Legal Cases

The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, indicating that the case did not warrant review.

The Supreme Court of the United States dismissed the writ of certiorari in Howell v. Mississippi, concluding that the petitioner failed to raise his claim regarding jury instructions on lesser included offenses in the state court, resulting in the claim not being addressed. Thus, the Court held that a failure to preserve a claim for appeal can lead to dismissal of that claim at the federal level.

A federal court is not bound by the International Court of Justice's ruling regarding the reconsideration of claims under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and procedural default doctrines may apply to such claims in U.S. courts.

The burden of persuasion in an impartial due process hearing under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) lies with the party seeking relief.

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines are unconstitutional as applied in a manner that requires judges to find facts by a preponderance of the evidence that increase a defendant's sentence beyond the statutory maximum, violating the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.

Time spent by employees walking between the changing area and the production area, as well as time spent waiting to don protective gear, is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) if such activities are integral and indispensable to the employees' principal activities.

The application of the Kansas motor fuel tax to fuel received by non-Indian distributors, which is subsequently delivered to a gas station on the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation's reservation, does not violate the Nation's sovereignty because the tax arises from a transaction that occurs off the reservation, and thus the Bracker interest-balancing test does not apply.

The Supreme Court held that the right to self-representation established in Faretta v. California does not imply a constitutional right for a pro se defendant to have access to a law library, and thus a lack of such access does not constitute a basis for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33's deadline for filing motions for a new trial is a claim-processing rule rather than a jurisdictional one, meaning that noncompliance with the deadline can be waived and is not a bar to the district court's ability to consider the motion.

The Ninth Circuit erred in requiring a jury trial to determine Smith's mental retardation claim, as states have the authority to develop their own procedures for adjudicating such claims, and the federal courts should not preemptively impose conditions on state proceedings.

The execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court held that the Secretary of Homeland Security does not have the authority to continue detaining an inadmissible alien beyond the 90-day removal period mandated by 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(A) unless the alien is subject to a specific exception under the law.

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) waives sovereign immunity only in circumstances where the United States would be liable as a "private person" under local law, not based on the liability of state or municipal entities.

The provision of 8 U.S.C. §1231(b)(2) does not require the advance consent of the destination country for the removal of an alien; therefore, an alien can be removed to a country even if that country has no functioning government to provide such consent.

Defendants may remove a civil action from state court to federal court based on diversity of citizenship if there is complete diversity between all named plaintiffs and all named defendants, and no defendant is a citizen of the forum State; it is not the responsibility of the named defendants to prove the nonexistence of a potential defendant whose presence would destroy diversity.

Failure of a state appellate court to mention a federal claim does not mean that the claim was not presented to it, and the determination of whether the exhaustion requirement has been satisfied cannot depend solely on the state court's acknowledgment of the federal nature of the claim.

The Government's promises to pay contract support costs to Indian tribes under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act are legally binding, even if Congress did not appropriate sufficient funds for those costs.

A scheme to defraud a foreign government of tax revenue constitutes a violation of the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, as the statute's plain terms criminalize such conduct without infringing upon the common-law revenue rule.

A federal court has discretion to award attorney's fees when remanding a case to state court under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), and such an award is appropriate only if the removing party lacked objectively reasonable grounds for believing that the removal was legally proper.

A sentencing court under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) may not consider police reports or complaint applications to determine whether a prior guilty plea necessarily admitted to generic burglary; it is generally limited to examining the statutory definition, charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.