Case at a Glance

A drug suspect is likely to destroy any evidence of drugs in his home if he knows the police are planning to search it. This case presents the question of whether the Constitution permits a police officer to “impound" a drug suspect's home while his fellow officer leaves the scene to seek a search warrant.

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

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Wilbert Rogers fatally stabbed his victim in 1994, but the victim did not die until 15 months later. Tennessee common law provided that a defendant could not be charged with murder unless the victim died within a "year and a day" of his or her injury. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the state's high court can retroactively abolish that rule so as to permit the state to charge Rogers with murder.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, an attorney with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In 1925, Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act to expand the use of arbitration to resolve disputes that arise from contracts or transactions in interstate commerce. Employment disputes are a major source of litigation. In this case, the Supreme Court will decide whether the Exclusion Clause in section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act excludes the employment contracts of all workers in interstate commerce from arbitration, or whether it only excludes the contracts of workers who transport goods in interstate commerce.

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

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The term limits movement came up with a Catch-22 to pressure Congress to approve a federal constitutional amendment limiting how many terms members could serve. A set of six amendments to the Missouri Constitution requires the state’s congressional delegation to do everything in their power to get Congress to approve the federal constitutional amendment or else be labeled on the ballot as a candidate who does not support term limits.

• Previewed by Thomas E. Baker, the James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision
More information about this case is available in Cases of Interest to the School Community.

Case at a Glance

The nondelegation doctrine - which requires that Congress make the laws and not delegate lawmaking to executive agencies - hasn’t been meaningfully heard from since the era of the Great Depression. In refusing to give full effect to stringent new air-quality standards for ozone and particulate matter, the D.C. Circuit has revived the doctrine into a check upon the executive branch and agency rulemaking. While industry and some States applaud, the EPA thinks it is now the courts that are disregarding the separation of powers.

• Previewed by Douglas W. Kmiec, the Caruso Family Chair and professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, Calif.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In this companion case to Browner v. American Trucking Ass’ns, Inc., No. 99-1257, the Supreme Court will decide whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, when setting national air quality standards, must weigh the health benefits of cleaner air against the costs the regulated community will bear to meet those standards.

• Previewed by Patricia Ross McCubbin, an assistant professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law in Carbondale, Ill.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In a case that could have a tremendous impact on the courts' role in customs cases, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether any kind of judicial deference is owed to tariff classification rulings issued by the United States Customs Service, and if so, which level of deference should be applied. Ultimately at issue is whether certain “daily planners” imported by the Mead Corporation are properly classifiable as “bound diaries” under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and thus subject to an import duty of 3.2 percent of their value, or whether they are subject to duty-free entry.

• Previewed by Stephen M. De Luca, a general attorney (International) with the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court has narrowed the preemptive reach of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in recent years. In this case, the Court will decide whether a state statute that purports to determine the beneficiary under an ERISA plan is preempted.

• Previewed by Michael J. Collins, an attorney in Washington, D.C.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In a series of (often 5-4) decisions, the Supreme Court has ruled that creating legislative districts with the express purpose of ensuring minority dominance goes beyond the beneficial purposes of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Now, for the fourth time in eight years, the Court will examine the constitutionality of District 12 in North Carolina.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson Jr., a staff attorney with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and a contributor to the ABA Journal.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

A former union official says he was denied the assistance of effective counsel when his lawyer failed to argue that, in calculating his sentence, the trial court should group his money-laundering offenses with his conspiracy and kickback offenses. The Seventh Circuit reasoned that even if the defendant's attorney did err in failing to make this argument, that mistake could only have added 6 to 21 months to the defendant's sentence, an increase, the court said, too insignificant to support an ineffective assistance of counsel claim on collateral attack.

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig, a professor of law at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wis., and co-author of West’s Federal Jury Practice and Instructions.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court has established that licensing laws must contain certain procedural safeguards in order to protect First Amendment rights. One of these safeguards requires cities to afford applicants the opportunity to obtain “prompt judicial review” of a decision not to renew their license. The federal circuit courts of appeal, however, cannot agree on the precise meaning of “prompt judicial review.”

• Previewed by David L. Hudson Jr., a staff attorney with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and a contributor to the ABA Journal.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Until 1985, The Farm Credit Act of 1933 expressly exempted a bank for cooperatives (“BFC”) from state taxation only if the federal government owned shares in the institution. Government ownership ceased by 1968. The 1985 amendments to the 1933 Act eliminated the provisions for federal ownership and struck the associated exemption. The Missouri Supreme Court concluded that the 1985 changes prevent a state from taxing a BFC. In this appeal from that decision, the Supreme Court will determine if the Missouri Supreme Court is correct.

• Previewed by George Mundstock, a visiting professor of law at the University of Minnesota School of Law in Minneapolis, Minn., and the author of A Finance Approach To Accounting For Lawyers (Foundation Press 1999).

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is asked to determine whether trademark law can protect trade dress that consists of the configuration or design of a product, when that trade dress was the subject of an expired utility patent. To answer this fairly narrow question, the Court will have to address the interplay between patent law and trademark law and the scope of the trademark functionality doctrine. If the Court follows the approach of the Department of Justice, as amicus curiae, the decision could dramatically reduce trade dress protection for product designs.

• Previewed by Hugh C. Hansen, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, and the director of Fordham's Annual Conference on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

The Limitation of Liability Act provides shipowners with a means of protecting themselves following a marine casualty. In this case, the Supreme Court must decide whether either of two exceptions to the Act's federal forum rule are applicable. The Court also must decide whether the Act requires shipowners to admit fault before they can use the statute.

• Previewed by Robert M. Jarvis, a professor of law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the editor of the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision