The Court has granted certiorari in one case, Magwood v. Culliver (09-158), and invited the Solicitor General to file a brief expressing the views of the United States in Holy See v. John Doe (09-1).  The Court also issued a summary judgment in the case Wong v. Belmontes (08-1263), reversing and remanding the judgment of the 9th Circuit; the opinion is per curiam.

[Disclosure: Lawyers associated with Akin Gump and Howe & Russell represent the petitioner in Magwood.]

The full order list is here.  Details and briefs for the cases acted on are below the jump.

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The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to rule on a state prison inmate’s right to challenge in federal court when a new sentence has been imposed.  The key issue is whether such a challenge is barred when it could have been pursued in an earlier habeas plea. The Court thus granted review of the first question in Magwood v. Culliver (09-158).  In addition, the Court asked for the federal government’s views on an appeal by the Vatican, testing whether it is immune to damages lawsuits in U.S. courts for the sexual abuse of minors by priests in the U.S.  That case was Holy See v. John Doe (09-1).

In a summary decision, the Court ruled that a defense attorney had not provided inadequate legal assistance to a California death row inmate in a murder case by carefully composing the offering of favorable evidence so as not to provide an opening for prosecutors to bring in evidence of an earlier brutal murder.  The unsigned ruling in Wong v. Belmontes (08-1263) apparently will reinstate the death penalty against Fernando Belmontes, Jr., for a bludgeoning murder and a robbery in which the killer obtained $100 and used it to buy beer and drugs to consume that same night. The “Per Curiam” ruling — decided without formal briefing or oral argument — was tightly confined to the specific facts of the case, and did not appear to provide any new legal standard on the effectiveness of criminal trial lawyers’ work.

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The Supreme Court on Monday refused to delay the execution in Virginia Tuesday night of John Allen Muhammad for a murder that was part of a sniper shooting rampage in the Washinton area seven years ago.  The Court also refused to hear an appeal filed by Muhammad’s lawyers.  The order is here.

Three Justices filed a separate statement saying the case “highlights once again the perversity of executing inmates before their appeals process has been fully concluded.”  Justices John Paul Stevens wrote the statement, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.  The statement, however, pointedly added that those Justices did not dissent from the Court’s refusal to hear Muhammad’s legal claims.

Muhammad is scheduled to be executed at 9 p.m. Tuesday.

There are no new cert. grants this morning. There is, however, a summary disposition in the case Bobby v. Van Hook (09-144), which was granted and reversed.  The Court also invited the Solicitor General to submit a brief expressing the view of the United States in Staub v. Proctor Hospital, details of which are below.  The full order list is here.

(UPDATE: For anyone who had trouble with the links below before, they are now working.)

Docket: 09-400
Title: Staub v. Proctor Hospital
Issue: In what circumstances may an employer be held liable based on the unlawful intent of officials who caused or influenced but did not make the ultimate employment decision?

• Opinion below (7th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition

NOTE TO READERS: The following is a 6:20 p.m. update of a post that appeared earlier today on the Supreme Court’s orders of the day.  The orders are linked in this post.

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The Supreme Court on Monday added no new cases to its decision docket.  It asked for the federal government’s views on the so-called “cat’s paw theory” in employment law — testing the liability of an employer if an employee discriminates but is not the one who makes the actual decision to fire or deny a promotion.  The Court had agreed previously to hear the issue, but that case ended without a ruling.  The new case is Staub v. Proctor Hospital (09-400).  There is no deadline for the Solicitor General to respond.

The “cat’s paw theory” is traced back to a 17th Century French poet and his story about a monkey who persuaded a cat to pull chestnuts out of a fire, only to be burned in the process.  For years, federal courts have been divided on how to apply that theory in employment discrimination cases.  In January 2007, the Court had agreed to sort out the issue in the case of BCI Coca-Cola Bottling v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (06-341).  But that case ended in April of that year when the two sides agreed to have it dismissed.

Since that time, the Court has refused to hear three other cases seekng to raise the issue, including one in which the Seventh Circuit Court had laid down its own strict limitation on the “cat’s paw theory.”  That Circuit Court has held that the motives of a company official or employee other than the formal decision-maker cannot subject an employer to liability, unless the biased individual had so dominated the decision-maker as to be the functional decision-maker personally.

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A three-judge U.S. District Court this week approved an agreement to end a broad constitutional challenge to the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 — a challenge that at one time had appeared likely to succeed in the Supreme Court.  By attaching their signatures to a proposed consent decree on Tuesday, the three judges put into effect an agreement that allows a small Texas utility district to come out from under Section 5 coverage, and scuttles, for now at least, its constitutional arguments against that provision.  No objections to the agreement had been filed since it was put before the District Court Oct. 7.

A post discussing the consent agreement is here. In U.S. District Court, the case is Northwest Austin Municpal Utility District No. One v. Holder (06-1384).

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The Supreme Court on Monday released the list of cases to be argued in the sitting beginning Mon., Jan. 11.  It can be found here.  There will be no afternoon arguments.  The first case of each day begins at 10 a.m.  The day-to-day list of cases on the calendar, with a summary of the issues involved, appears after the jump.

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The Court has granted certiorari in Hamilton, Chapter 13 Trustee v. Lanning (08-998), New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board (08-1457), and Levin, Tax Commissioner of Ohio v. Commerce Energy, Inc. (09-223). As of this grant, Akin Gump represents the respondent in Hamilton v. Lanning.

The Court  invited briefs from the Solicitor General in four more cases, listed below the jump.

The full order list is here.

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The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to clarify when federal courts are barred from ruling on challenges to state tax laws. This was one of three business-related cases the Justices added to their docket for rulings this Term.  In another order, the Court refused to allow a Guantanamo detainee to bring his plea for release to the Court without waiting for a ruling on it in a lower court; that action appears to leave the prisoner in a new legal limbo, since the lower court has put his case on hold for the next several months.

The Court, over the protests of two Justices, refused to answer a question sent to it by a federal appeals court, seeking clarification on when the federal government may prosecute a series of old civil rights crimes in the South, dating from the 1960s, even though four decades have now passed.  The case is a notorious one, involving the kidnapping and drowning murder of three young black youths in Meadville, Miss., in the spring of 1964.  Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Court should have taken on the issue, noting that it is rare for a lower court even to ask for such clarification and suggesting that this was an appropriate case for the Justices to make use of that unusual procedure.  The case was U.S. v. Seale (certified question, docket 09-166).

The Court also asked for the U.S. Solicitor General to provide the views of the federal government on four new cases. When the responses come in, the Court will then decide whether to hear any of those cases — including a major test case on the power of states to pass their own laws to bar illegal aliens from getting jobs in those states. Read the rest of this entry »

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., on Friday cleared the way for the filing in November of a new Guantanamo Bay detainee case, further testing the power of federal judges to weigh or limit transfers of prisoners from that U.S. military prison.  The new case is now due to be filed by Nov. 10 in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama — the same title, though with somewhat different issues, as the case the Court on Oct. 20 agreed to hear in docket 08-1234.

Both cases bearing that title are sequels to the Supreme Court’s June 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, esablishing a constitutional right for Guantanamo prisoners to challenge their continued detention.  In each, the detainees’ counsel are seeking to curb or control what the Pentagon and U.S. diplomats may do about the release of detainees from Guantanamo.   After the Court granted review is what is now known informally as “Kiyemba I,” detainees’ counsel asked for more time to plan their new appeal in “Kiyemba II.”  The Court’s docket sheet entry, here, reflects the Chief Justice’s grant of added time to file, until Nov. 10.  The petition otherwise would have been due next Monday.

“Kiyemba I,”  just granted review, tests whether federal judges may grant release of Guantanamo detainees to live in the U.S.  “Kiyemba II,” the next case, will ask whether judges may bar transfer out of the prison in Cuba to countries where they fear torture or abuse.   The D.C. Circuit Court found no power in the courts to take either action as a remedy in a habeas case.

The lawyers will use the added time to file Kiyemba II to decide whether to ask the Court to delay any action on it until after Kiyemba I is decided, or to take other action on it.

UPDATE Thursday p.m.  The Ninth Circuit Court on Thursday released an opinion explaining  its ruling — the one that is at issue in this case –  that would allow state officials to release the identities of the Refernedum 71 petition signers.  (Thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing blog for the alert and the link.)

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Over one Justice’s dissent, the Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon blocked officials in Washington State from publicly disclosing the names and addresses of individuals who signed petitions seeking a voter referendum on a new gay rights law.  The disclosure will remain blocked until the Supreme Court can act on a coming appeal by sponsors of the referendum, known as Referendum 71.  The practical effect is that the ballot measure will go before the state’s voters on Nov. 3 without revelations of who signed the petitions to put it on the ballot.  (A post on Monday discussing this dispute can be read here.)

