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Facts of the case
In 1997, William Wooden broke into a mini-storage facility in Georgia and stole from 10 different units, resulting in 10 counts of burglary, to which he pled guilty. Then, in 2014, a plainclothes officer went to Wooden’s home, where he witnessed Wooden in possession of a rifle. Wooden was arrested and charged in state court with being a felon in possession of a firearm, but the case was dismissed when the district attorney noted that there was no probable cause for Wooden’s arrest. Wooden was subsequently charged by federal indictment with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and 924(e). After Wooden was found guilty, the district court found during his sentencing hearing that Wooden qualified as an armed career criminal under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), based on his conviction for the 10 counts of burglary, and sentenced him to 15 years’ imprisonment accordingly. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that Wooden’s prior burglaries were separate from each other, despite occurring as part of a single criminal spree.

Question
Are offenses committed as part of a single criminal spree but sequentially in time “committed on occasions different from one another” for purposes of a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act?

*The Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA) is a United States federal law that provides sentence enhancements for felons who commit crimes with firearms if they are convicted of certain crimes three or more times. If a felon has three or more prior convictions for offenses that are "violent felony" offenses or "serious drug offenses," the Act provides a minimum sentence of fifteen years imprisonment, instead of the ten-year maximum prescribed under the Gun Control Act. The Act provides for an implied maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Career_Criminal_Act

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Facts of the case
In 2014, The State of Mississippi filed a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint with the U.S. Supreme Court against the State of Tennessee, the City of Memphis, Tennessee, and the Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division ("MLGW"), collectively referred to as Tennessee involving groundwater in an aquifer. Mississippi alleged that Tennessee used a commercial pumping operation to forcibly take approximately 252 billion gallons of groundwater in Mississippi's sovereign territory. The groundwater, according to the complaint, is intrastate water naturally collected and stored within the Mississippi's state borders in a sandstone formation and is not a naturally shared resource. In its motion, Mississippi asked if it would be entitled to damages and relief as a result of the pumping.

In response, Tennessee cited Mississippi's 2005 lawsuit against Memphis and MLGW with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi for wrongful taking of the groundwater. The district court held that the aquifer was an interstate resource and that Mississippi could not be granted relief unless and until the aquifer was apportioned, or divided and assigned. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Mississippi's petition for review. In its response, Tennessee argued that Mississippi was forwarding the same arguments as it did in its first lawsuit, that Mississippi failed to state a viable claim, and that the issue preclusion doctrine barred relitigation of these issues. Tennessee requested that the court deny Mississippi's motion for leave to file a complaint.

Questions
1. Whether the Court will grant Mississippi leave to file an original action to seek relief from respondents’ use of a pumping operation to take approximately 252 billion gallons of high-quality groundwater;
2. Whether Mississippi has sole sovereign authority over and control of groundwater naturally stored within its borders, including in sandstone within Mississippi’s borders; and
3. Whether Mississippi is entitled to damages, injunctive, and other equitable relief for the Mississippi intrastate groundwater intentionally and forcibly taken by respondents."

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Facts of the case
In 2008, Ervine Davenport was convicted of first-degree murder. His conviction was challenged because during his trial he had been placed in shackles. His wrists, waist, and ankles were all restrained, but there was a curtain to prevent the jury from seeing the shackles. The state said that although the shackles were unconstitutional, they did not effect the jury's verdict. Michigan's Court of Appeals agreed with the state. The Michigan Supreme Court disagreed, however, after several jurors testified that they had seen the shackles or heard comments about them, and then sent the case back to the lower courts. The lower court again determined that the shackles did not affect the verdict, and the appellate court agreed with the state once again, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied an appeal.

Davenport then challenged his conviction in the federal courts. The district court refused to hear the case. He then petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which agreed the hear the case. This appeals court cited the Deck v. Missouri decision, and quoted from Holbrook v. Flynn: "shackling is inherently prejudicial". The court found that the state had not met the burden of proof necessary to show that the jury was not influenced by the shackling, and provided habeas relief. The state attempted to have the decision stayed, but the court declined.

Question
What is the standard of review necessary for a federal court to grant habeas relief?

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Facts of the case
In April 2006, two men got into a fight with several other people on a street in the Bronx. Shortly thereafter, someone opened fire with a 9 millimeter handgun, killing a child in a passing car. Three eyewitnesses identified Nicholas Morris as the shooter. Police searched Morris’s home and found a 9 millimeter cartridge and ammunition for a .357 revolver. They arrested him the next day. He was indicted for the child’s murder and for possession of a 9 millimeter handgun, but the prosecution ended in a mistrial. Instead of trying him again, the State offered Morris a deal: If Morris pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm at the scene of the shooting, the State would request that the murder charge be dismissed with prejudice. Morris accepted the plea deal. However, the State charged Morris with possessing a .357 revolver at the scene of the shooting, rather than a 9 millimeter established as the murder weapon. The prosecution lacked sufficient evidence to establish possession of the .357 revolver, so Morris supplied the evidence through his own statement.

In 2013, the state charged Darrell Hemphill, the petitioner in this case who was also present at the fight in the Bronx, with the murder. At trial, Hemphill elicited testimony that police had recovered the 9 millimeter cartridge on Morris’s nightstand hours after the shooting. In response, the prosecution sought to introduce into evidence Morris’s statement that he possessed a .357 revolver at the scene. Based in part on this evidence, Hemphill was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison. An appellate court affirmed the conviction, as did New York’s highest court.

Question
When, if ever, does a criminal defendant who “opens the door” to evidence that would otherwise be barred by the rules of evidence also forfeit his right to exclude evidence otherwise barred by the Confrontation Clause?

*The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Generally, the right is to have a face-to-face confrontation with witnesses who are offering testimonial evidence against the accused in the form of cross-examination during a trial. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the right to confrontation applicable to the states and not just the federal government. The right only applies to criminal prosecutions, not civil cases or other proceedings.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confrontation_Clause

Quote (18nomaUSEast @ Sep 13 2021 10:30am)

That's a pretty exciting list of issues!

Quote (EndlessSky @ Sep 13 2021 01:26pm)

Most of them sound fairly non-consequential.

I hope Mississippi wins theirs. We have a similar problem in NJ. Most of our air pollution originates in PA, but PA could care less about our state.

I also think felons should be given back their 2nd Amendment rights after a 5 year probationary period, but I don't think that applies here.

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Facts of the case
Zayn Husayn, also known as Abu Zubaydah, is a former associate of Osama bin Laden. U.S. military forces captured him in Pakistan and detained him abroad before moving him to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where he is currently being held. Zubaydah alleged that, before being transferred to Guantanamo, he was held at a CIA “dark site” in Poland, where two former CIA contractors used “enhanced interrogation techniques” against him. Zubaydah intervened in a Polish criminal investigation into the CIA’s conduct in that country, and he sought to compel the U.S. government to disclose evidence connected with that investigation.

The government has declassified some information about Zubaydah’s treatment in CIA custody, but it has asserted the state-secrets privilege to protect other information. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the government’s assertion of state-secrets privilege based on its own assessment of potential harms to national security and allowed discovery in the case to proceed.

Question
Did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit err in rejecting the federal government’s assertion of the state-secrets privilege based on its own assessment of the potential harms to national security that would result from disclosure of information pertaining to clandestine CIA activities?

*Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian national currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF). Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and has been in United States custody ever since, including four-and-a-half years in the secret prison network of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was transferred among prisons in various countries including a year in Poland, as part of a United States' extraordinary rendition program. During his time in CIA custody, Zubaydah was extensively interrogated; he was water-boarded 83 times and subjected to numerous other torture techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, confinement in small dark boxes, deprivation of solid food, stress positions, and physical assaults. Videotapes of some of Zubaydah's interrogations are amongst those destroyed by the CIA in 2005.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah

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Facts of the case
Dilation and extraction (D&E) is the standard method of abortion used in the second trimester of pregnancy, accounting for 95% of second-trimester abortions nationwide. Kentucky House Bill 454 requires patients to undergo a procedure to end potential fetal life before they may receive an abortion using the D&E method.

Kentucky’s only abortion clinic and two of its doctors filed a lawsuit challenging the law, arguing that it violates patients’ constitutional right to abortion prior to fetal viability. All defendants except then-Secretary of Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Adam Meier, and Commonwealth Attorney Thomas B. Wine, were voluntarily dismissed prior to trial. After a five-day bench trial, the district court ruled for the plaintiffs and entered a permanent injunction. In the meantime, governor Matt Bevin was replaced by Andy Beshear and Meier was replaced by Eric Friedlander.

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court, and the new Health Secretary declined to continue defending the law. Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, asked the Sixth Circuit for permission to intervene to defend the law, but the court declined.

Question
A case in which the Court will decide whether a state attorney general vested with the power to defend state law should be permitted to intervene after a federal court of appeals invalidates a state statute when no other state actor will defend the law.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/recorddocuments/bill/18RS/hb454/bill.pdf

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Facts of the caseCamille Watson was staying with her sister and her sister’s husband, Larry Thompson, when she dialed 911 after seeing a diaper rash on the couple’s infant daughter and mistaking the rash for signs of abuse. In response, two Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) arrived at Thompson’s apartment building to investigate. The EMTs saw nothing amiss, and, unaware of Camille’s 911 call, Thompson told the EMTs that no one in his home had called 911. He asked the EMTs to leave, and they did.

Four police officers followed up to investigate the alleged child abuse and insisted on seeing Thompson’s daughter. Thompson asked to speak to the officers’ sergeant, and after being denied that request, asked whether the officers had a warrant (which they did not). Nevertheless, they physically tried to enter Thompson’s home, and when Thompson attempted to block the doorway, the officers tackled and handcuffed him. He was arrested and taken to jail, where he spent two days. He was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, and about three months later, the prosecution dropped the charges against him, stating that “People are dismissing the case in the interest of justice.”

Thompson filed a Section 1983 malicious prosecution* claim against the police officers involved. A federal district court granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendants on Thompson’s malicious prosecution claim due to his failure to establish favorable termination of his criminal case, which is required under binding Second Circuit precedent. The appellate court affirmed.

Question
Must a plaintiff who seeks to bring a Section 1983 action alleging unreasonable seizure pursuant to legal process show that the criminal proceeding against him “formally ended in a manner not inconsistent with his innocence,” or that the proceeding “ended in a manner that affirmatively indicates his innocence”?

*Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. Like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action (civil or criminal) that is (2) brought without probable cause and (3) dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution. In some jurisdictions, the term "malicious prosecution" denotes the wrongful initiation of criminal proceedings, while the term "malicious use of process" denotes the wrongful initiation of civil proceedings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_prosecution

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Facts of the case
In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother detonated two homemade pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the race, killing three and injuring hundreds. He was sentenced to death for his role in the bombings, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit threw out his death sentences on the grounds that the district court should have asked potential jurors what media coverage they had seen about Tsarnaev’s case, and the district court should not have excluded from the sentencing phase evidence that Tsarnaev’s brother was involved in a separate triple murder.

Question
Did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit err in vacating the death sentence for the district court’s failure to ask prospective jurors for a specific accounting of the pretrial media coverage they had seen, heard, or read, and for its exclusion of evidence at the sentencing phase of trial that Tsarnaev’s brother had been involved in different crimes two years before the bombing?

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Facts of the case
David Babcock enlisted in the Michigan National Guard in 1970 and served for 3.5 years. After his service, Babcock went to flight school and received his pilot’s license, then returned to work as a National Guard dual-status technician, where he worked for over 33 years, including an active-duty tour in Iraq between 2004 and 2005. (Under 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(1), a National Guard dual-status technician “is a Federal civilian employee” who “is assigned to a civilian position as a technician” while a member of the National Guard.)

Babcock retired from his position in 2009, at which time he began receiving Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) payments and, separately, military retirement pay from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. He fully retired in 2014 and at that point, applied for Social Security retirement benefits. On his application, he confirmed that he was receiving monthly CSRS payments. The Social Security Administration (SSA) granted his application but reduced his benefits because of his CSRS pension. Babcock asked the SSA to reconsider the reduction, noting that members of a uniformed service were not generally subject to the reduction in benefits (under the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP), and that as a dual-status technician, he qualified for that exception. SSA refused to change its initial determination, an administrative law judge (ALJ) upheld the determination, and then the Appeals Council affirmed the ALJ’s decision. A federal district court entered judgment against Babcock, and the appellate court affirmed.

Question
Is a civil service pension received for federal civilian employment as a “military technician (dual status)” considered “a payment based wholly on service as a member of a uniformed service” for the purposes of the Social Security Act’s windfall elimination provision?

Quote (Handcuffs @ 13 Sep 2021 17:02)

Yeah, I think so too. I also agree with EndlessSky that many of them are fairly inconsequential if not just intriguing.



I think the Mississippi case is interesting and I imagine future state conflicts are going to arise regarding water rights. There's already mounting tension all across the south western states due to the dwindling of the Colorado River.

Quote (18nomaUSEast @ Sep 13 2021 02:45pm)

First case has huge implications

Quote (Handcuffs @ 13 Sep 2021 17:48)

Those are all of the cases that will be heard during the month of October. All-in-all, there's some really interesting cases here, ranging from abortion, the Boston Marathon Bomber, to the CIA's torturing of people in secret prisons.



How so? I don't suggest otherwise, but just genuinely curious your thoughts on it.

Quote (Handcuffs @ Sep 13 2021 04:43pm)

October 13th: Babcock v. Saul ^Santara I feel like you're really knowledgeable about military matters, and perhaps you have some thoughts/insight on this? I don't know much about it.

Quote (18nomaUSEast @ 13 Sep 2021 18:15)

If an armed robber robs four stores in a spree and was found guilty of all four, the first three charges would cause the fourth to carry a the mandatory minimum 15 year sentence. One bad spree could take away a sentencing body's discretion.