Foster v. Chatman

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Foster v. Chatman

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Conference of June 13, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-8349	Ga.	Nov 2, 2015 Tr.Aud.	May 23, 2016	7-1	Roberts	OT 2015

Holding: (1) This Court has jurisdiction to review the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court denying Timothy Foster a certificate of probable cause on his claim, under Batson v. Kentucky, that the state's use of peremptory challenges to strike all four black prospective jurors qualified to serve on the jury for his capital murder trial was racially motivated; and (2) the decision of the Georgia Supreme Court that Foster failed to show purposeful discrimination was clearly erroneous.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 7-1, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on May 23, 2016. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion.

Opinion analysis: Telltale files on race-based jury selection (Lyle Denniston)
Argument analysis: To decide, or not -- that is the question (Lyle Denniston)
Argument preview: Race and the make-up of juries (Lyle Denniston)
As the 2015 Term opens: The Court’s unusual Eighth Amendment focus (Rory Little)
Criminal law grants for the October Term 2015 (Rory Little)
Major test on voter equality set for review (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Jan 30 2015	Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due March 9, 2015)
Mar 9 2015	Brief of respondent Bruce Chatman, Warden in opposition filed.
Mar 24 2015	Reply of petitioner Timothy Tyrone Foster filed. (Distributed)
Mar 26 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 17, 2015.
Apr 17 2015	Record Requested .
Apr 20 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 24, 2015.
Apr 22 2015	Record received from Superior Court of Georgia, Butts County (6 boxes).
Apr 27 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 1, 2015.
May 4 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 14, 2015.
May 6 2015	Record received from the Supreme Court of Georgia. The record is electronic.
May 18 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 21, 2015.
May 26 2015	Motion to proceed in forma pauperis and petition for a writ of certiorari GRANTED.
Jun 9 2015	Motion to appoint counsel filed by petitioner Timothy Tyrone Foster.
Jun 15 2015	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including July 24, 2015.
Jun 15 2015	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including September 8, 2015.
Jun 17 2015	Motion DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 28, 2015.
Jul 24 2015	Joint appendix filed (2 Volumes). (Statement of costs filed)
Jul 24 2015	Brief of petitioner Timothy Tyrone Foster filed.
Jul 31 2015	Brief amici curiae of Joseph diGenova, et al. filed.
Sep 8 2015	Brief of respondent Bruce Chatman, Warden filed.
Sep 9 2015	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Monday, November 2, 2015
Sep 21 2015	CIRCULATED
Oct 5 2015	Motion to appoint counsel filed by petitioner GRANTED. and Stephen B. Bright, Esquire, of Atlanta, Georgia, is appointed to serve as counsel for the petitioner in this case.
Oct 6 2015	Reply of petitioner Timothy Tyrone Foster filed. (Distributed)
Oct 30 2015	Letter from Clerk of Court advising that counsel should be prepared to discuss at oral argument whether certiorari in this case should be directed to the Supreme Court of Georgia or the Superior Court of Butts County, Georgia, and what significance, if any, that determination may have on the Courts resolution of the case.
Nov 2 2015	Argued. For petitioner: Stephen B. Bright, Atlanta, Ga. (Appointed by this Court.) For respondent: Beth A. Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Atlanta, Ga.
May 23 2016	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
May 23 2016	MANDATE ISSUED.
Jun 24 2016	JUDGMENT ISSUED
Jun 24 2016	MANDATE ISSUED
Mar 15 2017	The record from Butts County Superior Court has been returned.

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The Supreme Court will release orders from the June 13 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's "Relist Watch" compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their June 20 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Quarles v. United States Michigan’s third-degree home-invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than generic burglary for purposes of qualifying for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
- Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the Outer Continental Shelf.
- Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service The federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
- Azar v. Allina Health Services Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.
- Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis The charge-filing precondition to suit set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a jurisdictional requirement.
- Mont v. United States Pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction tolls a supervised-release term under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e), even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited.
- Taggart v. Lorenzen A creditor may be held in civil contempt for violating a bankruptcy court’s discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Jordan v. City of Darien, Georgia Whether the existence of probable cause defeats a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim as a matter of law.
- Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (1) Whether Oregon violated the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment by compelling the Kleins to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ritual in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs; (2) whether the Supreme Court should overrule Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and (3) whether the Supreme Court should reaffirm Smith’s hybrid-rights doctrine, applying strict scrutiny to free exercise claims that implicate other fundamental rights, and resolve the circuit split over the doctrine’s precedential status.
- McGee v. McFadden (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred when it found no constitutional error when the state failed to disclose Brady evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch, until the post-trial hearing for a motion for a new trial; (2) whether the state and federal courts’ decisions were contrary to Giglio v. United States, United States v. Bagley, Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois when the state failed to disclose material impeachment evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch who testified that petitioner confessed to him; and (3) whether the state and federal courts erred in finding that trial counsel rendered effective assistance of counsel when he failed to interview Michael Jones and call him as a witness.
More Petitions »
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Cases argued 69

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Summary reversals 5

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Cases argued	69
Cases decided	42
Summary reversals	5
Merits cases granted to date	73

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