Case at a Glance

This case asks the Supreme Court to decide whether evidence obtained when police enter a person's dwelling after knocking and announcing but failing to wait a reasonable amount of time must be suppressed as a "fruit" of an unlawful entry. The Court will probably have to take another look at the "inevitable discovery" exception to the exclusionary rule in deciding this matter.

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

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

(2)
CIVIL RIGHTS

Must a Plaintiff Alleging Retaliatory Prosecution Show That Law Enforcement Officials Had No Probable Cause?

Hartman et al. v. Moore
Docket No. 04-1495

From: The D.C. Circuit

Case at a Glance

A common-law tort plaintiff suing for malicious prosecution has to show a lack of probable cause for the underlying criminal charges. The federal appeals courts are deeply divided on whether the same probable-cause requirement applies to federal civil rights lawsuits alleging a retaliatory prosecution. The U.S. Supreme Court will resolve this question in a 16-year-old lawsuit filed by a former CEO who alleges postal inspectors prosecuted him in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment free-expression rights.

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

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Section One of the Sherman Antitrust Act makes illegal certain agreements among two or more businesses to restrain trade. At issue is the antitrust implication of the formation by two companies of a joint venture that sets the price for products produced by the two companies. If the joint venture is understood as an agreement among two entities, Section One of the Sherman Act would apply. If the joint venture is an independent business entity, then Section One cannot apply.

• Previewed by Shubha Ghosh, a professor of law at Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law, and The University at Buffalo, SUNY, School of Law.

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Jenifer Arbaugh sued her former employer, Y&H Corp., for sexual harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Arbaugh won a jury verdict, but on the defendant's post-trial motion, the trial court dismissed the case, ruling that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action because Y&H did not have 15 employees and therefore was not an "employer" within the meaning of Title VII.

• Previewed by Howard M. Wasserman, an assistant professor of law at Florida International University College of Law in Miami, Florida.

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Paul Gregory House was sent to death row for killing a neighbor during an attempted rape. Twenty years after the crime, House offered DNA test results showing that the semen found on the victim's clothes actually belonged to her husband. He also presented testimony tending to show that the victim's blood was placed on his clothing by state actors and that the victim might have been killed by her husband. Is that enough to show factual innocence?

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

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

This case concerns a question left open by McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93 (2003): Do corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to use general treasury funds to broadcast "genuine issue ads" ostensibly not intended to influence the outcome of federal elections? Plaintiffs wanted to run an ad in Wisconsin in the period before Sen. Russ Feingold was to be considered for reelection, urging the senator not to filibuster judicial nominees, but the ad was barred by the McCain-Feingold law.

• Previewed by Richard L. Hasen, the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California.

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

A house owned by Gary Kent Jones was sold by the State of Arkansas in a tax sale. Jones no longer lived in the house, so the state's notice of tax delinquency sent to Jones by certified mail was returned undelivered. Although Jones's correct address was readily available from other sources, the state did not make any other attempts to provide notice to Jones. The Arkansas Supreme Court denied Jones's claim that the sale violated due process.

• Previewed by D. Benjamin Barros, an associate professor of law at Widener University School of Law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Postal investigators conducting a sting operation executed an anticipatory warrant after a videotape was delivered to a suspect's residence. The warrant itself did not state that delivery of the videotape was its triggering condition, but an accompanying affidavit—which was never shown to the property owner—did. Arguing that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights, the property owner argues that evidence resulting from the search must be suppressed.

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

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In the 1990s, Congress enacted laws to restrict investor rights against corporate insiders, including for the first time, a provision preempting state law rights of recovery. Now the Supreme Court is being asked to define the extent to which these acts destroy the rights of action investors may have had under state law. In short, the Court is being asked to free corporate America from yet another legal constraint on its conduct, and leave investors with yet more restricted rights.

• Previewed by Steven A. Ramirez, a professor of law at Washburn University School of Law and the director of the Washburn University Business & Transactional Law Center in Topeka, Kansas.

Case Highlights
Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision