amount of ambiguity in the patent claim. However, because patents serve a public service function, patent claims must be definite enough to appraise the public at large as to what has or has not been patented yet. In attempting to balance these interests, the Court held that a patent is sufficiently definite when the patent taken as a whole which includes the patent application, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's response, and any amendments made by the applicant informs those learned in the relevant field of the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty. The Court then remanded the case back to the Federal Circuit to reevaluate Nautilus's claim in light of this newly articulated standard.


Aereo, Inc. (Aereo) provides a service that allows its subscribers to watch programs that are currently airing on network television or record programs that will air in the future over the Internet. By allowing subscribers to watch live television as well as record and watch shows on Internet-enabled devices including mobile phones, Aereo serves three functions: that of a regular television antenna, a recording device, and an application that makes these services work on devices other than televisions and computers. Aereo is currently only available to subscribers in the New York City area and offers only New York City local channels. Aereo does not have a license from the copyright holders of the programs to record or transmit their programs.
Two groups of plaintiffs filed separate copyright infringement suits against Aereo and moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Aereo from transmitting programs to its subscribers while the programs were still being broadcast. The plaintiffs claimed that the transmission of the programs violated their right to "publicly perform" their copyrighted works. The district court denied the motion and held that Aereo's system was not substantially different from another that had been determined non-violative of the rights of copyright holders and that, while the injunction might prevent harm for the plaintiffs' businesses, it would irreparably harm Aereo's. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling to deny the motion.

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Yes. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority. The Court held that, because Aereo is functionally similar to community antenna television (CATV), which Congress specifically amended the Copyright Act to cover, the Copyright Act regulates Aereo's actions in a similar manner. Under the definitions Congress established in the Copyright Act, Aereo performs work because it shows images in sequence with the accompanying audio, and it does so publicly because those images and sounds are received beyond the place from where they were sent by a large number of unrelated people. Therefore, Aereo, like CATV, is not just an equipment provider but rather a broadcaster.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that Aereo merely provides a platform for the customer to use as he sees fit. Because Aereo plays no role in the selection of content, it does not "perform" in any meaningful sense and cannot be held liable for the customer's choice of transmission content. Justice Scalia wrote that the majority opinion was based on the faulty assumption that Aereo's services resembled CATV, which creates a rule so broad as to be useless. Instead, Justice Scalia argued that the question of volitional conduct is the appropriate bright-line test to use in such cases. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent.


Minnesota's Constitution provides for the selection of all state judges by popular election. The announcement clause of the Minnesota Supreme Court's canon of judicial conduct prohibits a candidate from announcing his or her views on disputed legal or political issues. While running for associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Gregory Wersal filed suit, seeking a declaration that the announce clause violates the First Amendment and an injunction against its enforcement. Wersal alleged that he was forced to refrain from announcing his views on disputed issues during the 1998 campaign, to the point where he declined response to questions put to him by the press and public, out of concern that he might run afoul of the announce clause. The District Court found that the announcement clause did not violate the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

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No. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held that the announce clause violates the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that the announce clause prohibits speech based on its content and burdens a category of speech that is at the core of First Amendment freedoms - speech about the qualifications of candidates for public office. Moreover, the Court concluded that the clause did not serve to preserve the state judiciary's impartiality, its argued compelling state interest. "There is an obvious tension between the article of Minnesota's popularly approved Constitution which provides that judges shall be elected, and the Minnesota Supreme Court's announce clause which places most subjects of interest to the voters off limits," wrote Justice Scalia.


A public hospital fired an obstetrics nurse, Cheryl Churchill, for insubordination after she allegedly complained about her superiors to a nurse trainee during a dinner break in the hospital's obstetrics unit. Churchill claimed that the hospital fired her because she opposed its policy of nurse cross-training and said it was leaving certain units understaffed.

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Yes, but the Court was unable to forge a majority opinion. A four-justice plurality held that government workers cannot be dismissed or otherwise punished for their words unless the employer has a reasonable basis for believing that the speech either was disruptive or involved a matter of purely private concern, outside the scope of the First Amendment's protection. The hospital need not conduct a full-scale investigation, but it must have some reasonable, factual basis for its actions.


After the 2000 census caused Mississippi to lose one congressional seat, the State legislature failed to pass a new redistricting plan. Subsequently, lawsuits were filed in both the Mississippi State Chancery Court and the Federal District Court, asking that each court issue its own redistricting plan. While the federal court stayed its hand, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the Chancery Court had jurisdiction to issue a redistricting plan. The Chancery Court adopted such a plan, which was submitted for preclearance pursuant to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Meanwhile, the Federal District Court promulgated a plan that would fix the State's congressional districts for the 2002 elections should the state-court plan not be precleared by the state-law deadline. Ultimately, the District Court enjoined the State from using the state-court plan and ordered that its own plan be used in 2002 until the State produced a precleared, constitutional plan. The State did not appeal and no determination was made on the preclearance submission because the District Court's injunction rendered the state-court plan incapable of administration.

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Yes. In a plurality opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held, 9-0, that the District Court properly enjoined enforcement of the state- court plan that lacked the required timely preclearance. The Court also held, 7-2, that the federal court properly fashioned its own congressional reapportionment plan, which drew the requisite single-member districts rather than directing at-large elections, under 2 USC section 2c. Regarding the second holding, Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reasoned that the provision for at-large elections under 2 USC section 2a(c) was subject to the requirement under section 2c that single-member districts must be drawn whenever possible. Justice John Paul Stevens, with whom Justices David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer joined, concluded that section 2c impliedly repealed section 2a(c). Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, with whom Justice Clarence Thomas joined, disagreed with the plurality's interpretations of section 2c.


Kansas and Colorado disputed ownership of the Arkansas River. In 1949 Congress approved the Arkansas River Compact, which set out to resolve the states' dispute. In 1986 Kansas alleged Colorado violated the Compact. The U.S. Supreme Court appointed a Special Master to investigate the dispute and in 1994 the Special Master said Colorado violated the Compact. The Court agreed with the Special Master. Kansas later took issue with the Special Master's fourth set of recommendations. Kansas said it was entitled to interest from 1985 onward - before the Court's ruling against Colorado - for damages from Colorado's violations of the Compact from 1950 to 1985. Kansas also requested a "river master" to resolve a dispute over computer modeling of the river.

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No and no. In an 8-1 judgment delivered by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court denied Kansas' request to appoint a river master to decide various technical disputes between the states. A river master was inappropriate because the nature of the disputes was legal, not purely technical, and the appointment of a river master would make it easier to continue litigation. The Court also rejected Kansas' claim to all interest from 1985 forward for damages, because that would contradict the Court's ruling in an earlier dispute between the states (Kansas III). In that ruling, the Court had endorsed an equitable approach that yielded a post-1985 interest calculation based on late damages only.


Under the Housing Act of 1949, the Farmers Home Administration makes direct loans to private, nonprofit entities to develop and/or construct rural housing for the elderly and low-or middle-income individuals and families. Franconia Associates is a property owner that entered into such loans before December 21, 1979. The promissory notes Franconia executed authorized "prepaymen[t] of scheduled installments, or any portion thereof...at any time at the option of Borrower." In 1988, Congress enacted the Emergency Low Income Housing Preservation Act of 1987 (ELIHPA), which amended the Housing Act of 1949 to impose permanent restrictions upon prepayment of mortgages entered into before December 21, 1979. In 1997, Franconia filed suit, charging that ELIHPA abridged the absolute prepayment right set forth in their promissory notes and thereby effected a repudiation of their contracts. In dismissing Franconia's contract claims as untimely, the Court of Federal Claims concluded that the claims first accrued on the ELIHPA regulations' effective date. In affirming on statute of limitations grounds, the Federal Circuit ruled that, if the Government's continuing duty to allow Franconia to prepay their loans was breached, the breach occurred immediately upon ELIHPA's enactment date.

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No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that because ELIHPA's enactment qualified as a repudiation of the parties' bargain, not a present breach of the loan agreements, breach would occur, and the six-year limitations period would commence to run, when a borrower tenders prepayment and the Government then dishonors its obligation to accept the tender and release its control over use of the property securing the loan. The Court reasoned that the government's pledged performance was properly comprehended as an obligation to accept prepayment, not an obligation to allow borrowers to have the right to prepay. Therefore, the borrowers' repudiation claims were not time-barred, because the cause of action would not accrue until the government dishonors its obligation to accept the prepayment.


The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) fairness doctrine requires radio and television broadcasters to present a balanced and fair discussion of public issues on the airwaves. The doctrine is composed of two primary requirements concerning personal attacks in the context of public issue debates and political editorializing. The FCC conditioned its renewal of broadcast licenses on compliance with its regulations. Red Lion Broadcasting challenged the application of the fairness doctrine with respect to a particular broadcast. In a companion case (United States v. Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA)), the fairness doctrine's requirements concerning any broadcast were challenged.

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In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the fairness doctrine was consistent with the First Amendment. Writing for the Court, Justice White argued that spectrum scarcity made it "idle to posit an unabridgeable First Amendment right to broadcast comparable to the right of every individual to speak, write, or publish." The Court held that the FCC's fairness doctrine regulations enhanced rather than infringed the freedoms of speech protected under the First Amendment. With respect to the regulation of personal attacks made in the context of public issue debates, the FCC's requirement that the subject of the attack be provided with a tape, transcript, or broadcast summary, as well as an opportunity to respond without having to prove an inability to pay for the "air-time," insured a balanced and open discussion of contested issues. The requirement that political editorializing be presented for and against both sides of the debated issues also contributed to the balanced discussion of public concerns.


