Status Quo Watch
on May 30, 2018 at 12:19 pm
John Elwood reviews Tuesday’s relists.
You know how every time news shows cut to a commercial after another boring segment, they tease the one interesting story about the dirtiest local restaurants/approaching swarm of killer bees/looming derecho, which they finally air in the program’s last two minutes? We at Relist Watch would never stoop to such tactics, instead preferring on principle that our reader(s) experience disappointment as early and often as possible. So we will say right up front that there are no new relists this week.
There are also very few old relists this week for that matter — in the sense of former relists. The court denied cert in only two relisted cases, Lee v. Ohio, 17-7213, and Belton v. Ohio, 17-7233, both challenging the constitutionality of an Ohio statute requiring certain juvenile offenders to be prosecuted as adults. And two one-time relists have reverted to being serially rescheduled cases: Wood v. Oklahoma, 17-6891, and Jones v. Oklahoma, 17-6943, both involving statistical disparities in capital sentencing.
There are, however, lots and lots of returning relists. And as you probably have noticed, there have been lots and lots of returning relists for a long time. In years past, I started prattling on about expecting an opinion around when a case had been relisted five or six times. The Supreme Court now has a dozen pending cases that have been relisted at least five times, and two cases approaching (Sause v. Bauer, 17-742, 11 relists) or surpassing (Azar v. Garza, 17-654, 14 relists) a dozen relists. When we close the books on October Term 2017 (and do our annual statistics post), it seems likely that we will see a trend toward more serial relists. A term that has been noteworthy for a slow pace of grants and a slow pace of decisions has also been noteworthy for its slow pace of clearing out relists.
We only have four more scheduled conferences in October Term 2017. (The court usually holds one unscheduled mop-up conference on the last Monday of the term.) Thus, there will be only four more opportunities for relists. I will be abroad during most of the next two weeks, so expect a list of relisted cases without much commentary. But unfortunately for our readership, I will return in time to comment on the last two weeks of relists.
Thanks once again to Kevin Brooks for compiling these cases.
New Relists
Now you’re hurting my feelings. Didn’t you read above that there are no new relists this week?
Returning Relists
Issue: Whether, pursuant to United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., the Supreme Court should vacate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s judgment and instruct that court to remand the case to the district court with directions to dismiss all claims for prospective relief regarding pregnant unaccompanied minors.
(relisted after the January 12, January 19, February 16, February 23, March 2, March 16, March 23, March 29, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit’s holding that law-enforcement officers who stopped the petitioner from praying silently in her own home were entitled to qualified immunity because there was no prior case law involving similar facts conflicts with Hope v. Pelzer, which “expressly rejected a requirement that previous cases be ‘fundamentally similar’” or involve “‘materially similar’” facts.
(relisted after the February 23, March 2, March 16, March 23, March 29, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Issue: Whether the death penalty in and of itself violates the Eighth Amendment in light of contemporary standards of decency and the geographic arbitrariness of its imposition.
(relisted after the February 23, March 2, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences; rescheduled after the March 16 conference; rescheduled before the March 23, March 29 and April 13 conferences)
Issue: Whether — when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found that the new mitigating evidence discovered on federal habeas review was “double-edged” and could not outweigh the substantial aggravating evidence, and when it misapplied the standard for evaluating prejudice in a Wiggins claim — it denied the petitioner due process.
(relisted after the March 29, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Gamble v. United States, 17-646
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
(relisted after the April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Tyler v. United States, 17-5410
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the dual sovereignty exception, which permits a successive federal prosecution after a defendant has been prosecuted for the same offense in state court.
(relisted after the April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Ochoa v. United States, 17-5503
Issues: (1) Whether the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from charging, convicting and sentencing a person who has already been charged, convicted and sentenced in the court of a state for much of the same conduct; and (2) whether the seriousness of the offense conduct is an appropriate consideration for a district court when fashioning a sentence on revocation of supervised release.
(relisted after the April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Gordillo-Escandon v. United States, 17-7177
Issue: Whether, when a criminal defendant has already been convicted of an offense in a state criminal proceeding, the United States may thereafter prosecute the defendant for the same offense without violating the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on double jeopardy.
(relisted after the April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Eaton v. United States, 17-6680
Issue(s): [Petitioner is a pro se prisoner and the government waived its right to respond, so we have been unable to obtain a copy of the petition.]
(relisted after the April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Bearcomesout v. United States, 17-6856
Issue: Whether the “separate sovereign” concept actually exists when Congress’s plenary power over Indian tribes and the general erosion of any real tribal sovereignty is amplified by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s constitution in such a way that the petitioner’s prosecutions in both tribal and federal court violate the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
(relisted after the April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Jordan v. Mississippi, 17-7153
Issue(s): (1) Whether incarcerating a prisoner over four decades awaiting execution, even after the state found at one point that a life without parole sentence was appropriate, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to serve any legitimate penological purpose; (2) Whether incarcerating a prisoner over four decades awaiting execution, with over half that time attributable to repeated constitutional violations in a succession of sentencing hearings, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to serve any legitimate penological purpose.
(relisted after the April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Quality Systems, Inc. v. City of Miami Fire Fighters and Police Officers’ Retirement Trust, 17-1056
Issue: Whether, or in what circumstances, a defendant must admit that non-forward-looking statements are false or misleading, in order to be protected by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act safe-harbor provision for forward-looking statements.
(relisted after the April 20, April 27, May 10, May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Issues: (1) Whether the Louisiana Supreme Court erred in upholding the petitioner’s death sentence when the jury made only one of the two statutory required jury findings beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) whether standards of decency have evolved to render the execution of a defendant prosecuted as a principal to first degree murder unconstitutional when, as the state conceded, jurors could not know who inflicted the blows that caused the victim’s death; (3) whether testimony establishing communications between a deputy monitoring the trial and an alternate juror in front of other jurors about the trial constitutes sufficient evidence to be presumptively prejudicial; and (4) whether the Louisiana Supreme Court’s rule, which requires an indigent defendant to accept his trial counsel’s decision to concede his guilt of second-degree murder over his express objections or represent himself, vitiates the voluntariness of the petitioner’s waiver of counsel.
(relisted after the May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Vitol S.A. v. Autoridad de Energia Electrica de Puerto Rico, 17-951
Issue: Whether the rule espoused in Steel Company v. Citizens for a Better Environment, which held that a federal court generally may not rule on the merits of a dispute without first determining that it has subject-matter jurisdiction, is limited to Article III jurisdictional disputes, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit and other circuits have held, or whether it applies to statutory as well as Article III jurisdictional disputes, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and other circuits have held.
(relisted after the May 17 and May 24 conferences)
Issues: (1) Whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into Oklahoma’s capital-sentencing determinations proves that the petitioner’s death sentence is unconstitutional under the Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether Oklahoma’s capital post-conviction statute, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1089(D)(8)(b), and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the statute in this case deny the petitioner an adequate corrective process for the hearing and determination of his newly available federal constitutional claim in violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses.
(relisted after the May 17 conference; rescheduled before the March 2, March 16, March 23, March 29, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10 and May 24 conferences)
Issues: (1) Whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into Oklahoma’s capital-sentencing determinations proves that the petitioner’s death sentence is unconstitutional under the Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether Oklahoma’s capital post-conviction statute, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1089(D)(8)(b), and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the statute in this case deny the petitioner an adequate corrective process for the hearing and determination of his newly available federal constitutional claim in violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses.
(relisted after the May 17 conference; rescheduled before the March 2, March 16, March 23, March 29, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 10 and May 24 conferences)
