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January argument calendar, day by day

The Supreme Court on Tuesday released the schedule of oral arguments for the sitting that begins on Monday, January 11.  The first case to be heard is one of the most significant of the Term: a test of whether non-union members in public jobs should be freed from paying any dues or fees to the union representing their workplace.

The daily list, together with a brief summary of the issues involved, follows the jump.  Arguments are for one hour, and begin at 10 a.m.  None are scheduled for afternoons.

Monday, January 11:

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association — whether non-union members of a public employee union have a First Amendment right not to pay any fees to support union representation activity

Tuesday, January 12:

Molina-Martinez v. United States — how a federal appeals court should treat an error by the trial judge in imposing the wrong sentence range under the federal Sentencing Guidelines

Duncan v. Owens — whether a trial judge’s comments about the motive of the accused violates the right to have guilt decided solely on the evidence at trial; and whether this was a harmless error

Wednesday, January 13:

Bank Markazi v. Peterson — whether Congress violated the constitutional separation of powers by requiring the turnover of U.S. assets of Iran’s central banks to victims of terrorist acts, when that was at issue in a pending court case

Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle — whether Puerto Rico and the United States are separate governments, so that each is free to prosecute someone for the same crime without violating the Constitution’s ban on double jeopardy

Monday, January 18: Legal holiday — no arguments

Tuesday, January 19:

Heffernan v. City of Paterson — whether the First Amendment bars the government from demoting a public employee based on a supervisor’s perception that the employee supports a political candidate

Americold Logistics v. Conagra Foods — whether the state of citizenship of a trust, for purposes of diversity jurisdiction in federal courts, is based on the location of controlling trustees, trust beneficiaries, or some combination of the two

Wednesday, January 20:

Nebraska v. Parker — whether the town of Pender, Nebraska, is located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation, so that local liquor stores must pay a tribal tax on their sales

Sturgeon v. Masica — whether the National Park Service has the authority to ban fishing with a hovercraft on lands within a national park but owned by a state, an Indian entity, or private individuals

[Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the respondents in Heffernan v. City of Paterson, but the author of this post is not affiliated with the firm.]

Recommended Citation: Lyle Denniston, January argument calendar, day by day, SCOTUSblog (Nov. 24, 2015, 2:58 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2015/11/january-argument-calendar-day-by-day-2/