A federal grand jury indicted Sila Luis for her alleged role in a Medicare fraud scheme that involved giving kickbacks to patients who enrolled with her home healthcare companies. Because federal law allows the government to file a pretrial motion to restrain the assets of defendants accused of particular types of fraud, including substitute assets not directly related to the fraud, the government did so in this case. Luis objected to the motion and argued that she needed those funds in order to pay for her criminal defense lawyer, and therefore granting the motion would violate her right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The district court granted the motion, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

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The pretrial restraint of assets untainted by the crime that are needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered an opinion for the four-justice plurality, which held that the fundamental nature of the right in question prohibits the government from undermining the defendant’s ability to be represented by the counsel of his choice that he can afford. While it is important that the defendant’s assets be available to pay penalties, the assets in question are untainted by the crime, which means that they remain firmly in the lawful possession of the defendant. The government does not have a sufficiently substantial interest to provide the legal authority to restrain them. Because the defendant’s interest in being able to afford counsel of his or her choice outweighs any interest the government may have in ensuring the defendant has assets to pay criminal penalties, the government’s pretrial restraint of assets untainted by the crime that are needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that this decision was in line with Sixth Amendment and forfeiture jurisprudence, and creates a workable line between tainted and untainted assets.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the text of the Sixth Amendment clearly implies the right to use lawful property to pay for counsel of choice. Without that implication, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel would be meaningless, and constitutional rights must also protect related acts necessary to their exercise. Additionally, common law has historically limited the pretrial restraint of assets to those tainted by the crime, which further supports this reading of the Sixth Amendment and provides an easily administrable line. Justice Thomas also argued that the plurality’s balancing test was unnecessary to reach this conclusion.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Court’s holding allows defendants to protect assets that might be needed to provide the victim with adequate restitution. Especially in cases that involve fungible assets, it is important to allow the government to restrain such assets, in the same manner that it may be important to restrain the defendant. In holding otherwise, the Court goes against forfeiture precedent and asserts a Sixth Amendment right to spend forfeitable assets that lacks a firm basis in precedent. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. In her separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that, according to precedent, as long as the government has established probable cause to believe that it will eventually recover the assets, the defendant cannot use those assets to pay for counsel of choice. The distinction between tainted and untainted assets is meaningless prior to a judgment of guilt, and therefore the government has the same right to restrain either type.


In 2011, the Maryland General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan based on the results of the 2010 census. Several of the districts consisted of de-facto non-contiguous segments—discrete segments that would be wholly unconnected but for one or two narrow strips connecting the two—often with largely inconsistent demographics between the two large segments. The plaintiffs were a group of citizens who sued the Chair of the Maryland State Board of Elections (Board) and the State Administrator of the Board and argued that the new districting plan violated their rights to political association and equal representation under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The defendants moved to dismiss the suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires that a complaint be plausible on its face and enable the court to draw a reasonable inference of misconduct. The district court granted the motion to dismiss and held that the complaint did no more than imply the mere possibility of misconduct. Therefore, the case did not go before a three-judge panel, as the Three-Judge Court Act requires for cases dealing with congressional districts unless the claim is determined to be insubstantial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal.

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Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that a claim covered by the Three-Judge Court Act must be heard by a three-judge panel. The text of the Act requires that any covered claim be heard by a three-judge panel and does not grant an individual district court judge the discretion to decide otherwise. A district court judge may only decide whether the claim is one that the Three-Judge Court Act covers and may not make any judgments on the merit of the case. The Court also held that the question of whether a claim is “insubstantial” is a jurisdictional one addressing whether the district court can hear the case, and not a question of whether the lawsuit failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. Especially for constitutional claims, the “insubstantial” barrier is a high one, and the claim in this case should not have been dismissed as insubstantial.


Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

Dollar General Corporation (Dollar General) operates a store on land held in trust for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Tribe). The store operates pursuant to a lease and business license agreement with the Tribe. In the spring of 2003, John Doe, a 13-year-old member of the Tribe alleged that he was sexually molested by the store manager, Dale Townsend, while he was working at the store as part of an internship program that the Tribe runs and in which the Townsend agreed to participate.
In 2005, Doe sued Townsend and Dollar General in tribal court. Both defendants moved to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and the tribal court denied the motions. The Choctaw Supreme Court upheld the denial of the motions by finding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Montana v. United States, which allowed a tribe to regulate the activities of nonmembers who enter into a consensual arrangement with the tribe, applied in this case. The defendants then sued the Tribe in federal district court and sought injunctions to stop the suit in tribal court. The district court granted the injunction for Townsend but not for Dollar General because the company had failed to carry its burden to show that the Montana decision did not apply in this case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed.

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In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the equally divided Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court.


Several prisoners housed in the Special Management Unit (SMU) of the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, which is for gang-affiliated and other disruptive inmates, sued Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials and claimed that SMUs violated the Eighth Amendment. Because SMUs housed gang-affiliated prisoners, the petitioners argued that the SMUs were unconstitutionally violent and dangerous because the BOP officials did not separate members of rival gangs. The prisoners moved to proceed in forma pauperis, which would allow them to waive filing fees. The parties then engaged in extensive back-and-forth filings regarding the collection of filing fees and the ability of other prisoners to join in the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act prevented the prisoners from completely waiving filing fees, and that they instead must pay a percentage of their monthly income to cover filing fees.

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The filing fee requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is assessed on a per-case, rather than per-prisoner, basis. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, for each case a prisoner filed, the PLRA requires simultaneous payment of filing fees. Because the PLRA generally refers to cases individually and provides instructions for each case, the per-case approach is a better reading of the statute that also comports with the PLRA’s goal of deterring frivolous claims.


Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Electric Power Supply Association, et al.

The Federal Power Act (FPA) grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to regulate the wholesale interstate transmission and sale of electric power. In 2011, FERC promulgated a rule that established uniform compensation levels for suppliers of demand-side resources that meet certain conditions, including cost-effectiveness as measured by a net benefits test. The rule’s stated purpose was to incentivize retail customers to reduce electricity consumption when it was economically efficient to do so. Various state regulatory agencies, trade associations, publicly owned utilities, transmission owners, and other industry groups requested a rehearing on the rule and argued that it conflicted with FERC’s efforts to promote a competitive market as well as FERC’s statutory mandate to avoid unjust and discriminatory rates. FERC confirmed the rule, and the industry groups petitioned for review in federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that FERC did not have the statutory authority to directly regulate the retail market and that the rule was arbitrary and capricious because FERC did not adequately consider and respond to the arguments made in opposition to the rule.

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The Federal Power Act (FPA) grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to regulate wholesale market operators’ compensation for reduction in electricity consumption, and the rule in question was not arbitrary and capricious. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the rule in question regulates wholesale market operators’ payments for demand response commitments, which affects the wholesale market at large and is therefore within FERC’s authority pursuant to the FPA. The rule does not regulate retail markets, which the FPA reserves for the states to regulate. The contrary view would prevent FERC from effectively regulating the wholesale market, which would contradict the express purpose of the FPA. The Court also held that, because FERC examined all the the relevant considerations, articulated a satisfactory reason for its decision, and there was a rational connection between the facts and the choice made, the rule it implemented was not arbitrary and capricious. FERC also responded to the reasonable alternatives that were advanced and offered explanations for why those alternatives were not chosen. Therefore, FERC met its duty of “reasoned judgment.”
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that the rule at issue falls outside of the authority the FPA grants to FERC. The plain language of the FPA only allows FERC to regulate wholesale activity. Because the demand-response bidders that the rule in question regulates do not resell energy to other customers, they are not wholesalers and therefore the FPA does not allow FERC to regulate them. Additionally, the rule in fact interferes with retail prices in a manner that the FPA expressly forbids. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Abigail Fisher, a white female, applied for admission to the University of Texas but was denied. She did not qualify for Texas' Top Ten Percent Plan, which guarantees admission to the top ten percent of every in-state graduating high school class. For the remaining spots, the university considers many factors, including race. Fisher sued the University and argued that the use of race as a consideration in the admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court held that the University’s admissions process was constitutional, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The case went to the Supreme Court, which held that the appellate court erred by not applying the strict scrutiny standard to the University’s admission policies. The case was remanded, and the appellate court reaffirmed the lower court’s decision by holding that the University of Texas’ use of race as a consideration in the admissions process was sufficiently narrowly tailored to the legitimate interest of promoting educational diversity and therefore satisfied strict scrutiny.

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The University of Texas’ use of race as a consideration in the admissions process did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 4-3 majority. The Court held that the University of Texas’ use of race as a factor in the holistic review used to fill the spots remaining after the Top Ten Percent Plan was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Previous precedent had established that educational diversity is a compelling interest as long as it is expressed as a concrete and precise goal that is neither a quota of minority students nor an amorphous idea of diversity. In this case, the Court determined that the University of Texas sufficiently expressed a series of concrete goals along with a reasoned explanation for its decision to pursue these goals along with a thoughtful consideration of why previous attempts to achieve the goals had not been successful. The University of Texas’ plan is also narrowly tailored to serve this compelling interest because there are no other available and workable alternatives for doing so.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment categorically prohibits the use of race as a consideration in a higher education admissions process. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that majority’s decision was too deferential to the University of Texas’ determination that its use of race in the admissions process was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest and that the majority failed to properly apply strict scrutiny. Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was enacted at least in part to prevent the government from treating individuals as merely components of racial class, race-based classifications, regardless of their purpose must be subject to the strictest level of constitutional scrutiny. In this case, the University of Texas’ use of race in its admissions policy cannot withstand strict scrutiny because the University’s interest is not sufficiently clearly defined and therefore judicial review to determine whether the policy is narrowly tailored is impossible. Even if it were, the goal of demographic diversity could only feasibly be achieved using impermissible quotas for racial balancing that are based on stereotypes. Justice Alito also argued that the use of racial preferences is unnecessary to achieve the goal of diversity because the admissions process could use a race-neutral holistic review based on life experiences that would achieve the same effect. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.
Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the discussion or decision of the case.


In 1986, Timothy Tyrone Foster, an 18-year-old black man, was charged with murdering Queen White, an elderly white woman. At the trial, the prosecution used peremptory strikes against all four of the qualified black jurors. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits the use of peremptory strikes on the basis of race, the defense objected to those strikes, and the burden shifted to the prosecution to prove that there were race-neutral explanation for the strikes. The prosecution provided reasons, and the trial court held that the reasons were sufficient. An all-white jury convicted Foster of murder and imposed the death penalty.
Foster filed a motion for post-judgment discovery regarding the prosecution’s notes during jury selection and a motion for a new trial, both of which the trial court denied. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decisions, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. Foster petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in Butts County Superior Court and submitted a new Batson challenge based on the prosecutor's notes obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act. The court denied Foster's petition. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the writ. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.

