Legal Cases

The 6-year statute of limitations in the False Claims Act does not govern civil actions for retaliation under §3730(h); instead, the most closely analogous state limitations period applies.

The Supreme Court held that due process does not prohibit Arizona's use of an insanity test that focuses solely on the defendant's capacity to distinguish right from wrong, nor does it violate due process to restrict the consideration of mental illness evidence to its relevance for an insanity defense, thereby excluding its impact on the mens rea element of the charged crime.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not authorize prevailing parents to recover attorneys' fees for expert services rendered in actions brought under the Act.

A defendant's guilty plea must be knowing, voluntary, and intelligent, and a conviction may be overturned if the prosecution later adopts a theory of the case that is inconsistent with the one presented during the defendant's trial.

An amended habeas petition does not relate back to the date of the original petition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(2) when it asserts a new ground for relief that is supported by facts differing in both time and type from those in the original pleading, thereby not escaping the one-year limitation period imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).

A defendant cannot prospectively waive their rights under the Speedy Trial Act, and any violation of the Act cannot be deemed harmless error if the trial does not commence within the required time frame.

A criminal defendant has a constitutional right to the counsel of their choice, and an erroneous deprivation of that right requires reversal of a conviction.

The national interest in providing a federal forum for federal tax litigation is sufficiently substantial to support the exercise of federal question jurisdiction over a state action involving a disputed issue of federal title law, even in the absence of a federal cause of action.

To establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination in jury selection under Batson v. Kentucky, a defendant does not need to show that it is more likely than not that the peremptory challenges were based on impermissible group bias; rather, the defendant must only demonstrate that the circumstances raise an inference of discrimination.

The anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from employer actions that would dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination, and it is not limited to actions that affect the terms and conditions of employment or occur at the workplace.

A family may constitute a "particular social group" for the purposes of asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and courts must defer to the relevant administrative agency for initial determinations regarding such classifications.

A violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, as established in Blakely v. Washington, is not subject to a harmless error analysis; thus, any such violation requires the vacating of the sentence.