Coverage of Monday’s opinions and orders continued yesterday. At JURIST, Julia Zebley summarizes Monday’s decision in Hall v. United States, in which the Court held that the federal income tax liability resulting from petitioners’ post-petition farm sale is not incurred by the estate under Section 503(b) of the Bankruptcy Code and thus is neither collectible nor dischargeable in the Chapter 12 plan. Also at JURIST, Michael Haggerson reports on Monday’s denial of cert. in a case challenging the lack of voting rights for Puerto Ricans in U.S. presidential elections. And at the Wall Street Journal blog Bankruptcy Beat, Jacqueline Palank reports that the Court “won’t review the conviction of Tom Petters, whose business empire once encompassed Polaroid and Sun County Airlines before his arrest on charges that he ran a massive Ponzi scheme.”
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Posted in Round-up
Analysis
For most of the past four years, the volunteer lawyers who are helping Guantanamo Bay detainees use their constitutional right of access to U.S. courts have faced a dilemma: they assumed that, at some point, the Supreme Court would again get interested in those cases, but they had no idea what it would take to get the Justices involved again. They persuaded the Court just once in those years to grant a case — a highly unusual one – but that case went away without any new guidance on where the Court stands.
Last Term, the lawyers failed every time as they tried repeatedly to fathom what might catch the Justices’ attention; they had what they regarded as solid issues, but no case advanced. This Term, they are trying again — seven more times, so far. But, among those seven, they have Latif v. Obama, and that may be their best chance. Indeed, if that one fails, too, it is hard to imagine the Court taking any Guantanamo captive’s case.
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Posted in Latif v. Obama, Analysis, Cases in the Pipeline, Detainee Litigation, Featured
At its May 17, 2012 Conference, the Court will consider such issues as the presumption of accuracy of intelligence reports in Guantanamo habeas decisions, standing to challenge the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the standard of federal habeas review for state court factual determinations, and the burden of proof for affirmative defenses in a criminal case. This edition of “Petitions to watch” features petitions raising issues that Tom has determined to have a reasonable chance of being granted, although we post them here without consideration of whether they present appropriate vehicles in which to decide those issues.
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Posted in Cases in the Pipeline
Yesterday the Court issued an opinion in Hall v. United States, holding that the federal income tax liability resulting from petitioners’ post-petition farm sale is not incurred by the estate under Section 503(b) of the Bankruptcy Code and thus is neither collectible nor dischargeable in the Chapter 12 plan. Robyn Hagan Cain of Findlaw describes the opinion as “unusual,” explaining that she “didn’t expect to see Justice Sotomayor aligned with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito in a tax decision ruling against struggling farmers,” while Calvin Massey of the Faculty Lounge wonders whether Justice Sotomayor “is a convert to the Justice Scalia approach to statutory interpretation, or whether this is just an aberration that is peculiar to bankruptcy.” The Associated Press also has coverage of the case, as does Mark Giangrande at the Law Librarian Blog.
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Posted in Round-up
Out today from The New Yorker is a must-read excerpt from Jeff Toobin’s forthcoming (in September) book The Oath: The Obama White House vs. The Supreme Court. The excerpt recounts insider details about the process by which the Court decided the Citizens United campaign finance case.
The theme of the piece is that Chief Justice Roberts orchestrated the case’s metamorphosis from a narrow ruling about statutory construction to a much broader constitutional decision with sweeping implications for campaign finance.
I should disclose that I am naturally inclined towards that reading of the history. I think that the Chief Justice is quite conservative and a brilliant tactician, including in undoing significant pieces of the legacy of the Court’s O’Connor era. I also disagree with the Citizens United decision.
But despite that, while the article is a fascinating and full accounting of the case and the background of the Court’s rapid movement to the right, the facts reported by Toobin don’t seem to support his conclusions about the Chief Justice.
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Posted in Everything Else
This morning the Court issued orders from the May 10 Conference as well as one opinion. The Court did not grant any new cases, nor did it call for the views of the Solicitor General in any additional cases.
Justice Sotomayor wrote the opinion for the Court in Hall v. United States. By a vote of five to four, the Court affirmed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. It held that the federal income tax liability resulting from petitioners’ post-petition farm sale is not “incurred by the estate” under Section 503(b) of the Bankruptcy Code and thus is neither collectible nor dischargeable in the Chapter 12 plan. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion in which Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Kagan joined.
Posted in Merits Cases
With the help of our reporter, Lyle Denniston, we will be live blogging as orders and opinions are issued today. The Live Blog window is below the jump. Once you see the window and our initial welcome, we ask that you do not refresh your browser. Updates will appear without the need for refreshing.
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Posted in Merits Cases
In the wake of President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, the weekend’s coverage focused on the prospect that the issue could reach the Court this year. David Ingram of Reuters reports on two same-sex marriage cases: the constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8 and a Massachusetts case seeking to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), while Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal discusses the potential political pressures that President Obama would face when the issue reaches the Court. Continue reading »
Posted in Round-up
On Monday the Court announced one opinion. The Court did not grant any new cases, nor did it call for the views of the Solicitor General in any additional cases.
On Thursday the Court will meet for its May 17 Conference. Our list of “Petitions to watch” for that Conference is here.
Posted in This Week at the Court
In a significant — though not necessarily final — setback for military contractors sued in U.S. courts for allegedly torturing Iraqis at the infamous Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq, a divided Fourth Circuit Court refused on Friday to rule immediately on the companies’ claim that they have legal immunity to the damages lawsuits. By a vote of 11-3, the en banc Circuit Court allowed two federal judges — one in Virginia, one in Maryland — to gather more information before ruling on the immunity claims.
The dissenters argued that “only the Supreme Court can now fix our wayward course.” An appeal to the Justices seems inevitable. The dissenters complained in exceedingly strong language that the majority, by allowing the lawsuits to go perhaps many steps further, was permitting the courts to intrude deeply into the U.S. military’s conduct of activities in a war zone. (The 114-page decision, including a majority opinion, two brief concurring opinions, and two lengthy dissenting opinions, can be read here.)
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Posted in Cases in the Pipeline, Featured
