Petitions to Watch | Conference of 10.19.09

This edition of “Petitions to Watch”  features cases up for consideration at the Justices’ private conference on October 19.  As always, the list contains the petitions on the Court’s paid docket that Tom has deemed to have a reasonable chance of being granted.  Links to previous editions are available in our SCOTUSwiki archive.

Docket: 08-1371
Title: Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
Issue: Whether a public university law school may deny school funding and other benefits to a religious student organization because the group requires its officers and voting members to agree with its core religious viewpoints.

• Opinion below (9th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket: 08-1553; 08-1554
Title: Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha v. Regal-Beloit Corporation; Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Regal-Beloit Corporation
Issue: Whether the Carmack Amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which governs certain rail and motor transportation by common carriers within the United States, 49 U.S.C. §§ 11706 (rail carriers) & 14706 (motor carriers), applies to the inland rail leg of an intermodal shipment from overseas when the shipment was made under a “through” bill of lading issued by an ocean carrier that extended the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30701.

• Opinion below (9th Circuit)
• Brief in opposition

For 08-1553:

• Petition for certiorari
• Petitioner’s reply

For 08-1554:

• Petition for certiorari
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket: 1427; 1453
Title: Brockman v. United States; Rollins v. United States
Issue: Whether a district court has authority to order a defendant’s federal sentence to be served consecutively with a state sentence that has not yet been imposed.

For 08-1427:

• Opinion below (5th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

For 08-1453:

• Opinion below (8th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket: 09-195
Title: Reust v. Alaska
Issue: Does a state statute that allows a percentage of a civil judgment to be taken for public use violate the Takings Clause of the United States Constitution?  Did the taking of a percentage of Reust’s civil recovery violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

• Opinion below (Supreme Court of Alaska)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Cases involving lawyers from Akin Gump or Howe & Russell (listed without regard to likelihood of being granted):

Docket: 08-1428
Title: Burkey v. Marberry
Issue: Whether a prisoner’s challenge to his continued detention is mooted by his release when a judgment in his favor would establish that he was incarcerated beyond the proper expiration of his prison term, thereby supporting a claim for reduction in his term of supervised release. [Note: Akin Gump is counsel to the petitioner.]

• Opinion below (3d Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Other petitions from earlier editions of Petitions to Watch were re-listed for the October 19 conference:

• Kiyemba v. Obama (08-1234)
• Wong v. Belmontes (08-1263)
• Virginia v. Harris (08-1385)
• Pfizer Inc. v. Abdullahi (09-34)
• Noriega v. Pastrana (09-35)
• Bobby, Warden v. Van Hook (09-144)
• United States Defense Department v. American Civil Liberties Union (09-160)
• United States v. Seale (09-166)