SCOTUS Audio

Latest Episodes:

Ciminelli v. United States Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

Whether the Second Circuit's "right to control" theory of fraud-which treats the deprivation of complete and accurate information bearing on a person's economic decision as a species of property fraud- states a valid basis for liability under the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1170.html

Percoco v. United States Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

Does a private citizen who holds no elected office or government employment, but has informal political or other influence over governmental decisionmaking, owe a fiduciary duty to the general public such that he can be convicted of honest-services fraud? https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1158.html

Haaland v. Brackeen & Consolidated Cases Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), 25 U.S.C. 1901 et seq., "to protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families." 25 U.S.C. 1902. The provisions of 25 U.S.C. 1912 establish minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children from their families, while 25 U.S.C. 1915(a) and (b) establish default preferences for the placement of such children in adoptive or foster homes. The statute also contains several recordkeeping provisions. See 25 U.S.C. 1915(e), 1951(a). Three States and seven individuals brought suit, asserting that these and other ICWA provisions are facially unconstitutional. The district court agreed and granted declaratory relief. The en banc court of appeals rejected most of the plaintiffs' challenges, but affirmed, in some respects by an equally divided vote, the judgment declaring the foregoing provisions invalid. The questions presented are: 1. Whether various provisions of ICWA-namely, the minimum standards of Section 1912(a), (d), (e), and (f); the placement-preference provisions of Section 1915 (a) and (b); and the recordkeeping provisions of Sections 1915(e) and 1951(a)-violate the anticommandeering doctrine of the Tenth Amendment. 2. Whether the individual plaintiffs have Article III standing to challenge ICWA’s placement preferences for "other Indian families," 25 U.S.C. 1915(a)(3), and for "Indian foster home[s]," 25 U.S.C. 1915(b)(iii). 3. Whether Section 1915(a)(3) and (b)(iii) are rationally related to legitimate governmental interests and therefore consistent with equal protection. CONSOLIDATED WITH 21-377, 21-378 AND 21-380 FOR ONE HOUR ORAL ARGUMENT. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-376.html

Health and Hospital Corp., v. Talevski Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

Since the high-water mark in Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Association, 496 U.S. 498 (1990), this Court has consistently rebuffed efforts to find privately enforceable rights in Spending Clause statutes. Indeed, several Justices have suggested that the entire project of enforcing such rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is mistaken: Spending Clause statutes are "much in the nature of a contract," Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 185-86 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted), and when Section 1983 was enacted, contracts in general-and contracts with governmental entities in particular-did not give rise to claims by third-party beneficiaries. The Seventh Circuit's decision below illustrates just how flawed this project is. Notwithstanding the Court's instructions to the contrary, see Pennhurst State Sch. and Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 18 (1981), and Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273, 289 n.7 (2002), the court of appeals relied on the appearance of the word "right" several times in the Federal Nursing Home Amendments Act of 1987 ("FNHRA") to hold that patients may use Section 1983 to second-guess garden-variety transfer and medication decisions-thereby federalizing much medical-malpractice litigation and nullifying important state medical-malpractice rules. This case presents the following questions: 1. Whether, in light of compelling historical evidence to the contrary, the Court should reexamine its holding that Spending Clause legislation gives rise to privately enforceable rights under Section 1983. 2. Whether, assuming Spending Clause statutes ever give rise to private rights enforceable via Section 1983, FNHRA's transfer and medication rules do so. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-806.html

Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

''Nearly 80 years removed from International Shoe, it seems corporations continue to receive special jurisdictional protections in the name of the Constitution. Less clear is why." Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 141 S. Ct. 1017, 1038 (2021) (Gorsuch J., concurring). This petition seeks resolution of an issue that has divided courts around the country. More than a dozen state supreme courts and every federal court of appeals have weighed in on the question with conflicting results. An unbroken line of this Court's cases holds that a court may exercise personal jurisdiction with a party's consent. Corporations enforce that precedent to the letter in their contracts of adhesion, requiring flesh and blood consumers to litigate disputes with businesses in often-distant tribunals. E.g., Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585 (1991). Turnabout should be fair play (and is, incidentally, consistent with substantial justice). Consistent with that rule, states have enacted laws requiring corporations operating within their boundaries to consent to personal jurisdiction when they register to do business in those states. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found such a statute unconstitutional under this Court's decision in International Shoe v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), and its progeny. That erroneous result is but the latest decision among dozens that are squarely divided on the question presented: Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state from requiring a corporation to consent to personal jurisdiction to do business in the state. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1168.html

SEC v. Cochran Nov 07, 2022

Show notes

Whether a federal district court has jurisdiction to hear a suit in which the respondent in an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission administrative proceeding seeks to enjoin that proceeding, based on an alleged constitutional defect in the statutory provisions that govern the removal of the administrative law judge who will conduct the proceeding. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1239.html

Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC Nov 07, 2022

Show notes

After petitioner acquired an essentially insolvent competitor, it found itself subjected to the review of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), rather than the Department of Justice (DOJ). While the DOJ route promises early access to judicial review, the FTC track is an altogether different matter. Petitioner faced a series of unreasonable demands from the FTC, and the prospect of “litigating” before administrative law judges insulated by unconstitutional double- for-cause removal restrictions and subject to review by an unaccountable Commission. Rather than resign itself to the ongoing unconstitutional injuries inflicted by the FTC’s process, petitioner filed suit in district court seeking to enjoin the unconstitutional FTC proceedings. That lawsuit focused on constitutional issues collateral to the underlying antitrust issues, but the district court nonetheless dismissed it for want of jurisdiction based on implications drawn from a statutory grant of jurisdiction to review the FTC’s cease-and-desist orders. A divided Ninth Circuit affirmed, with the majority acknowledging that dismissal “makes little sense,” and the dissent contending that dismissal contradicted this Court’s precedents. The questions presented are: 1. Whether Congress impliedly stripped federal district courts of jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to the Federal Trade Commission’s structure, procedures, and existence by granting the courts of appeals jurisdiction to “affirm, enforce, modify, or set aside” the Commission’s cease-and-desist orders. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-86.html 2. Whether, on the merits, the structure of the Federal Trade Commission, including the dual-layer for-cause removal protections afforded its administrative law judges, is consistent with the Constitution.

Bittner v. United States Nov 02, 2022

Show notes

This case presents a direct and acknowledged conflict regarding an important question of statutory construction under the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U.S.C. 5311 et seq., which generally requires taxpayers to report their interests in foreign bank accounts. Under the Act, Congress instructed the Treasury Secretary to ''require a resident or citizen of the United States * * * to keep records, file reports, or keep records and file reports, when the * * * person makes a transaction or maintains a relation for any person with a foreign financial agency." 31 U.S.C. 5314(a). The Secretary's corresponding regulations require filing a single annual report (called an "FBAR") for anyone with an aggregate balance over $10,000 in foreign accounts. 31 C.F.R. 1010.350(a), 1010.306(c). The Act authorizes a $10,000 maximum penalty for any non-willful violation of Section 5314. See 31 U.S.C. 5321(a)(5)(A)-(B). In the decision below, the Fifth Circuit held that there is a separate violation (with its own $10,000 penalty) for each foreign account not timely reported on an annual FBAR; it thus authorized a penalty on "a per-account, not a per-form, basis." In so holding, the Fifth Circuit expressly rejected a contrary decision of the Ninth Circuit, which held the failure to file an annual FBAR constitutes a single violation, "no matter the number of accounts." This critical issue arises all the time, and the Act's penalties for identically situated parties will now turn on whether the taxpayer is from California or Texas. The question presented is: Whether a "violation" under the Act is the failure to file an annual FBAR (no matter the number of foreign accounts), or whether there is a separate violation for each individual account that was not properly reported. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1195.html

Cruz v. Arizona Nov 01, 2022

Show notes

In Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994), this Court held that in cases where a capital defendant's future dangerousness is at issue, due process entitles the defendant to inform the jury that he will be ineligible for parole if not sentenced to death. For many years thereafter, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to apply Simmons. In Lynch v. Arizona, 578 U.S. 613 (2016) (per curiam), this Court summarily reversed the Arizona Supreme Court's misapplication of Simmons and confirmed that the Simmons rule applies in Arizona. This petition is brought by a capital defendant in Arizona whose conviction became final after Simmons but before Lynch. He was sentenced to death after the trial judge repeatedly denied him his right under Simmons to inform the jury that he was parole-ineligible. After this Court in Lynch applied Simmons to Arizona, he sought postconviction relief in state court seeking the relief that Simmons and Lynch require. The Arizona Supreme Court denied his claim. Although Arizona provides a forum for federal constitutional claims on collateral review, and although the Arizona Supreme Court recognized that Lynch "was dictated by" Simmons, the court concluded that the rule of Lynch should not apply to cases pending on collateral review. This petition presents the question whether this Court's decision in Lynch applied a settled rule of federal law that must be applied to cases pending on collateral review in Arizona. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-846.html

Jones v. Hendrix Nov 01, 2022

Show notes

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, federal inmates can collaterally challenge their convictions on any ground cognizable on collateral review, with successive attacks limited to certain claims that indicate factual innocence or that rely on constitutional-law decisions made retroactive by this Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e), however, also allows inmates to collaterally challenge their convictions outside this process through a traditional habeas action under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 whenever it "appears that the remedy by [§ 2255] motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [their] detention." The question presented is whether federal inmates who did not-because established circuit precedent stood firmly against them-challenge their convictions on the ground that the statute of conviction did not criminalize their activity may apply for habeas relief under § 2241 after this Court later makes clear in a retroactively applicable decision that the circuit precedent was wrong and that they are legally innocent of the crime of conviction. https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-857.html

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected