Yates v. United States

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Yates v. United States

Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

Justices release financial disclosures – Amy Howe

Challengers ask justices to put off census decision – Amy Howe

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Conference of June 13, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
13-7451	11th Cir.	Nov 5, 2014 Tr.Aud.	Feb 25, 2015	5-4	Ginsburg	OT 2014

Holding: For purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 1519, which imposes criminal liability on anyone who “knowingly . . . destroys . . . any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States,” a “tangible object” is one used to record or preserve information.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg on February 25, 2015. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas joined.

Opinion analysis: A fisherman slips through federal prosecutors' net (Lyle Denniston)
Justices take the measure of fish case: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Building to a Scalia crescendo (Lyle Denniston)
Making a federal case out of fishy facts: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument preview: Can plain language be vague? (Lyle Denniston)
Detention challenge denied (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Nov 13 2013	Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due December 20, 2013)
Nov 26 2013	Waiver of right of respondent United States to respond filed.
Dec 5 2013	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 10, 2014.
Jan 6 2014	Response Requested . (Due February 5, 2014)
Jan 28 2014	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including March 7, 2014.
Feb 5 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Cause of Action filed.
Feb 5 2014	Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed.
Mar 5 2014	Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including March 14, 2014.
Mar 14 2014	Brief of respondent United States in opposition filed.
Mar 28 2014	Reply of petitioner John L. Yates filed.
Apr 3 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 18, 2014.
Apr 21 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 25, 2014.
Apr 28 2014	Motion to proceed in forma pauperis Granted. Petition for a writ of certiorari GRANTED limited to Question 1 presented by the petition.
May 15 2014	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including June 30, 2014.
May 15 2014	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 19, 2014.
May 28 2014	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Jun 30 2014	Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed.)
Jun 30 2014	Brief of petitioner John L. Yates filed.
Jul 3 2014	Brief amici curiae of Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America & National Association of Manufacturers filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amici curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, et al. filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amici curiae of Eighteen Criminal Law Professors filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Washington Legal Foundation filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amici curiae of Cause of Action, et al. filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amicus curiae of National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amicus curiae of The Honorable Michael Oxley filed.
Jul 7 2014	Brief amici curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation, et al. filed.
Aug 19 2014	Brief of respondent United States filed.
Sep 4 2014	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Wednesday, November 5, 2014.
Sep 8 2014	Record requested from U.S.C.A. 11th Circuit.
Sep 8 2014	Record received from U.S.C.A 11th Circuit is electronic and located on PACER.
Sep 18 2014	Reply of petitioner John L. Yates filed. (Distributed)
Sep 19 2014	CIRCULATED
Nov 5 2014	Argued. For petitioner: John L. Badalamenti, Assistant Federal Defender, Tampa, Fla. For respondent: Roman Martinez, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Nov 5 2014	Letter from the Solicitor General filed. (Distributed)
Feb 25 2015	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Ginsburg, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Kagan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined.
Mar 30 2015	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

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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.
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Cases argued 69

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On June 3, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with David Rubenstein for the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual lecture at the Supreme Court.

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

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