Petitions to watch | Conference of May 17
on May 18, 2018 at 5:38 pm
In its conference of May 17, 2018, the court considered petitions involving issues such as whether the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation is violated when the trial court prevents a defendant from cross-examining a government witness regarding the mandatory life sentence he would have faced absent cooperation in order to prevent the jury from inferring the defendant’s likely life sentence; 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; and whether the International Organizations Immunities Act—which affords international organizations the “same immunity” from suit that foreign governments have, 22 U.S.C. § 288a(b)—confers the same immunity on such organizations as foreign governments have under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-11.
Issues: (1) Whether the petitioner’s mandatory guidelines sentence, which was enhanced under the residual clause of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, is unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, and, if so, whether a conviction for burglary of a dwelling under Florida law qualifies as a “crime of violence” under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2’s elements clause; and (2) whether published orders issued by a circuit court of appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3), and in the context of applications to file second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motions, constitute binding precedent outside of that context.
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.
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.
Issue: Whether fees subject to 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)’s 25-percent cap related to the representation of individuals claiming Social Security benefits include, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th, 9th, and 10th Circuits hold, only fees for representation in court or, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 5th, and 11th Circuits hold, also fees for representation before the agency.
Eaton v. United States
17-6680
Issue: [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.]
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.
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
Issue: Whether, under the Supreme Court’s opinions in United States v. Booker, Johnson v. United States and Beckles v. United States, which depended heavily upon the distinction between advisory and mandatory sentencing schemes, the residual clause of the mandatory sentencing guidelines is unconstitutionally vague.
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.
Issues: (1) Whether the International Organizations Immunities Act—which affords international organizations the “same immunity” from suit that foreign governments have, 22 U.S.C. § 288a(b)—confers the same immunity on such organizations as foreign governments have under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-11; and (2) what rules govern the immunity to which international organizations are entitled if the IOIA does not afford the same immunity.
Issue: Whether, under the Supreme Court’s opinions in United States v. Booker, Johnson v. United States and Beckles v. United States, which depended heavily upon the distinction between advisory and mandatory sentencing schemes, the residual clause of the mandatory sentencing guidelines is unconstitutionally vague.
Issues: (1) Whether incarcerating a prisoner awaiting execution for over four decades, even after the state found a life-without-parole sentence to be appropriate, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to serve any legitimate penological purpose; and (2) whether incarcerating a prisoner awaiting execution for over four decades, 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.
Issues: (1) Whether the retroactivity analysis of Teague v. Lane is categorical, such that when the Supreme Court held that Johnson v. United States announced a new substantive rule of constitutional law that is retroactive to cases on collateral review in Welch v. United States, it made Johnson’s rule retroactive for purposes of all cases on collateral review; and (2) whether the Johnson rule made retroactive in Welchrenders the residual clause of the career offender provision of the mandatory, pre-Booker Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutionally vague.
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.
Issue: Whether, following Johnson v. United States, in which the Supreme Court invalidated the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause as unconstitutionally vague, identical language in the residual clause of the previously-mandatory sentencing guidelines is likewise unconstitutional.
Issue: Whether the 1866 territorial boundaries of the Creek Nation within the former Indian Territory of eastern Oklahoma constitute an “Indian reservation” today under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a).
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit’s holding—granting qualified immunity to law-enforcement officers who stopped the petitioner from praying silently in her own home 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.”
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.
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
Issue: Whether the Atomic Energy Act pre-empts a state law that on its face regulates an activity within its jurisdiction (here, uranium mining), but has the purpose and effect of regulating the radiological safety hazards of activities entrusted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (here, the milling of uranium and the management of the resulting tailings). CVSG: 04/09/2018.
Issue: Whether the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation is violated when the trial court prevents a defendant from cross-examining a government witness regarding the mandatory life sentence he would have faced absent cooperation in order to prevent the jury from inferring the defendant’s likely life sentence.
