Court grants three cases, acts on asylum issue
on Apr 17, 2006 at 10:02 am
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether it is unconstitutional for a judge in a criminal trial to allow family members of a murder victim to wear buttons depicting the victim, when they are spectators in the courtroom. The Court also agreed to rule on a harmless error issue in criminal law, and on whether federal agencies must meet a six-year time limit on seeking payment of money owed to the government.
The Court refused to hear, in advance of a D.C. Circuit Court ruling, a challenge by two members of a Muslim minority group in China to their continued detention at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The two individuals have been found not to be enemy combatants, but the government refuses to release them because it fears they would be tortured if sent to China, and has found no other country to receive them. A federal judge ruled that the two were wrongly detained, but that the courts could provide no remedy. That ruling is now under review in the D.C. Circuit, with a hearing there set for May 8. The Supreme Court’s only action on Monday was to refuse to hear the case prior to the Circuit Court’s ruling. The case is Qassim v. Bush (05-892).
In a summary decision, the Court ordered the Ninth Circuit Court to give federal immigration officials the first opportunity to decide whether a member of a family of aliens can qualify for asylum on a claim that they face persecution because of family membership. The Ninth Circuit allowed such a claim, but the Court, in an unsigned opinion, found that the issue should have been decided initially by federal immigration officials. The case was Gonzales v. Thomas (05-552). The case involves members of a family now living in California that are related to a South African man who has a reputation for abusing his black workers in that country. The family members, facing deportation to South Africa, contend that they face persecution because of their ties to the man known as “Boss Ronnie” in Durban, South Africa. The legal issue in the case is whether members in a family group can claim, under asylum, that they have “membership in a particular social group.”
The courtroom button display case the Justices will hear is Carey v. Musladin (05-785). The Ninth Circuit ruled that family members’ wearing of buttons with a picture of the murder victim resulted in “inherent prejudice” to the accused on trial. The appeal by California state officials argues that there was no right not to have such depictions on display during a trial.
That and the other two cases granted review on Monday will be heard next Term. In the criminal law case (U.S. v. Resendiz-Ponce, 05-998), the Court will be deciding whether a failure to include in an indictment an element of the crime can ever be excused as “harmless error.” The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the charges must always be dismissed if there was such an omission.
The third case, BP American Production v. Burton (05-669), arises out of a dispute over the payment of royalties due the federal government on mining for methane gas under federal leases in New Mexico. The Court refused to hear one issue raised by BP, on the method for calculating such royalties. But, at the suggestion of the U.S. solicitor general, it agreed to hear a second, procedural question on which the Circuit Courts are divided: whether the six-year time limit for filing lawsuits seeking to recover money applies only to actual lawsuits, and not to agency enforcement actions. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., who wrote the D.C. Circuit Court ruling when the case was decided there, is recused. Justice Stephen G. Breyer is also recused, but his reason is not known.
Among other orders the Court issued on Monday, it invited the U.S. Solicitor General to submit views on whether a Canadian company that does commercial business in the U.S. is to be treated as an organ of the Canadian government, and thus entitled to have legal claims against it decided in federal, not state, court. The cases involve the Canadian firm Powerex Corp., arising out of the energy crisis in California a few years ago. The cases are docket numbers 05-85 and 05-584.
Among the cases denied review were challenges by two Roman Catholic priests and the Archbishop of Los Angeles to state grand jury subpoenas for the pastoral counseling records of the two priests for use in investigating possible child abuse. The docket numbers are 05-1017 and 05-1039.
