Today’s Orders

The Court has granted certiorari in four cases today: Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, et al. (08-861) Black, et al.  v. United States (08-876);  Wood v. Allen (08-9156) [limited to questions 1 and 2]; and Beard v. Kindler (08-992). The Court has invited the views of the Solicitor General in Lewis, et al. v. City of Chicago (08-974). Justice Alito filed two dissents from the summary dispositions of Grooms v. United States (07-9086) and Megginson v. United States (07-6309), vacated and remanded in light of the Court’s decision in Arizona v. Gant.

The order list is available here. Available filings in these cases are below.

Docket: 08-861
Title: Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, et al.
Issue: Whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is consistent with separation-of-powers principles – as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board  is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is in turn overseen by the President – or contrary to the Appointments Clause of the Constitution,  as the PCAOB members are appointed by the SEC.

• Opinion below (D.C. Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition for respondents Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
• Brief in opposition for the United States
• Petitioner’s reply
• Brief amicus curiae of Washington Legal Foundation (in support of petitioners)
• Brief amicus curiae of Mountain States Legal Foundation (in support of petitioners)
• Brief amicus curiae of American Civil Rights Union (in support of petitioners)

Docket: 08-974
Title: Lewis, et al. v. City of Chicago
Issue: Where an employer adopts an employment practice that discriminates against African Americans in violation of Title VII’s disparate impact provision, must a plaintiff file an EEOC charge within 300 days after the announcement of the practice, or may a plaintiff file a charge within 300 days after the employer’s use of the discriminatory practice?

• Opinion below (7th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket: 08-876
Title: Black, et al.  v. United States
Issue: Whether the “honest services” clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 applies in cases where the jury did not find – nor did the district court instruct them that they had to find – that the defendants “reasonably contemplated identifiable economic harm,” and if the defendants’ reversal claim is preserved for review after they objected to the government’s request for a special verdict.

• Opinion below (7th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket: 08-992
Title: Beard v. Kindler
Issue:  Is a state procedural rule automatically “inadequate” under the adequate-state-grounds doctrine – and therefore unenforceable on federal habeas corpus review – because the state rule is discretionary rather than mandatory?

• Opinion below (3rd Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply

Docket:  08-9156
Title: Wood v. Allen
Issue: Whether the state court’s conclusion–that during the sentencing phase of a capital case the defense attorney’s failure to present the defendant’s impaired mental functioning did not constitute ineffective counsel–was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts and whether the circuit court erred in its application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to the review of the state court decision.

• Opinion below (11th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Petitioner’s reply