Case at a Glance

In this case, the Court will resolve a circuit split regarding whether pension plans can expand the circumstances in which pension payments may be suspended following reemployment. Disagreeing with the Fifth and Sixth Circuits, the Seventh Circuit held that such an expanded definition violates ERISA's "anti-cutback" rule.

• Previewed by Michael J. Collins, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C.

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Case at a Glance

In 2002, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires that juries—not judges—must determine capital sentences. In 1984, Summerlin was convicted of murder in Arizona, and a drug-abusing judge determined his sentence. Now, the Court must consider whether its 2002 case applies retroactively to Summerlin's case.

• Previewed by Kathy Swedlow, co-director of the Innocence Project and an assistant professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

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Case at a Glance

These consolidated cases consider the rights of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities in Afghanistan and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The prisoners in Rasul are British and Australian; the prisoners in Al Odah are citizens of Kuwait.

• Previewed by Vikram David Amar, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is asked to determine the circumstances when a U.S. district court is authorized to compel the production of materials at the request of a private party for use in an investigation by the Directorate General-Competition of the European Commission. In this case the Ninth Circuit ruled that a federal district court was authorized to order discovery under 28 U.S.C. § 1782 even though the information sought would not be discoverable in the foreign proceeding itself.

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig, a professor of law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Carlos Dominguez Benitez bargained for a reduced sentence on a drug conspiracy charge. But the judge did not follow the sentence recommendation and gave Benitez 10 years. Now, Benitez claims that because the judge made a mistake by initially failing to tell him he could not later withdraw his guilty plea, the plea and conviction must be vacated even though his lawyer did not object. The Ninth Circuit agreed.

• Previewed by Michael Kaye, a professor of law at the Washburn University of Topeka Law School in Topeka, Kansas, and director of the Washburn Center for Excellence in Advocacy.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act, federal agencies are required to analyze the environmental and air-quality effects of their actions. Presidential actions are exempt from these requirements. In this case, the Supreme Court addresses the question of whether a federal agency must analyze the environmental impacts from regulating Mexican trucks operating in the United States when the agency's action implements a foreign-affairs decision by the President.

• Previewed by Marisa Martin, a staff attorney at the Wyoming Outdoor Council in Lander, Wyoming.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Under federal law, state prisoners seeking a writ of federal habeas corpus must show that they "exhausted" all of the remedies available in state court before they turned to the federal courts. In this case, Richard Ford, convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy, filed two sets of "mixed" federal habeas petitions containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims.

• Previewed by Robert D. Yates, a former managing editor of the ABA Journal and an Evanston, Ill., free-lance writer and editor specializing in legal affairs and appellate litigation.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Foreign consumers argue that an extension of antitrust jurisdiction would deter foreign conspiracies from potentially harming U.S. consumers. Multinational vitamin sellers argue that an assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction conflicts with the plain meaning of the FTAIA, undermines corporate leniency policies, and may be unconstitutional. Resolving the split in the circuits concerning extraterritorial Sherman Act enforcement may also signal the Supreme Court's view as to whether U.S. courts should serve as the fora for claims having attenuated connections to the United States.

• Previewed by Antonio F. Perez, a professor of law at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

This case is about influence and power. The arid statutory question, wrapped in arcane procedural issues, is whether the National Energy Policy Development Group—appointed by President Bush and chaired by Vice President Cheney—is required to disclose its inner workings at the behest of public watchdog groups and opponents of the Bush Administration. The poker pot in this hand of litigation is confidential information about the role of the energy industry in formulating governmental policies. But the Administration has raised the stakes and gone "all in" to invoke constitutional separation of powers to resist any further inquiry or disclosure whatsoever.

• Previewed by Thomas E. Baker, a professor at Florida International University College of Law in Miami, Florida.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The war on terror has consistently tested the balance between civil liberty and national security. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the detentions of two U.S. citizens, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, who are being held and questioned by the military as enemy combatants. These habeas cases question whether the president and Congress are constitutionally empowered to continue the detentions.

• Previewed by Douglas W. Kmiec, the Caruso Family Chair & Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, California.

Supreme Court Decisions: Decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Decision in Rumsfeld v. Padilla