Case at a Glance

The Office of Independent Counsel subpoenaed Webster Hubbell's tax and business records in an effort to determine whether a relationship existed between payments he had received and his testimony with respect to Whitewater and other matters. Hubbell claimed his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to turn over the documents. The government granted him immunity, and he then turned over the documents. Now the government seeks to use information gathered from those documents to prosecute him for income tax-related violations.

• Previewed by Cindy Moy

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Case at a Glance

In this case, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the federal-program bribery statute “federalizes” what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill local commercial bribery governed by state criminal laws. The Petitioner, who was charged and convicted of bribery under the federal statute, now argues that it should only be applied to cases in which the bribery has a connection to the integrity of some federal program. The case thus presents the difficult question, in the words of one district court, of “how far Congress has gone, and ... may go, to federalize crime.”

• Previewed by Richard W. Garnett

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Case at a Glance

In 1993, Cornell Johnson pleaded guilty to a credit card crime and was sentenced to prison and a term of supervised release following imprisonment. After he violated the conditions of supervised release, he was again sentenced to prison and a term of supervised release to follow. The second term of supervised release was imposed pursuant to a 1994 statutory amendment. The Supreme Court will now decide whether imposition of the second term of supervised release violates the ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution since the statutory amendment allowing imposition of the second term was enacted after the offender's original offense and conviction.

• Previewed by Sherri L. Knuth

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Case at a Glance

In Pegram v. Herdrich, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to decide whether the bedrock managed-care strategy of offering financial incentives to physicians to limit the care given to plan enrollees is off-limits in certain circumstances. Depending on how the Court reacts to a swirling array of arguments and issues, a new chapter in the rapidly evolving law of managed care organizations may be written.

• Previewed by Elliott B. Pollack

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court is asked to determine whether a Texas county’s policy requiring sheriff’s department employees to use accrued compensatory time when their balances approach a set level violates the Fair Labor Standards Act. Edward Christensen and 126 other Harris County Deputy Sheriffs argue that under the Act, accrued comp time belongs to the employee and is devalued by unilaterally compelled use. The County responds that the 1985 Amendments to the FLSA were enacted to lessen the financial burdens imposed on local governments by the Supreme Court's decision in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985).

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig

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Case at a Glance

Federal law prohibits inmates who file federal habeas claims from receiving an evidentiary hearing if they failed to develop the factual basis for their claims in state court. However, inmate Michael Williams alleges the law should not apply to him because his failure to develop certain factual claims was caused by an “unrelenting pattern of obstruction” on the part of state attorneys.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

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Case at a Glance

While state prisoners can challenge the constitutionality of their state convictions via a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, the Supreme Court and Congress have severely limited the ability of the federal courts to hear these claims. The Supreme Court has held that if a prisoner argues ineffective assistance of appellate counsel as the cause for his failure to raise an issue in state court, he must show that he had attempted to file that ineffective assistance claim in state court. At issue in this case is whether ineffective assistance of counsel is itself subject to procedural default analysis when alleged to be the cause of a different procedural default.

• Previewed by Ronald J. Bretz

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Case at a Glance

It is common for government agents to board buses and inspect the passengers' luggage by looking at it and feeling it to determine whether it might contain items of suspicious size and shape. In this case, an officer squeezed a passenger's bag and felt a hard, bricklike item that he suspected might be a package of drugs. After a subsequent search of the bag turned up methamphetamine, the owner of the bag was charged and convicted. He now asks the Supreme Court to hold that his conviction was obtained as the result of an illegal search.

• Previewed by Alan Raphael

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court first announced a “stop and frisk” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in Terry v. Ohio in 1968. Subsequent cases have explained Terry’s “reasonable suspicion” standard and have elaborated on the sources and verification necessary to meet it. Here the justices consider an anonymous tip about possessing a weapon and are asked whether the requirements of Terry have been met.

• Previewed by William P. Weiner

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