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The evidence was sufficient to establish that there was purposeful discrimination of the type that Batson v. Kentucky prohibits in the jury selection process of Foster’s trial. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the third step of a Batson challenge, which requires the defendant to show that the strikes of prospective jurors based on race was purposeful discrimination, was clearly met in this case, and the state court erred in finding otherwise. Although the prosecutor offered a long list of reasons those jurors were struck, the evidence from the prosecution’s notes that Foster obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act shows that the first five names on the prosecution’s “definite NOs” list were of five black jurors, all of whom were eventually struck. Therefore, the evidence shows that the prosecution was never seriously considering allowing the prospective jurors in question to serve, and the reasons for striking them were likely pretextual. Further, the fact that several white jurors with the same traits as the black jurors in question were allowed to serve on the jury, the prosecution’s explanations for striking the jurors in question shifted over time, there were misrepresentations of the record to support the strikes, and the prosecution notes continually highlighted race lend credible support to Foster’s argument that he suffered purposeful discrimination.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the Georgia courts’ decisions to deny Foster’s Batson challenge was likely based on state law restricting the opportunity to relitigate previously rejected claims. Because the U.S. Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to review state court decisions on state law claims, the proper course of action in a case like this one would be for the Court to decide the relevant question of federal law that influenced the state court’s decision and remand the case to allow the state court to decide the issue in light of the Supreme Court’s clarification.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Supreme Court likely did not have proper jurisdiction over this case because the state courts seemed to base their decisions on issues of procedural state law. Therefore, the Court should have vacated the lower decision and remanded for clarification regarding whether the state court’s decision implicated an issue of federal law before deciding this case. Justice Thomas also argued that, because the trial court’s decision was essentially a credibility determination, the majority should have granted more deference to that decision, which the new evidence did not invalidate.


Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (Liberty Mutual) operates a self-insured employee health plan through a third-party administrator. Vermont state law requires that all health plans, including self-insured plans, file reports containing claims data and other information with the state. The statute specifies what type of information is required and how it is transmitted. When Vermont subpoenaed claims data from the third-party administrator, Liberty Mutual sued the state and argued that the reporting requirements of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempted the Vermont statute. The district court found in favor of the state and held that ERISA did not preempt the Vermont statute. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and held that ERISA preempted the state statute because the state statute’s requirements were connected to the ERISA requirements and therefore were preempted.

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The reporting requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempt a Vermont state statute regarding reporting requirements as applied to a self-insured employee health plan. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the preemption clause of ERISA was meant to be construed broadly, and precedent has established that ERISA preempts a state law when the existence of ERISA plans is essential to the operation of the state law or when the state law interferes with nationally uniform plan administration. Because ERISA contains various recordkeeping, disclosing, and reporting requirements that are integral aspects of ERISA, the Vermont state statute interferes with nationally uniform plan administration.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that, while the majority’s opinion follows precedent regarding ERISA preemption, that preemption jurisprudence is possibly becoming impermissibly broad. In future cases, the Court may have to address the question of whether the Constitution allows such broad federal preemption of state laws. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he emphasized that ERISA preemption avoids the potential of having different reporting requirements in each state. However, if a state needs information beyond what ERISA requires, it can request authorization through the Secretary of Labor.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in which she argued that Vermont’s statute serves a different purpose than the ERISA reporting requirements and therefore should not be preempted. While ERISA’s reporting requirements allow the Secretary of Labor to examine plan management and solvency, the Vermont statute is concerned with how residents obtain health care and how effective it is. Because the state statute does not impose burdens on plan management that effectively dictate the plans’ administration, preemption is not required. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the dissent.


Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association

California law allows unions to become the exclusive bargaining representative for the public school employees of that district and therefore have a great deal of influence over a wide range of conditions of employment. Once a union is the exclusive bargaining representative for the school district, it may establish an “agency shop” arrangement, which means that a school district may require a public school employee to either join the union or pay the equivalent of dues to the union in the form of a “fair share service fee.” Because the First Amendment prohibits unions from compelling nonmembers to support activities that are not exclusively devoted to negotiations, contract administration, and other duties as an exclusive bargaining representative, unions must send notices to all nonmembers laying out the breakdown of the chargeable and nonchargeable portions of the fee. To avoid paying for the nonchargeable portion of the fee, a nonmember must affirmatively opt out each year.
Petitioners are a group of public school employees who sued the California Teachers Association and other similar organizations as well as school districts and argued that the agency shop arrangement and the opt-out requirement violated the First Amendment. The district court held that precedent upholding those practices precluded its judgment on the issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

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Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

In 2012, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission redrew the map for the state legislative districts based on the results of the 2010 census. Wesley Harris and other individual voters sued the Commission and alleged that the newly redrawn districts were under-populated in Democratic-leaning districts and over-populated in Republican-leaning ones, and therefore that the Commission had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Commission argued that the population deviations were the result of attempts to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The district court found in favor of the Commission and held that the redrawn districts represented a good faith effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

