Sorry for the delay in my updates this week — minor technical difficulties, hopefully now all resolved! Thankfully, there’s not much to report. The Court granted cert in one case on Monday, and issued one opinion today.
I’ll begin with the cert grant. Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, before a defendant is allowed to plead guilty, the judge must explain certain consequences of…
Read More United States v. Benitez (03-167) and Virginia v. Maryland (Orig. 129)While we were all out eating turkey, the Court was busy, granting cert in 6 cases and issuing 2 opinions. Here’s the rundown:
Both opinions are unanimous reversals of the 9th Circuit. The first, United States v. Banks (02-473) is a Fourth Amendment case. The police had a warrant to search Banks’s apartment for cocaine. When they arrived at his apartment, they knocked and called…
Read More United States v. Banks (02-473), Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez (02-749) and order listNothing of interest on the order list today, but three separate dissents from denials of cert. The first two dissents are in Torres v. Mullin (03-5781). In July 1993, Oklahoma arrested Torres, a Mexican national, and charged him with murder. In direct violation of Torres’ rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Oklahoma failed to tell Torres that he could have his consul informed…
Read More Torres v. Mullin (03-5781) and Concrete Works of Colorado v. City and County of Denver (02-1673)As predicted, the Court issued its first opinion of the Term today, a unanimous decision, authored by Scalia, in Barnhart v. Thomas (02-763). This is a bad day for the O’Connor clerks. She likes to issue the first opinion, and I can assure you that she is not happy that she lost the opinion race, especially since she lost the race to Scalia! (For the…
Read More Barnhart v. Thomas (02-763)Adding some excitement to this Term, the Court granted cert in two cases brought by prisoners currently being held at the Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Rasul v. Bush (03-334); Al Odah v. United States (03-343). The prisoners want to challenge the legality of their continued confinement, but the first question — and the only one the Court will consider — is whether federal…
Read More Rasul v. Bush (03-334); Al Odah v. United States (03-343) and Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (02-572)On the agenda today: 3 1/2 grants, and a summary reversal in a habeas case. I’ll begin with the summary reversal. In Mitchell v. Esparza (02-1369), the Court summarily reversed the Sixth Circuit’s decision affirming the grant of a habeas petition to a death row inmate. According to the Court, the Sixth Circuit had been insufficiently deferential to the state court’s conclusions, and thus the…
Read More Mitchell v. Esparza (02-1369) and order list