Court ends Claiborne case, seeks response on detainees
on Jun 4, 2007 at 10:03 am
UPDATE Decisions have been issued in Uttecht v. Brown (06-413), Safeco Insurance v. Burr (06-84) and Sole v. Wyner (06-531. (See the post above; further discussion of these rulings will come later.)
The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the case of Claiborne v. U.S. (06-5618), because the individual involved, Mario Claiborne of St. Louis, Mo., had died last week. The Court ordered an Eighth Circuit decision in the case vacated as moot. The case involved the question of whether it is presumed to be unreasonable for a federal judge to impose a below-Guidelines range sentence, if there were no extraordinary circumstances in the case. The Court took no immediate action on a plea to grant review in a substitute case from the Eighth Circuit raising the same issue.
The Court asked the U.S. Solicitor General to file the government’s views on whether the Court should reconsider its refusal to hear two appeals by Guantanamo detainees. The Court denied review in both on April 2. The response of the government is due in 30 days — perhaps reaching the Court after the current Term has ended late this month. The cases are Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196).
The Court issued one summary decision, in Erickson v. Pardus (06 -7317), involving a prison inmate’s right to adequate medical care. The Court said the Tenth Circuit Court, in upholding dismissal of William Erickson’s civil rights case, had departed from conventional pleading standards.
The Court granted review in one new case for decision next Term, testing what kind of document a worker must file in order to start a claim of age discrimination in the workplace. The case, Federal Express v. Holowecki (06-1322), tests whether a questionnaire filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is sufficient to make charges against an employer.
The Court asked for the views of the Solicitor General on a case testing whether the U.S. Superfund law can be applied to a Canadian company for the environmental effects within the U.S. of the company’s operations in Canada. The case is Teck Cominco Metals v. Pakootas (06-1188).