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Although the desire to gain advantage for one political party over another does not justify deviating from absolute equality of districts, doing so for “legitimate considerations,” such as to achieve compliance with the Voting Rights Act, does not violate the “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that the Constitution permits deviations from the baseline “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when they are based on “legitimate considerations” intended to effectuate “rational state policy.” Such considerations include, but are not limited to, traditional interests in compactness and contiguity, as well as maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions and the competing balance among political parties. In previous decisions, some members of the Court have also expressed the view that complying with the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits redistricting plans that effectively disenfranchise minorities, is a legitimate consideration. Precedent has also established that, while deviations of more than 10% may be presumed to represent invidious discrimination, deviations of less than 10% must be shown to be the result of illegitimate considerations, and such evidence was not present in this case. Instead, the evidence shows that the deviations resulted from the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission’s good faith effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act, which was in effect at the time the plan was created.


Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States

Various policies, regulations, and statutes of the federal government are intended to promote small businesses, especially those run by veterans. Although agencies generally have wide discretion to decide what method of contracting to use, a 2003 amendment to the Small Business Act established a goal of awarding three percent of government contracts to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and the Veterans Act of 2006 expanded the reach of the relevant provisions.
Kingdomware Technologies is a small business owned and controlled by a service-disabled veteran and has been certified as such by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). In 2012, Kingdomware filed a bid for a project, but the VA awarded the contract to a company that was not a veteran-owned business. Kingdomware filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and argued that the contract award was illegal. The GAO issued a recommendation that the VA cancel the contract and re-solicit bids. The VA refused to accept the recommendation, and Kingdomware sued in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which held that there was sufficient ambiguity in the relevant statute and that the VA’s interpretation was reasonable, so therefore the contract award should stand. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.

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The Court had jurisdiction to address the merits of the case even if the contracts had already been performed, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ “set-aside” for veteran-owned businesses is mandatory. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that, while a case would generally be moot when there is no actual controversy that a court can resolve by granting relief, there is an exception for controversies that are capable of repetition but evade review. Such controversies are those that are often so short in duration that they are difficult to litigate and there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action. Because this case presents such a controversy, the Court can examine the merits of the case. On the merits, the Court held that the Department of Veterans Affairs must award a contract to a veteran-owned small business when there is a reasonable expectation that two or more such businesses will offer reasonable bids for the contract, even when the Department will otherwise meet its minimum contracting goals for the year. The plain language of the relevant text of the Veterans Act of 2006, which established guidelines for contracting with veteran-owned businesses, makes it clear that this rule for contracting is mandatory, not discretionary.


In June 2010, undercover federal agents conducted an operation in which Avondale Lockhart ordered a number of videos containing child pornography. When the agents ostensibly delivered the ordered videos, they executed a search warrant and discovered over 15,000 images and at least nine videos depicting child pornography on Lockhart’s computer. Lockhart was subsequently charged with possession of child pornography, and he pled guilty. Lockhart had previously been convicted in state court of first-degree sexual abuse due to an incident involving his adult girlfriend. Based on this previous conviction, the pre-sentencing report for Lockhart’s child pornography sentencing recommended that Lockhart be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence. Lockhart argued that the mandatory minimum did not apply to him because the previous sexual offense did not involve a minor. The district court rejected Lockhart’s argument and held that the mandatory minimum sentence applied. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision.

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A prior conviction of “aggravated sexual abuse” or “sexual abuse” may trigger a mandatory minimum sentence even when the prior conviction did not involve a minor. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the “last antecedent rule” of statutory interpretation dictates that a limiting clause following a list of terms or phrases only modifies the one that directly precedes it. Although that presumption may be overcome, there is no indication that the presumption is meant to be overcome in this case. The context of the mandatory minimum sentencing section indicates that Congress intended to mirror the language of Chapter 109A of the Federal Criminal Code, the subdivisions of which map onto the language in question with only the third of the group being limited to sexual abuse involving a minor. Additionally, when ambiguity can be resolved through basic grammatical analysis, there is no reason to apply other canons of statutory construction.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent in which she argued that an ordinary understanding of language dictates that, unless the elements of a series are so disparate that the modifier would not make sense if applied to all of them, a modifier of a series should be applied to all parts of the series. Because there is a “straightforward, parallel construction” that neatly encompasses all parts of the sentence and comports with common usage, that interpretation should override the last antecedent rule. Justice Kagan also argued that the legislative history supported the reading of the text as being limited to sexual abuse involving minors, and even if there were no clear indications of what Congress intended, the rule of lenity states that the Court should side with the defendant when the canons of construction do not resolve the ambiguity. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined in the dissent.


Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. United States

Between 1995 and 2004, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Menominee Tribe) provided healthcare services to members of the tribe pursuant to a self-determination contract with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The self-determination contract states that the federal government will pay the participating tribe the amount that the government would have paid the Department of the Interior and HHS if those agencies were administering the program. The tribe and the government negotiate those costs in annual funding agreements.
In 2005, the Menominee Tribe filed administrative claims with the HHS’s Indian Health Service to recover contract support costs for the years 1995 through 2004. The claims were denied for the years 1996 through 1998 as untimely because the six-year statute of limitations had run. The Menominee Tribe challenged that decision in federal district court and argued that the statute of limitations should not have been running. The district court rejected the Menominee Tribe’s argument. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remanded the case for further consideration, and the district court again held that the statute of limitations had run. The appellate court affirmed and held that there were no extraordinary circumstances that should have prevented the statute of limitations from running.

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There were no extraordinary circumstances in this case that would have prevented the statute of limitations from running. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that, because the Menominee Tribe was unable to prove the existence of extraordinary circumstances to prevent the statute of limitations from running, the appellate court properly affirmed the lower court’s ruling. In order to qualify for tolling of the statute of limitations, the Menominee Tribe must show that the circumstances delaying its actions were extraordinary and out of its control. The Court found that the Menominee Tribe did not file a claim because it was operating under the presumption that it need not file a claim at that point, which was a mistake rather than an extraordinary circumstance.


Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Manning

The plaintiffs are shareholders in Escala Group, Inc. (Escala), and the defendants are a group of financial institutions that engage in equity trading. The plaintiffs sued the defendants in state court and alleged that the defendants participated in the short selling of Escala stock, which increased the pool of tradeable shares by electronically manufacturing counterfeit shares, thereby causing the plaintiffs’ shares to decline in value and dilute their voting rights. The plaintiffs’ claims were based on state law, but the Amended Complaint repeatedly mentioned a 2004 regulation that was adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pursuant to the authority granted to it by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and no parties dispute the fact that the claims included violations of federal law. The defendants sought to remove the case from state court to federal court based on the question of whether the federal court has jurisdiction over the state law issues. The plaintiffs sought to bring the case back to state court, and the magistrate judge recommended that the district court grant the plaintiffs’ motion. The district court disagreed, and the issue went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The appellate court held that the case should properly be heard in state court.

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The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 creates the same test for establishing federal jurisdiction as the general test for whether a federal court has jurisdiction: Whether the case “arises under” federal law. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the text of the Securities Exchange Act that relates to jurisdiction should be interpreted as conferring the same jurisdiction as the general federal question statute because both the relevant language and judicial precedent support that reading. Although the language of the statutes are not identical, there is no indication that Congress intended for the courts to use a different test than the one that already existed. Additionally, the Court had previously rejected the more expansive reading for which the petitioners advocated and has traditionally read statutory grants of jurisdiction as not altering the usual balance of jurisdiction between state and federal courts.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the express language of the Securities Exchange Act provides the appropriate test. Under that Act, a suit that is “brought to enforce” Exchange Act requirements may be heard in federal court; therefore, if a claim depends on a breach of a statutory requirement, the Act grants federal jurisdiction. Applying this test in this case, Justice Thomas argued that the case was properly within state court jurisdiction rather than federal. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment.


Michael Musacchio was the president of Exel Transportation Services (ETS), a transportation brokerage company that arranges freight shipments for business clients, until his resignation in 2004. In 2005, Musacchio founded Total Transportation Services (TTS), a competing company, and several ETS agents moved to the new company with him. Around the same time, the new president of ETS became suspicious when potential new agents were unexpectedly familiar with the terms of ETS contracts. He discovered that Musacchio and other TTS agents had been accessing ETS servers, so ETS sued TTS and the parties settled for $10 million.
In 2010, the government indicted Musacchio and other TTS agents on counts of conspiracy and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. At trial, the district court incorrectly instructed the jury that the government had to prove more stringent elements than the statute actually requires, and the government did not object. After he was convicted, Musacchio appealed and argued that, by not objecting, the government acceded to the higher burden and failed to meet it. Musacchio also argued that one of the counts was barred by a statute of limitations, but he had not raised this defense at trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the district court’s instructional error did not become the law of the case when the government failed to object and that Musacchio waived the statute of limitations defense by failing to raise it at trial.

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The sufficiency of evidence should be measured against the elements of the statute rather than the elements laid out in the jury instructions, and a statute of limitations defense that is not raised at trial is not reviewable on appeal. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that the additional element added to the jury instruction did not affect the prosecution’s burden of proof because the sufficiency of evidence should be weighed against the elements of the charged crime, not the “erroneously” added element. Furthermore, the Court held that a statute of limitations objection cannot be raised during the appeal unless there is a clear error as to why it was not raised earlier in the trial. The Court held that no such error existed in this case.


In 1999, Jorge Luna Torres, a citizen of the Dominican Republic and a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was convicted of violating a New York state arson statute. In 2007, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued a notice charging Luna Torres with inadmissibility because he was an “alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.” Luna Torres applied for a cancellation of the removal order and the immigration judge held that Luna Torres was both removable as charged and ineligible for a cancellation of the removal order because he was a permanent resident convicted of an aggravated felony; the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had previously held that a conviction under the New York state arson statute constituted an aggravated felony. Luna Torres appealed to the BIA and argued that the previous ruling should be reexamined. The BIA dismissed Luna Torres’ appeal, and Luna Torres petitioned for review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to the oral argument before the appellate court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the BIA’s ruling and concluded that violation of the New York state arson statute did not constitute an aggravated felony because the state statute lacked the federal statute’s interstate commerce element. That decision conflicted with the interpretations of other circuit courts of appeals, and the appellate court in this case upheld the denial of Torres’ petition for cancellation of the removal order.

