In Pitts v. Mississippi (No 24-1149), the Nine summarily reversed a Mississippi Supreme Court decision that effectively ignored the Court’s decisions in Coy v. Iowa (1988) and Maryland v. Craig (1990), which require trial courts to make case-specific findings of necessity before precluding a criminal defendant from exercising his Sixth Amendment right to confront child witnesses “face to face.”
Jeffrey Pitts was convicted of…
Read More Pitts v. Mississippi (No 24-1149)In Clark v. Sweeney (No. 25.-52), a unanimous Court chastised the Fourth Circuit for straying from the principle of party presentation in ordering a new trial for a habeas petitioner on grounds he hadn’t raised in his appeal.
Jeremiah Sweeney was charged with second-degree murder after allegedly shooting a bystander during an argument with neighbors about stolen drugs. His defense at trial was that…
Read More Clark v. Sweeney (No. 25.-52)The Supreme Court kicks off its October 2025 term today, with oral argument in two cases. Some of those cases are notable in and of themselves—we’ll preview them in a second—but this is also a good time to take a pause and look at the docket (so far) for the Court’s upcoming term.
A few things stand out. First, the Court has already agreed to…
Read More Preview of October ArgumentsIn 2021, after a multi-year regulatory process, the Food and Drug Administration denied more than a million applications from tobacco manufacturers seeking to sell various flavored e-cigarette products. After that process concluded, an en banc Fifth Circuit vacated the FDA’s denial of those products’ applications, concluding that the agency performed a “surprise switcheroo” by relying on criteria for evaluating applications that the Fifth Circuit found…
Read More FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments (No. 23-1038)