Case at a Glance

The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of pollutants, including dredge or fill material, into "navigable waters" without a permit. In this case, the Supreme Court will decide whether the Clean Water Act extends to prohibiting these types of discharges into nonnavigable wetlands adjacent to nonnavigable tributaries that eventually flow into navigable waters. Petitioners also challenge the constitutionality of the Clean Water Act as applied to these particular wetlands.

• Previewed by Marisa Martin, a Fulbright scholar at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Case at a Glance

S. D. Warren Company operates a series of hydropower dams on the Presumpscot River in Maine for which it is seeking re-licensure from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), Maine can regulate such dams through the certification process of CWA §401 that comes into play when a federal license is needed by an entity that "discharges" into the nation's navigable waters. At issue is whether dams that pass water through can be said to "discharge" to the navigable waters and thus trigger §401.

• Previewed by Robert Abrams, a professor of law at Florida A & M University College of Law in Orlando, Florida.

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Case at a Glance

Donald Curtis Samson is a California parolee, who, as a condition of his parole, agreed in writing to be subject to search or seizure by a parole or other peace officer at any time of the day or night. In this case the Court is asked to determine whether a police officer must have reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing before he can search a parolee with this search condition.

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

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Case at a Glance

Bobby Lee Holmes was convicted of murder, rape, and other offenses by a South Carolina trial court and sentenced to death. As part of his defense, he sought to introduce evidence that the crimes had been committed by Jimmy White, but the court barred Holmes from introducing such evidence or from cross-examining the state's evidence regarding White's possible involvement in the murder. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether these rulings violated his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

• Previewed by Alan Raphael is an associate professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law in Chicago, Illinois.

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Case at a Glance

A Medicaid recipient was injured in an automobile accident. By federal statute, the state of Arkansas reimbursed her health-care providers and the respondent assigned her rights of recovery against third parties for medical care to the state. After the settlement of her personal-injury suit, Arkansas sought recovery of the full amount of Medicaid payments it made, but the respondent claimed the state was only entitled to a percentage of her settlement equal to the percentage of her personal-injury claim that was attributable to her medical expenses.

• Previewed by Elliott B. Pollack, a member of the health law department of the Connecticut firm of Pullman & Comley, and of the adjunct faculty at the University of Connecticut Law School in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Case at a Glance

In this case, the petitioner filed his habeas petition after the one-year filing period had passed, but the state erroneously conceded that the filing was timely. The Supreme Court will decide whether the federal habeas court properly dismissed sua sponte the petition as untimely despite the state's waiver.

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

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Case at a Glance

Thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), that money is speech and drew a sharp distinction between the regulation of campaign contributions and campaign spending. Since then, the Court has upheld many limits on contributions but has struck down most of the spending limitations as First Amendment violations. Now, Vermont has passed broad restrictions on campaign contributions and spending that seem to take Buckley beyond its stretching point.

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

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is asked to determine the continuing validity and vitality of the so-called probate exception to federal court jurisdiction, which exception generally limits, if not prohibits, federal courts from hearing litigation relating to the probate of a decedent's state. The Court's consideration of the continuing validity of the probate exception follows an earlier similar reconsideration of the domestic relations exception in Ankenbrandt v. Richards, a 1992 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the domestic elations exception to federal court jurisdiction.

• 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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