Case at a Glance

These consolidated appeals raise the question whether federal courts may assert supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of individuals joined under Fed. R. Civ. P. 20, or class members aggregated under Fed. R. 23, to satisfy the $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement in order for a court to have jurisdiction over a diversity class action. In light of the supplemental jurisdiction statute Congress enacted in 1990, the Supreme Court is asked to reconsider the Court's 1973 Zahn rule that prohibits aggregation of individual claims to confer federal diversity 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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Case at a Glance

In 1998, Carman L. Deck was sentenced to death for two murders in Missouri, but he received a new sentencing hearing in 2002. At his re-sentencing, Deck was shackled in leg irons and handcuffed to a belly chain, and no provisions were made to hide the shackles from his sentencing jury. Deck now claims that his shackling violated his rights to a fair trial, the error was not harmless, and that his death sentence should be vacated.

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

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Cases at a Glance

In these cases, the Supreme Court will decide whether displays of the Ten Commandments on public property violate the Establishment Clause. Factual differences between the cases raise the possibility that the Court could focus on distinguishing features, such as when a display was erected, where a display is located, the message or purpose that motivated a display, the government's role in initiating or approving a display, whether a display was privately donated, and whether the Ten Commandments appear alongside other secular historical materials.

• Previewed by Brett G. Scharffs, a professor of law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Case Highlights of 03-1500; Case Highlights of 03-1693
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Case at a Glance

In June 1999, the estranged husband of Jessica Gonzales abducted their three daughters. When Ms. Gonzales contacted the Town of Castle Rock (Colorado) Police Department to ask it to enforce a restraining order against her husband, she was told there was nothing the department could do. Early the next morning, Mr. Gonzales was shot dead after he fired on the Castle Rock police station with a semi-automatic weapon. The bodies of the three girls, who had been murdered by Mr. Gonzales the previous evening, were found in the cab of his truck.

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

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Case at a Glance

For years, the federal legislative and judicial branches have battled over the issue of religious liberty under the Free Exercise Clause. In 1993, Congress passed a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated that law on federalism grounds. Congress passed another religious liberty law—the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in 2000. Now, in 2005, the ball returns to the Court to determine whether this federal law violates the Establishment Clause.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson Jr., a staff attorney at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn.

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Case at a Glance

The attorney-client relationship between Ulysses Tory and Johnnie Cochran ended badly. Years later, Tory began picketing Cochran's law offices with signs and chants critical of Cochran's lawyering, prompting Cochran to sue for defamation and invasion of privacy. A state court judge found that Tory had defamed Cochran and issued an injunction prohibiting Tory from speaking in a public forum about Cochran or his law firm without prior court approval. The Supreme Court will decide whether the First Amendment's "prior restraint doctrine" permits such an injunction as a remedy in a defamation action.

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

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Case at a Glance

After the Supreme Court recognizes a new right that can be the basis for a federal prisoner's motion to vacate his sentence, how long does the prisoner have to file such a motion? Does the clock start ticking when the Supreme Court recognizes the right, or at the time that a court says that the right is retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review?

• Previewed by Elizabeth B. Wydra, a fellow at the Appellate Litigation Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

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Case at a Glance

Land-use takings cases alleging deprivations of federal rights generally require balancing the rights of private property owners against a state's power to adjust those rights for the public good. This takings case asks whether a property owner is entitled to have a federal court conduct that balancing after doctrines of abstention and ripeness required the property owner to litigate related state-law issues in state court first; or whether issue preclusion (which prevents relitigation of an issue already litigated) will bar the federal court from later deciding the federal claims.

• Previewed by Mary Phelan D'Isa, a professor of law at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.

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Case at a Glance

Jose Ernesto Medellin—a Mexican national who is on death row in Texas—was never told by Texas authorities of his right to consular notification under the Vienna Convention. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the failure to provide such notification to Medellin constitutes error, but thus far, the state and federal courts have refused to give effect to the ruling; Medellin is now asking the Supreme Court to do so. To complicate matters, the President has recently announced that the I.C.J.'s ruling should be given effect by the state, and not federal, courts.

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

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is being asked under what circumstances the distributor of peer-to-peer software that enables unauthorized copying of copyrighted works, but also non-infringing activity, may be held liable for secondary copyright infringement. The result will likely affect whether such dual-use software will be widely and legally available in the future.

• Previewed by Hugh C. Hansen, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City.

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Case at a Glance

This case involves broadband Internet access service provided by cable operators to residential subscribers over cable facilities—popularly known as "cable modem" service. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) classified cable modem service solely as an "information service," without a separately regulated telecommunications service component. The Ninth Circuit held that the FCC erred and that cable modem service should be deemed to contain a "telecommunications service" component subject to certain common carrier obligations under the Communications Act. Under the Ninth Circuit's ruling, cable broadband providers might be required to open their lines to competing information service providers (ISPs).

• Previewed by Jonathan Massey, an appellate attorney in Bethesda, Md.

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Case at a Glance

In the last two decades, in an effort to cope with a surge in both prison population and inmate violence, at least 32 states have created "super-maximum security" prisons, highly restrictive prisons for the most dangerous inmates in the prison system, the worst of the worst. Now the Court is asked to assess the due process rights of prisoners who object to being placed in such a "supermax."

• 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.

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