Supreme Court Decision Syllabus (SCOTUS Podcast) (Jake Leahy)

Send us a text

An 1855 treaty pre-empts Washington state’s ability to Tax the Yakama nation’s importation of fuel. 

Send us a text

Section 1226’s order to detain without release certain classes of aliens, does not hinge upon immedate arest upon release from criminal detention.

Send us a text

In this specific maritime context, manufacturers have a duty to warn when they know a dangerous part will, or must be incorporated into their product, and have reason to believe that users will be unaware of the danger.  (Here asbestos).

Send us a text

For purposes of the fair debt collection practices act, enforcers of security interests are NOT debt collectors.

Send us a text

Basically a remand to determine standing.

Send us a text

Service to a foreign state’s minister of foreign affairs, under FISA can not be to the embassy in the US.

Send us a text

The alaska hovercraft case (again).
ANILCA doesn’t give the park service authority over navigible waters.

Send us a text

Lorenzo can be charged under 10b-5 (a) and (c) even if he does not meet the qualifications to be charged under subsection (b) - as understood through the lens of Janus v SEC.

Send us a text

§411(a)’s safeharbor protects unknowing errors of law AND fact.

Send us a text

Fyi Scintilla means -
a tiny trace or spark of a specified quality or feeling.

Court declines to create a categorical rule making expert testimony given without REQUESTED supporting documentation invalid in ALJ hearings.

Send us a text

Send us a text

This is not about abortion, it’s about procedure.

Send us a text

Bucklew (prisoner) looses this challenge.

Send us a text

Send us a text

State Secrets wins.

Send us a text

where where one short duration crime ends and another begins nearly simultaneously the crimes are not separate “occasions” for ACCA purposes.

Send us a text

The Wisc Supreme Court did not properly consider the race based changes to the voting map.

Send us a text

Courts may not use ambiguous wording about consent to class arbitration to force class arbitration even over the idea of contra proferentem.

Send us a text

Texas’s rule against pastor laying hands on and praying with a prisoner in his final moments during a state execution is a violation of the religious land use and institutionalized persons act of 2000.

Send us a text

Free speech not implicated by deliberative body censure.

Send us a text

Sections 9 and 10 do not contain “look through” provisions 

Send us a text

Lawsuit may proceed.

Send us a text

The Tennessee Valley Authority is not completely immune from suit, but there may be other exceptions.

Send us a text

The requirement to read a sign to determine it’s compliance, by reference to the sign’s location, with a city ordinance banning off premises advertising, does not infringe 1a freedom of speech.

Send us a text

My limited understanding: 
Sovereign entities sued under FSIA (but without a separate cause of action implicating federal jurisdiction) are subject to the choice of law provision of the courts which would otherwise be the lawsuit’s venue.

Eg. Where you would have had to bring the underlying, non-FSIA/non-federal, Lawsuit where you found the law.

Send us a text

In this case the AEDPA and Brect must BOTH be followed.

Send us a text

Send us a text

Roe and Casey are overruled.

Send us a text

This particular subsection is toll-able

Send us a text

Here Emotional distress damages are not allowed.

Send us a text

Here A flag at city hall is not government speech.

Send us a text

Here a coach is allowed to pray at midfield after games.

Send us a text

Striking down New York’s restrictions on concealed carry licensing.

Send us a text

Generation shifting of powerplant types is a “major question” that the legislature did not clearly designate to the EPA.

Send us a text

Send us a text

Can be prosecuted by states.

Send us a text

The logic of the commerce clause extends to Congress’ power to raise an army and navy. 

Send us a text

Send us a text

Knowingly/Intentionally applies to the “authorized” exception of this statute.

Send us a text

“Entitled” here does not mean “to receive“

Send us a text

Here the legislature can be it’s own litigational party.

Send us a text

Prisoners can still challenge the death penalty using an (as yet not state authorized) substitute method.

Send us a text

Send us a text

Court declines to extend §1983 suits to violations of prophylactic rules protecting constitutional rights.

