Category: Current

In Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the “separate sovereigns” doctrine. Accordingly, states and the federal government may continue prosecuting individuals for the same crime. Facts of the Case ...

In The American Legion v American Humanist Association, 588 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Bladensburg Cross does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. While seven justices agreed with the Court’s ju...

In Return Mail Inc v United States Postal Service, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings u...

In Mont v United States, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that pretrial detention tolls a term of federal supervised release if a court credits that period of pretrial detention toward a sentence for a new conviction. Justice Ruth ...

In Box v Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Indiana’s law relating to the disposition of fetal remains by abortion providers passes constitutional scrutiny. However, it denied c...

In Herrera v Wyoming, 587 U.S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States.” The five-member majority fur...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently made waves in a relatively nondescript case. In Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 587 U.S. ____ (2019), a divided Court overturned Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979), holding that states retain their sovere...

In Dawson v Steager, 586 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that by taxing the federal pension benefits of U.S. Marshals Service retiree James Dawson, while exempting from taxation the pension benefits of certain state and local law enfo...

In Thacker v Tennessee Valley Authority, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that 16 U.S.C. §831c(b), which serves to waive the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) sovereign immunity from suit, is not subject to a discretionary func...

By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lamps Plus Inc v Varela that an ambiguous agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for concluding that the parties agreed to submit to class arbitration. The majority relied on the Fed...