Good morning everyone,

In response to feedback on my first Supreme Court update, a few introductory comments: First, this will be the last Supreme Court update sent to all lawyers in the firm. Going forward, only litigators and those who request them, will receive the updates. If you would like to receive them, please let me know, and I’ll add you to the list.

Second, while I will do my best to provide accurate and timely updates, I cannot guarantee perfection. Think of the updates sort of a like a fast and friendly introduction to the case, a more user-friendly syllabus. I will promptly correct any errors when I find them, but when reading the updates, recall that case (can’t remember the name off-hand), that says that you shouldn’t rely on the syllabus because it is not part of the opinion, etc.

Preliminaries aside, in a follow-up to yesterday’s update, the issue presented in the two consolidated cases (Nguyen v. United States (01-10873), and Phan v. United States (02-5034)) will be a challenge to the composition of the Ninth Circuit panel that affirmed petitioners’ convictions. The panel included the Chief District Judge for the District of the Northern Marianas Islands (a non-Article III judge), and petitioners ask the Court to decide whether the inclusion of a non-Article III judge vitiates the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

Finally, the Court issued a “miscellaneous” order yesterday, indicating that it had granted a sixth case:

Sell v. United States (02-5664): Whether the Court of Appeals erred in rejecting petitioner’s argument that allowing the government to administer antipsychotic medication against his will solely to render him competent to stand trial for non-violent offenses would violate his rights under the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome any feedback or comments.

Sandy

From the Appellate Practice Group at Wiggin & Dana.
For more information, contact Jeff Babbin or Sandy Glover
at 203-498-4400, or visit our website at www.wiggin.com.