Send us a text

Send us a text

“Crime of violence” requires the underlying crime supporting it to require the government to prove “violence” beyond a reasonable doubt.

Send us a text

Send us a text

Prisoner here can’t use the all writs act to help him develop evidence that may not be admissible.

Send us a text

Not allowed to discriminate based solely on religion.

Send us a text

The decision below did not meet the “clear and unmistakable error”

Send us a text

Send us a text

Texas’ bingo laws are regulatory in nature, therefore it may not prevent the Tribe from offering bingo on reservation lands.

Send us a text

Send us a text

Not really sure.

Send us a text

§1782 does not authorize district courts to demand discovery for international arbitration. 

Send us a text

The Dual sovereignty exception to Double jeopardy is not implicated by the sovereignty of the court personnel, but by the sovereignty of the AUTHORITY under which that court operates. 

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Send us a text

Consumers may sue apple for allegedly monopolizing app sales.

Send us a text

Nevada v Hall is overruled.

Send us a text

Regarding relators filing qui tam and when is too late.

Send us a text

Breach of a contract under the bankruptcy code still constitutes breach of a contract in this instance.

Send us a text

Bighorn national forest is not “occupied lands” in the context of an 1865 treaty.  Said treaty did not expire upon Wyoming's statehood. 

Send us a text

A clarification on what is considered clear evidence that a drug company could not fulfill it’s duty to warn in light of FDA refusals to allow label changes.

Send us a text

Retaliatory arrest claim defeated by probable cause to arrest. 

Send us a text

Explicitly stated not to be case about the right to an abortion, although i’m sure the news media will tell you so.

Still have a bit of a sore throat, so apologies on some audible swallowing noises etc.

Send us a text

Third party counterclaim defendants can not remove to federal court.

Send us a text

Definition of “final decision”

Send us a text

Prisoner does not get credit for his pre trial custody in re his supervised release for another crime.

Send us a text

About claim filing rules.

Send us a text

Vacate and remand, contempt findings in this context require “no fair ground of doubt”.

Send us a text

In re notice and comment when changing substanitive rules. 

Send us a text

CA Law needs to fill a gap in federal law to be applicable on the outer continental shelf, under the OCSLA, it can not simply be “not inconsistent”.

Send us a text

In this context, Agents of the sovereign (federal agencies) are not “persons” in this section of the AIA.

Send us a text

Rodney Reed was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in Texas. He filed a motion under Texas's post-conviction DNA testing law, requesting DNA testing on certain evidence, which he believed would help identify the true perpetrator. The state trial court denied Reed's motion, citing an inadequate chain of custody for the evidence he sought to test. Reed then sued in federal court, arguing that Texas's post-conviction DNA testing law violated procedural due process. The Fifth Circuit dismissed Reed's claim as time-barred, but the Supreme Court held that the statute of limitations for a procedural due process claim begins to run when the state litigation ends, in this case when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed's motion for rehearing. The Court ultimately reversed the Fifth Circuit's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Send us a text

In Arellano v. McDonough, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Section 5110(b)(1) of the Veterans' Benefits Act is not subject to equitable tolling. The case involves the effective date of an award of disability compensation to a veteran of the United States military. Adolfo Arellano applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for disability compensation based on his psychiatric disorders approximately 30 years after his honorable discharge from the Navy. Arellano argued that his award's effective date should be governed by an exception in § 5110(b)(1), which makes the effective date the day following the date of the veteran's discharge or release if application is received within one year of such date. However, the Supreme Court held that equitably tolling the provision would depart from the terms that Congress "specifically provided."

Send us a text

Cruz v. Arizona is a case heard by the US Supreme Court that questioned whether the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling was an adequate ground to preclude review of a federal question. The petitioner, John Montenegro Cruz, was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death, and argued that under Simmons v. South Carolina, he should have been allowed to inform the jury that a life sentence in Arizona would be without parole. Cruz sought to raise the Simmons issue again in a state post-conviction petition under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g). The Arizona Supreme Court denied relief after concluding that Lynch was not "a significant change in the law". The US Supreme Court held that the Arizona Supreme Court's holding that Lynch was not a significant change in the law is an exceptional case where a state-court judgment rests on such a novel and unforeseeable interpretation of a state-court procedural rule that the decision is not adequate to foreclose review of the federal claim.

Send us a text

In Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc., et al. v. Hewitt, the Supreme Court ruled that an employee paid a daily rate does not qualify for an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime pay requirements, unless they satisfy the conditions set out in Section 541.604(b). Michael Hewitt, a former employee of Helix, sued his employer claiming overtime pay under FLSA, as he worked 84 hours a week while on the vessel, but Helix paid him a daily-rate basis with no overtime compensation. The Court concluded that Hewitt was not paid on a salary basis as defined in Section 602(a), and thus was not an executive exempt from FLSA's overtime pay guarantee.

Send us a text

Quarles’ burglary conviction counts under the Armed Career Criminal act.

Send us a text

In Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, the Supreme Court held that the discharge exceptions under Section 523(a)(2)(a) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code apply to an individual debtor, regardless of said debtor's culpability in the fraud. Recorded by Jake Leahy.

Bartenwerfer v. Buckley

Send us a text

Bittner, was required to file reports under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). In 2004, Congress amended the law to create a penalty for the non-willful failure to file certain reports pertaining to foreign bank accounts. After filing reports, Bittner was assessed penalties for over fifty accounts that he had failed to report over several years. The Secretary of the Treasury assessed a penalty for his non-willful failure to file in the amount of $10,000 per account per year, while Bittner claimed the amount should be $10,000 per annual report. Bittner was assessed a penalty of $2.7 million. The Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the United States. Bittner appealed. Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion of the court reversing the Fifth Circuit, finding in favor of Bittner. Recorded by Jake Leahy.
Bittner v. United States

Send us a text

The Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler's Checks Act requires that abandoned property from a "money order . . . or other similar written instrument," be returned to the state where the property was purchased. This rule is different from the common law, which requires that unclaimed property be returned to the state of incorporation, not the state of purchase. The Supreme Court held that Agent Checks and Teller's Checks, offered by MoneyGram, were sufficiently similar to a money order to be governed by the statutory framework. As a result, these products offered by MoneyGram should be returned to the state of purchase when unclaimed, rather than the state of incorporation (most often, Delaware). Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the unanimous court (although the Court was not unanimous for a portion of the decision, there is no dissent regarding that portion).

Delaware v. Pennsylvania

Send us a text

Miguel Luna Perez, a deaf student who attended schools in Michigan's Sturgis Public School District, was denied graduation. his family filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Education claiming that the district failed to provide him with a free and appropriate public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The parties reached a settlement, and Perez then sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), seeking compensatory damages, but the district court dismissed the suit, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed; based on IDEA's requirement that plaintiffs exhaust administrative procedures before seeking relief that is also available under IDEA. HELD: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not require Perez to exhaust administrative remedies before filing an action, because IDEA does not provide for compensatory damages. 

Send us a text

Michelle Cochran and Axon Enterprise each filed a federal district court lawsuit, challenging the constitutionality of the agency proceedings against them in separate enforcement actions initiated in the SEC and the FTC. Both suits were initially dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, but the Fifth Circuit disagreed as to the SEC question, finding that Cochran's claim would not receive "meaningful judicial review" in a court of appeals, was "wholly collateral to the Exchange Act's statutory-review scheme," and fell "outside the SEC's expertise." The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Axon's constitutional challenges to the FTC proceeding. HELD: District court's continue to have jurisdiction over federal questions arising from constitutional challenges, notwisthstanding the Securities Exchange Act and Federal Trade Commission Act. 

Send us a text

New York and New Jersey entered into a compact in 1953 to establish the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor to conduct regulatory and law enforcement activities at the Port, and in 2018, New Jersey sought to withdraw from the Compact, resulting in New York filing a bill of complaint in this Court. HELD: Despite New York's opposition, New Jersey is permitted to withdraw from the Waterfront Commission Compact. Recorded by Jeff Barnum. 

Send us a text

Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. (Halkbank) vs. the United States involves the criminal prosecution against Halkbank for evading American economic sanctions against Iran.  Halkbank claims immunity, as an instrumentality of a foreign state under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA). The Supreme Court held that the District Court has jurisdiction over this criminal prosecution of Halkbank, that the FSIA's comprehensive scheme governing claims of immunity in civil actions against foreign states, and their instrumentalities does not cover criminal cases. The Court concluded that the FSIA's provisions extend only to the civil context. Guest recorded by Jeff Barnum. 

Send us a text

Section 363(m) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code is not a jurisdictional provision. Courts should not construe a statute to be jurisdictional unless clearly stated. A jurisdictional provisions puts a limit on the jurisdiction of federal courts. Guest recorded by Jeff Barnum. 

Send us a text

In Wilkins v. United States, the Supreme Court addressed a dispute between property owners in rural Montana and the government regarding a road easement. The government claimed that the easement included public access, while the property owners disagreed. The property owners sued the government under the Quiet Title Act, but the government argued that their claim was barred by a 12-year time limit in the Act. The Court held that the time limit was a nonjurisdictional claims-processing rule and not a jurisdictional bar. It concluded that the Act's text and context did not indicate a clear statement of jurisdictional consequences. The Court also determined that previous Supreme Court decisions did not definitively interpret the relevant statute as jurisdictional. Justice Sotomayor delivered the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Syllabus read by guest reader Jeff Barnum. 

Feel free to contact the show with any feedback you have to scotusdecisions@gmail.com.

Send us a text

In Ciminelli v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Circuit's right-to-control theory of wire fraud cannot be used as the basis for a conviction under federal fraud statutes. Louis Ciminelli was convicted of federal wire fraud for his involvement in a scheme to rig the bid process for state-funded development projects under Governor Andrew Cuomo. The Government relied on the right-to-control theory, which establishes wire fraud by depriving a victim of potentially valuable economic information. The conviction turned on whether the Second Circuit's established "righto-to-control" theory is sufficient to establish federal wire fraud. The Supreme Court held that the right to valuable economic information is not a traditional property interest and therefore cannot form the basis for a wire fraud conviction under the relevant statutes. Read by Jake A. Leahy. 

Send us a text

In Percoco v. United States, the Supreme Court considered whether a private citizen with influence over government decision-making can be convicted for wire fraud on the theory that he or she deprived the public of its “intangible right of honest services.” Joseph Percoco, former Executive Deputy Secretary to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was charged with conspiracy to commit honest-services wire fraud. Percoco accepted payments while on hiatus from government service to assist a real-estate development company (while he was running Governor Cuomo's re-election campaign for eight months). 

The trial court instructed the jury based on the Second Circuit's 1982 decision in Margiotta, which held that a private person can commit honest-services fraud if they dominate and control government decisions. The Supreme Court ruled that instructing the jury based on Margiotta was an error, stating that the Margiotta theory was overly vague and lacked sufficient clarity. Reversed and remanded. Read by Jake A. Leahy. 

Send us a text

"The question presented is whether the statute categorically abrogates (legalspeak for eliminates) any sovereign immunity the board enjoys from legal claims. We hold it does not. Under long-settled law, Congress must use unmistakable language to abrogate sovereign immunity. Nothing in the statute creating the board meets that high bar." (First paragraph of Justice Kagan's majority opinion). 

The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) was enacted in 2016 to address Puerto Rico's financial crisis, established the Board as an entity within the territorial government of Puerto Rico. The Court held that nothing in PROMESA explicitly abrogates the Board's immunity, and Congress must clearly state if its intent to do so. 

The Court emphasized that PROMESA does not provide for suits against the Board or Puerto Rico, nor does it create a cause of action. Although certain provisions in PROMESA reference judicial review and declaratory relief, they do not indicate a general abrogation of the Board's immunity. The Court concluded that the statutory language and the Board's protections are consistent with the retention of sovereign immunity. 

Read by Jake A. Leahy. Feel free to shoot the podcast an email at scotusdecisions@gmail.com.