Case at a Glance

This case comes to the Supreme Court on the State of Washington's "question presented" of whether error as to the definition of a sentencing enhancement should be subject to harmless error analysis when it is shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict on the enhancement. The defendant contends that the petitioner has misstated the actual question raised by his case and that harmless-error review is inappropriate in any event.

• Previewed by Elizabeth Wydra, an associate in the firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in San Francisco.

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Case at a Glance

Title VII prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who oppose discriminatory practices in employment. Sheila White, a railroad worker, was transferred to a less desirable position with no loss in pay or benefits days after she complained about sexual discrimination. Later, she was suspended for 37 days without pay after complaining again about discriminatory conduct. The employer later rescinded the suspension and gave her back pay. The question is whether she suffered an adverse employment action by her employer.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson Jr., a research attorney with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Cuauhtemoc Gonzalez-Lopez was charged with one count of conspiring to distribute marijuana. Prior to trial he retained an out-of-state lawyer to represent him; however the district court refused to grant his lawyer's application for pro hac vice admission to the Missouri District Court. Gonzalez-Lopez proceeded to trial with substitute counsel, and was convicted. He claims that his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice was violated, and that this violation requires automatic reversal of his conviction and a new trial.

• Previewed by Lisa K. Halushka, an associate professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

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Although the Speedy Trial Act requires criminal defendants to be brought to trial within 70 days, numerous exclusions extend that period. Here, a defendant challenges the Second Circuit's determination that he waived any objection to one period of delay even though the court failed to make specific findings under the Act. He also challenges the court's conclusions that a second period of delay didn't count because he was incompetent to stand trial and that, in any event, any error was harmless.

• Previewed by Paul J. Martinek, a lawyer and writer in Boston and the former publisher/editor-in-chief of Lawyers Weekly USA.

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After the parents of a disabled child prevailed in a due process administrative hearing over the educational placement of their child, a federal court ordered the school district to reimburse them for the cost of their non-attorney educational consultant. The school district challenges this award, arguing that the parents are not entitled to reimbursement for the costs of non-attorney advocates.

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig, a professor of law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and co-author of eDiscovery and Digital Evidence.

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At his trial for intentionally or knowingly killing an on-duty police officer, a mentally ill defendant was prevented from arguing that his illness disproved the mental requirement for the crime, because Arizona does not allow such arguments of "diminished capacity." The defendant also failed to prove his affirmative defense of insanity, which Arizona defines solely in terms of knowing right from wrong. The state appellate courts rejected the defendant's contentions that both of these rules violate the Due Process Clause.

• Previewed by Robert Batey, a professor at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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The "emergency aid doctrine" permits police officers to make warrantless entries and searches when they reasonably believe a person within is in need of immediate aid. The need to protect life or avoid serious injury justifies what otherwise would be an illegal entry. Relying on the emergency aid doctrine, police officers in Utah entered a home after seeing a struggle between four adults and a juvenile who stuck one of the adults.

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig, a professor of law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wis., and a co-author of eDiscovery and Digital Evidence.

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Kircher is a consolidated group of eight class actions brought as state-law negligence claims. They were removed to federal court, remanded to state court, and then returned to federal court by the Seventh Circuit under the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) with instructions to dismiss the state-law claims. Kircher is the procedural side of a cause of action addressed in Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Dabit, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that SLUSA preempted that plaintiff's state-law tort claims.

• Previewed by Barbara L. Jones, a Minnesota attorney and associate editor of the newspaper Minnesota Lawyer in Minneapolis.

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Case at a Glance

This case asks the Supreme Court to decide whether the government or the criminal defendant has the ultimate burden of persuasion once the defendant has introduced sufficient evidence to raise the issue of duress.

• Previewed by Mark M. Dobson, a professor of law at the Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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The Federal Employees Health Benefits Act expressly grants federal district courts original jurisdiction over claims against the United States. The district court in this case dismissed a suit between two private parties -- one a federal government contractor—concerning a claim for reimbursement due for benefits. The Supreme Court is now asked to fashion a federal common-law rule to allow the government contractor's lawsuit to be heard in federal court.

• Previewed by Michael Kurs, a partner in the law firm of Pullman and Comley, LLC, in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Michael Lee Marsh was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of 19-month old M.P. Pusch and received a life sentence for the murder of M.P.'s mother, Marry Ane. On direct appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court granted Marsh a new trial in M.P.'s murder, and also held that the state's sentencing statute could not be construed in a constitutional manner. The State now seeks review of the Kansas Supreme Court's sentencing ruling.

• Previewed by Kathy Swedlow, an associate professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

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Clarence Edward Hill is a Florida death row prisoner who filed a civil rights action in 2005, challenging the state's protocol for administering lethal injections. The federal courts treated Hill's complaint as a successive habeas petition and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. Hill now argues that his complaint should be treated as a Section 1983 civil rights action, and not as an impermissible successive habeas corpus petition.

• Previewed by Kathy Swedlow, an associate professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

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The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act imposes civil and criminal liability on a defendant who conducts or participates in the affairs of a separate "enterprise" through a pattern of racketeering activity. The Court is asked to decide whether a RICO "enterprise" is formed when a corporation uses outside recruiters to facilitate the corporation's allegedly unlawful employment practices.

• Previewed by Ross Runkel, a professor of law emeritus at Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon.

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