UPDATE 1:30 p.m.  The Justice Department, in response to the Court’s order granting review of the detainee case, issued this statement.

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The Supreme Court, probably complicating President Obama’s plans to make new policy on detainees, agreed on Tuesday to rule on the power of federal judges to order prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The specific issue in Kiyemba, et al. v. Obama, et al. (08-1234) is whether judges may require the release of Guantanamo prisoners to live in the U.S. itself, but the case has broader implications for all issues surrounding release or transfer of detainees. 

The case — the first on a war-on-terrorism question to be heard by the Court since the new President took office — will require the Justices to explain further (and maybe try to reconcile) two rulings they had issued on the same day in June 2008: Boumediene v. Bush, establishing a constitutional right for Guantanamo detainees to challenge their continued imprisonment, and Munaf v . Geren, limiting habeas rights for individuals held by the U.S. military but facing criminal charges in another country.  The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, has relied heavily upon the Munaf decision in arguing that federal judges do not have the authority to control the release or transfer of detainees.  Once such a prisoner has had a chance to pursue a habeas claim, the government has contended, that is all that the Boumediene decision requires.

This was one of two cases the Court added to its docket for decision this Term.

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The Court has granted certiorari in Kiyemba v. Obama (08-1234) and the combined cases of  Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha v. Regal-Beloit Corporation (08-1553) and Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Regal-Beloit Corporation (08-1554). The full order list is available here.

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UPDATE 2:55 p.m.  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Monday afternoon put back into effect, temporarily, a federal judge’s order that protects the privacy of signers of a petition seeking a voter referendum on a gay rights law in Washington State.  He did so, however, only until a further order is issued by himself or by the Court; the order is here. Kennedy acted on the basis of the application, before getting a response, due this afternoon, from state officials.  FURTHER UPDATE 5:50 p.m.  The state officials’ response is now in; it can be found here.

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Supporters of a ballot measure asking Washington State voters to veto a new state law on benefits for gay couples who enter “domestic partnerships” have asked the Supreme Court to protect the privacy of individuals who signed petitions to get the issue on next month’s election ballot.  The application, filed with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, is John Doe, et al. v. Reed, et al. (09A356); it can be found here.  Kennedy has sought a response from state officials by this afternoon.

The dispute raises a series of constitutional questions: is signing a petition to get an issue on the ballot a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment; is the petition-signing process a “public forum,” so that signers have forfeited any privacy right; does a state have a valid reason for publicly disclosing who supports a referendum?  At this stage, the case does not involve the legality or constitutionality of the domestic partnership law that Washington’s governor signed in May.  Sufficient signatures have now been filed to refer that law to the state’s voters at the Nov. 3 election, as Referendum 71.

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The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to rule on claims that “searing media attacks” on longtime Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling tainted his criminal trial and conviction on various fraud charges.  The case of Skilling v. U.S. (08-1394) also raises an issue on the scope of the federal law punishing the failure to provide “honest services” as a corporate executive.  This was one of four cases granted review, to be argued early next year.  The Court, however, took no action on a significant new Guantanamo Bay detainee case, Kiyemba v. Obama (08-1234). (UPDATE: The Court will again consider the Kiyemba case at its next private Conference, next Monday, according to the Court’s electronic docket.)

The other newly granted cases raise these issues:  the scope of federal appeals courts’ authority to overturn a conviction that may have been based in part on conduct that was not criminal when it occurred (U.S. v. Marcus, 08-1341, a case in which Justice Sonia Sotomayor is recused, presumably because she was on the Second Circuit Court panel that decided the case earlier); whether federal law on federal employees’ health benefits preempts a state court lawsuit filed against a government contractor administering such benefits (Health Care Service v. Pollitt, 09-38), and whether “gross negligence” by a state-appointed defense attorney in a death penalty case provides a basis for extending the time to file a federal habeas challenge, in a case where the habeas plea was filed late despite repeated instructions from the client (Holland v. Florida, 09-5327).

The Skilling case puts before the Court the third case this Term on the proof that prosecutors must offer in order to win a conviction for failing to provide “honest services” to someone else — the public, a government agency, or one’s employer.  Two of those cases will be heard back-to-back on December 8, and the Skilling case is likely to be scheduled for argument in February or March.

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