Month: September 2014

My plan is to offer a post every month or so with all the cases coming up that should be relatively interesting and accessible, or in other words, everything except the highly technical and relatively boring procedural issues.  But I thought I would also direct your attention to a few particularly significant cases that are coming up this term.

Two important cases are coming up in the first week, regarding religious liberty in prison and unconstitutional stops.Religious liberty cases are always significant, and especially so given last term’s Hobby Lobby ruling, the full scope of which is still being worked out and should be clarified by the decision in this case.  The Court also has been on a bit of a trend in restricting warrantless searches (see 2012’s GPS monitoring case and 2014’s case involving looking through an arrestee’s cell phone).  In addition, it should be interesting to see how Justice Scalia responds to this case; he is often quite protective of traditional 4th Amendment rights, contrary to what some people might expect of him.

I already wrote about the above cases.  I’ll say more about each of the following cases in the weeks before arguments, but as a preview:

The next high-profile case will be viewed as an Israel-Palestine issue, although the legal question is one of separation of powers.  Long-standing State Department policy is that when a US Citizen is born in a disputed territory, the consular report of birth abroad and passport should list the city or area only (without choosing a country).  The plaintiffs’ child was born in Jerusalem in 2002, and the consulate, citing this policy, refused their request to add “, Israel” after the city name.  This gets legally complicated because Congress has enacted a law that directs State to comply with such a parental request.  Traditionally, recognition of states, especially in disputed territories, and all manner of international relations has been within the scope of Presidential powers.  It is an open question whether Congress can direct an executive branch agency like State to go against the President’s determination of foreign policy.  In signing the bill into law, President Bush stated that this provision would not be interpreted as mandatory because otherwise it would “interfere with the President’s constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states.”  The Obama Administration has taken the same position. This case will be argued November 3.

The issue of state secrets and whistleblower protection is raised in an interesting lawsuit by a former TSA worker.  His publication of the TSA plan to cut back on air marshals led to public outcry, Congressional investigation, and eventual abandonment of the plan, but he was fired nonetheless.  Whistleblower protection does not apply if the information made public was “specifically protected by law from exposure,” but the plaintiff argues that this is intended to cover highly classified information under Congressionally enacted law, not a staffing plan that is made private only by TSA-issued regulation.  The unusual twist is that this is a law enforcement official, disclosing information in order to obtain greater levels of security, but of course the ruling will have implications for whistleblowers seeking to curtain the scope of “national security” measures.  This case will be argued November 4.

The racial gerrymandering case to be argued on November 12 comes with the interesting twist that the state accused of race discrimination had been arguing that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act prohibited them from drawing districts any differently–but last term the Court, to the dismay of voting rights advocates, rendered that provision inoperable.

An important case involving the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, to be argued December 3, really shouldn’t be a tough call…

These are the cases that I find particularly compelling and that, as of this posting, have been scheduled for argument. The Court has granted cert. in but not yet scheduled arguments for a few other cases, and it is still considering whether or not to grant other petitions for cert.  No arguments beyond December 10 have been scheduled yet, but the Court will presumably hear cases through April, as usual.  Many commentators anticipate an abortion case, revisiting birth control coverage, and perhaps even a marriage discrimination case, but we’ll have to wait and see.

“First Monday” — October 6

Warrantless Stops & Searches

The first case of the 2014-15 term involves an illegal stop of a car, which ultimately resulted in the discovery of more than 50 grams of cocaine.  The officer pulled the car over, which is a form of seizure governed by the 4th Amendment and requiring “reasonable suspicion.”  The officer asserted suspicion that a law was being violated because the car had a broken taillight — but North Carolina law required only one working taillight, so there was no basis for believing a law was being violated. The Court must decide if a police officer’s ignorance of the law is an excuse for what would otherwise be an unconstitutional search.  Heien v. North Carolina,

The second case on this opening day is more obscure, involving filing deadlines and civil procedure in class actions.  Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi v. IndyMac MBS, Inc.

 

Tuesday, October 7 

Religious Freedom & Prisoners

Grooming requirements come up frequently in discrimination cases, and this morning the issue is considered in the prison context, in Holt v. Hobbs.  A prisoner asserts that maintaining a beard is essential to his religious beliefs, which are protected by both the Constitution and federal statute, which requires the Court to determine whether the regulation places a substantial burden on religious practices and, if so, whether the regulation is the least restrictive means available to achieving a compelling goal — the same standard applied in last term’s highly controversial Hobby Lobby ruling, as this interesting NY Times article notes.

The second case, again, is a more obscure question of civil procedure.  Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Company, LLC v. Owens

 

Wednesday, October 8

Working Hours

This group of warehouse workers were required to pass through a screening before they could leave for the day (to prevent theft), but the stations were under-staffed, resulting in waits of up to 25 minutes when a large shift ended.  The employer said this was after their shift ended, so did not pay them for this time.  The resulting lawsuit is brought under the Portal-to-Portal Act, which has seen a lot of cases involving protective gear and jobs that involve travel between sites.  An interesting discussion of this case (Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk) and various precedents is available here.

Juror Misconduct

A Federal Rule of Evidence is designed to protect juror statements and keep them out of future litigation, unless they are used to demonstrate “improper outside influence” against the decision-making of a juror.  Here, the court determined that they fact that a juror raised personal experience was not improper influence, but the plaintiff also asserted that the trial is tainted because the juror lied during jury selection; had the juror disclosed this life experience, she probably would have been dismissed from the jury).  The Rule does not explicitly provide an exception to the general rule that jury statements are inadmissable where the statement is meant to prove lying; the Court will have to decide if an exception should be read into the Rule.  Warger v. Shauers.