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A state offense may constitute an aggravated felony for the purpose of the removal of a permanent resident when it includes all the elements of the federal statute, with the exception of the interstate commerce element. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the 5-3 majority. The Court held that the absence of a jurisdictional element is not material in determining whether the elements of a state crime correspond to those of a federal offense. Because the federal government can only punish felonies through one of its constitutionally enumerated powers, the jurisdictional element of a federal crime simply ties the substantive offense to Congress’ authority to punish it. State legislatures, however, do not need to do so. The relevant text of the Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly indicated that Congress intended for both federal and state offenses -- that lack the jurisdictional element -- to constitute aggravated felonies for the purpose of removal. Additionally, courts have traditionally treated the jurisdictional element of a crime as wholly distinct from the elements that make up the substantive offense. When courts determine whether a state offense is sufficiently similar to a federal one, the presumption is that Congress meant for the jurisdictional element of the federal offense to be set aside. In this case, because the only difference between the New York arson statute and the federal one is the jurisdictional element, the state statute was properly treated as an aggravated felony for the purpose of removal.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that, because there was an additional limiting element in the federal offense that was not a part of the state offense, the two were not the same for the purpose of removal under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. The plain language of the Act is specific to offenses described in the federal criminal code, and the defendant in this case was not convicted under such an offense. Justice Sotomayor also argued that the courts do not always consider the jurisdictional element of an offense as separate from the substantive ones, and therefore that was not the “well-settled approach” that the majority opinion argued it was. Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer joined in the dissent.


Peg Bouaphakeo and the rest of the plaintiff class are current and former employees of Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson) at the company’s meat-processing facility in Storm Lake, Iowa. The employees worked on a “gang-time” system, which means they were paid only for time they were at their working stations and the production line was moving. The employees sued Tyson and argued that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the Iowa Wage Payment Collection Law by not paying appropriate compensation for the time spent putting on and taking off protective clothing at the beginning and end of the work day and lunch break. The district court certified the class, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded damages of several million dollars.
Tyson appealed and argued that the district court erred in certifying the plaintiff class because factual differences among the plaintiffs made class certification improper. Tyson also argued that the class should be decertified because evidence presented at trial showed that some members of the class were not injured by the company’s actions and therefore had no right to damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s certification of the plaintiff class.

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Despite differences among class members, the class action was based under one question and therefore the class was properly certified. Additionally, although some class members who had not been injured would have no right to damages, the award had not yet been dispersed, so the district court can review the disbursement on remand. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 6-2 majority, which held that the class members were joined under one common question, and that satisfies the requirements for a class action suit despite differences among the members. The case was remanded for the lower court to consider of the proper disbursement of the award.
In his concurring opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote that the district court would be unable to appropriately distribute the $2.9 million award among the class members. The jury did not allocate the direct calculation of damages to unpaid overtime compensation and each plaintiff spent different amounts of time doffing and donning the protective clothing, so it would be extremely difficult to determine which plaintiffs are excluded from the award for lack of damages and the amount of the damages the other plaintiffs should receive. Justice Samuel A. Alito joined in the part of the concurrence that addressed the problems of allocating damages.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the district court erred in certifying the class action because the amount of time individual plaintiffs spent dealing with the protective clothing varied significantly. Some plaintiffs may not have been pushed over 40 hours a week and would not be owed damages. The awarded $2.9 million will be difficult to distribute among the 3344-members of the class action suit, and the district court should not have certified the class action suit. Justice Alito joined in the dissent.


OBB Personenverkehr AG (OBB) is owned by OBB Holding Group, a joint-stock company created by the Republic of Austria to operate rail service within Austria. OBB is a member of the Eurail Group, an association organized under Luxembourg law to provide rail pass to non-European residents.
In March 2007, Carol Sachs purchased a four-day Eurail Pass from the Rail Pass Experts (RPE) website for travel in Austria and the Czech Republic. RPE is located in Massachusetts, and the pass Sachs purchased listed a series of disclaimers, including that the “issuing office is merely an intermediary of the carriers in Europe and assumes no liability resulting from the transport.” In April 2007, Sachs used her Eurail Pass in Innsbruck, Austria. While boarding the train, Sachs fell between the tracks, and her legs were crushed by the moving train; they had to be amputated above the knee. Sachs sued OBB in district court in California. OBB moved to dismiss and argued that it was entitled to immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), or alternatively, that there was a lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on foreign-sovereign-immunity grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit originally affirmed but, upon rehearing en banc, later reversed and held that the commercial-activity exception of FSIA applied in this case because OBB was a common carrier owned by a foreign state that acted through a domestic agent to sell tickets to U.S. citizens and residents. Therefore, the district court did have subject-matter jurisdiction.

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