Case at a Glance

Congress enacted the Truth in Lending Act to ensure that consumers receive adequate information regarding credit terms. Pursuant to the authority delegated to it by the TILA, the Federal Reserve Board adopted Regulation Z. With respect to credit card "over the limit" fees, Regulation Z provides that such fees are to be separately disclosed to consumers as "other fees" and not as part of "finance charges." Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the Sixth Circuit's invalidation of Federal Reserve Board "Regulation Z" with respect to credit card "over the limit" fees was correct.

• Previewed by Michael J. Collins, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Denver, Colorado.

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is asked whether an award of attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act is barred if the applicant fails to file a timely fee application alleging that the United States government's position in the case was not substantially justified.

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

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Case at a Glance

Before deciding the merits of a case, a court must determine whether the claims are timely filed. This case requires the Court to determine the appropriate statute of limitations to apply to a class action race-discrimination lawsuit filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

• Previewed by Barbara J. Fick, an associate professor of law at Notre Dame Law School in Notre Dame, Indiana.

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Case at a Glance

In 1983, George Banks was convicted of 13 murders, and was sentenced to death for 12 of those killings. He now claims that the instructions given to the sentencing jury violated Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 36 (1988). The state claims that Mills cannot be applied retroactively to Banks' case, despite the fact that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered his Mills claim on the merits, and the fact that traditional ideas of finality arguably did not exist in Pennsylvania capital cases until at least 1998.

• Previewed by Kathy Swedlow, the 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

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has determined that U.S. customs officials have very broad authority to conduct routine searches at our borders. However, the Court has also ruled that for non-routine searches, the applicable standard for constitutional purposes is "reasonable suspicion." This case asks whether customs officials must have a reasonable suspicion that a vehicle's gas tank is concealing contraband before they can disassemble and search it.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr., a Tennessee attorney and regular contributor to Preview and other legal publications.

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Case at a Glance

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act establishes federal subject-matter jurisdiction in the United States courts for certain causes of actions against foreign countries. The question in this case is whether the Act applies retroactively to a cause of action against a foreign country that accrued before the passage of the Act.

• Previewed by Charles A. Palmer, a professor of law at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School and editor of the Art and Museum Law Journal of the Cooley Law School and the Michigan Museums Association.

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Case at a Glance

Section 106 of the Bankruptcy Code abrogates a state's sovereign immunity in bankruptcy. A debtor filed a complaint in bankruptcy court against the state of Tennessee to discharge her student loans. Tennessee claims that § 106 of the Bankruptcy Code violates the Eleventh Amendment, which protects a state's sovereign immunity.

• Previewed by Ralph C. Anzivino, a professor of law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Case at a Glance

A detective summoned a juvenile suspected in a homicide to the station. His parents brought him, and he asked that they be present during questioning. That request was denied, and he was interrogated without Miranda warnings. His statements were admitted at his state trial and he was convicted. In subsequent habeas proceedings the Ninth Circuit held that the youth had been "in custody" and therefore should have been given Miranda warnings. The Supreme Court granted the state's petition for certiorari.

• 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.

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court has granted an "actual innocence" exception to the procedural default rule. In this case, Michael Haley was convicted of stealing a calculator and sentenced under Texas' habitual offender statute to 16 years. The state conceded that the indictment charging him with sequential crimes was erroneous, but, because he had defaulted at trial and in two state appeals, his enhanced sentence was nevertheless affirmed. The Fifth Circuit reversed Haley's conviction, ruling that he was actually innocent of the enhancement factor. Now the Supreme Court has granted the state's petition for certiorari.

• 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. He can be reached at yatesrd@sbcglobal.net or (847) 924-9654.

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court weighs in for a second time in the more than 5-year-old court battle over whether the Child Online Protection Act drafters have rectified the constitutional defects of the Communications Decency Act, which the Court struck down in 1997 on First Amendment grounds. In an effort to cure the CDA's lack of "narrow tailoring," the drafters of COPA have more narrowly defined the speech that is being regulated and have also narrowed the speakers who are subject to regulation.

• Previewed by Susanna Frederick Fischer, an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

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Case at a Glance

This case tests the constitutional limits of Congress' power in furthering its aim to protect the integrity of federal funds. Specifically, the Supreme Court has been called on to answer whether Congress has the authority to make bribery of a city official a federal crime strictly on the basis that the city is a recipient of federal funds.

• Previewed by Mark A. Cohen, the editor in chief of Minnesota Lawyer in Minneapolis, Minn.

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Case at a Glance

The Grupo Dataflux case raises the question of whether federal courts must adhere to the historical rule that diversity citizenship is determined at the time a case is filed, or whether courts may now recognize a limited exception that would permit the exercise of jurisdiction in some cases in which citizenship defects are cured later in the proceedings.

• Previewed by Linda S. Mullenix, the Morris and Rita Atlas Chair in Advocacy at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas.

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