Relist watch

John Elwood reviews Mondays relisted cases.

Welcome to the only Supreme Court blog post you will read this week that will say nary a word about Hollingsworth v. Perry, United States v. Windsor, gay marriage, Proposition 8, or DOMA other than the minimum number of popular search terms necessary to avoid utter internet obscurity. But now that I have attended to the demands of my Google overlords, lets move on to this weeks relist update, which we dedicate to those hardy souls who camped out all weekend to watch the argument in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter.

We begin with last weeks success stories. Both of Mondays grants had spent time in the antechamber of cert. First up is the Sixth Circuits closely split en banc decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 12-682, striking down as unconstitutional another popularly enacted amendment to a state constitution: this time Prop 2, passed by voters in the Pleasant Peninsula in the wake of Gratz v. Bollinger to prohibit preferential treatment on the basis of race or sex in public-university admissions. Although, as explained in last weeks post, the issue in Schuette is conceptually distinct from the issues in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 11-345, it is related enough that scads of people are reading the tea leaves to determine what it may mean for that potential blockbuster.

The other grant concerned the Fifth Circuits decision in United States v. Woods, 12-562, regarding another hot-button issue that seems destined to ramp up the pressure for cameras in the courtroom: whether the underpayment penalty in Section 6662 of the Internal Revenue Code applies to a transaction whose sole purpose is to generate a tax loss. Delighting fans of tax shelters and bad dance pop alike, Woods involves the transaction best known by the gerrymandered acronym COBRA (which purportedly stands for currency options bring reward alternatives). To spice things up further, the Court asked the parties to address the additional question whether the district court even had jurisdiction under Section 6226 to consider the substantial valuation misstatement penalty. (Woodss fellow one-time relist and loyal sidekick, Alpha I, LP v. United States, 12-550, concerning the so-called Son of BOSS tax-avoidance strategy, appears now to be on hold pending the decision in Woods.)

On a less-happy note, unless youre the U.S. Treasury, Monday brought bad news for the petitioners in two-time relist Sanchez v. United States, 12-335, the Federal Tort Claims Act case involving residents of Vieques, Puerto Rico, who will now have to content themselves with having near-perfect weather and an absence of ongoing live-fire exercises.

Two of last weeks relists are back: Ninth Circuit state-on-top habeas case and two-time relist Nevada v. Jackson, 12-694, and, um, Ninth Circuit state-on-top habeas case and eight-time relist Marshall v. Rodgers, 12-382. The Court may just need a little more time to digest the record it requested in Jackson. Meanwhile, in Rodgers, barring an especially noteworthy glitch in the Clerks Office computer, it seems likely that some sort of an opinion is in the works.

Only one new relist: Elmbrook School District v. Doe, 12-755, concerns the constitutional propriety of a suburban Milwaukee school districts decision to hold its graduation ceremonies in the very basic auditorium of a local church, which, unlike the school facilities, provided the three inalienable American rights: ample parking, comfortable seating, and air conditioning. Over the dissents of Chief Judge Easterbook and Judges Posner and Ripple, the en banc Seventh Circuit held that the schools action violated the First Amendments Establishment Clause because it convey[ed] an impermissible message of endorsement and carried an impermissible aspect of coercion. The school district maintains that its decision to hold ceremonies at the church for fully secular reasons did not run afoul of existing Establishment-Clause jurisprudence.

Thats all for now. The Court will be in Conference again this Friday, so Ill be back in the drivers seat next week with another relist watch full of fresh insights. Until then, in my capacity as a non-administrator of the Elmbrook School District, I am free to say Chag Sameach and Happy Easter!

Thanks to Eric White for compiling and drafting this update.

[page]12-755 [/page] (relisted after the March 22 Conference)

[page]12-694 [/page] (relisted after the March 15 and March 22 Conferences)

[page]12-382[/page] (relisted after the January 4, January 11, January 18, February 15, February 22, March 1, March 15, and March 22 Conferences)