Notable Petitions

The “Notable Petitions” feature lists petitions that likely will later appear on our “Petitions to Watch” list when they are ready for consideration by the Justices.  “Notable Petitions” are those that Tom has identified as raising one or more questions that has a reasonable chance of being granted in an appropriate case.  We generally do not attempt to evaluate whether the case presents an appropriate vehicle to decide the question, which is a critical consideration in determining whether certiorari will be granted.

The newest notable petitions, along with the opinions below and any other briefs filed at the Court so far, follow the jump.

Title: New York v. Williams
Docket: 09-1425
Issue: Whether the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits a court from correcting a sentence that, as originally pronounced, lacked a required component or was otherwise illegally lenient.

• Opinion below (New York Court of Appeals)
• Petition for certiorari

Title: City of New York v. Green
Docket: 09-1426
Issues: (1) Whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq., applies — or applies with the same level of disability accommodation as would normally be applied — to emergency medical responders who, under exigent circumstances, make a medically reasonable decision to transport a disabled person to the hospital without evaluating the person’s refusal of medical assistance; and (2) whether an “exigent circumstances” exception to the ADA, applicable in nonhospital emergency medical settings, would expose disabled patients to a significant risk of unwanted and paternalistic medical intervention.

• Opinion below (2d Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari

Title: Kelly v. Winston
Docket: 09-1431
Issues: (1) Whether the Fourth Circuit denied the state court the deference mandated by 28 U.S.C. § 2254 by holding that the state court’s judgment was not an adjudication on the merits and thus not entitled to deference because the state court dismissed the claim without an evidentiary hearing, by confusing the application of §§ 2254(d) and (e)(1), by approving a hearing in federal court contrary to AEDPA, and by accepting, without finding cause and prejudice for the default, new evidence to support a claim of mental retardation which the state prisoner affirmatively had told the state court had been destroyed; and (2) whether the Fourth Circuit impermissibly enlarged the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel by permitting consideration of evidence which did not exist at the time of counsel’s representation.

• Opinion below (4th Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari

Title: Hernandez v. Louisiana
Docket: 09-1440
Issues: (1) Whether a forty-year delay between offense and indictment prejudiced this petitioner so substantially as to violate his due process rights, when the petitioner had no opportunity to identify or preserve evidence because he had no notice of the crime during this delay; (2) whether the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the prosecution of a petitioner forty years after the alleged crime when the delay was not caused intentionally by the prosecution to impair the petitioner’s ability to gain a tactical advantage; and (3) whether the petitioner’s guilt was proved beyond a reasonable doubt when the only testimony about all of the elements of the crime came from the alleged victim, who relied on her memory from nearly forty years ago when she was less than ten years old.

• Opinion below (Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit)
• Petition for certiorari

[Note: This petition was distributed for the Justices’ conference on Sept. 27, 2010.]