Case at a Glance

In Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may not comment on a defendant’s decision not to testify at trial. Such a comment would violate the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by allowing the jury to use the defendant’s silence as evidence of guilt. This case will allow the Court to decide whether to extend the rule in Griffin so as to prevent a prosecutor from commenting on a defendant’s right to be present at trial and on the opportunity that presence gives the defendant to tailor his or her testimony to match that of the other witnesses.

• Previewed by Cindy Moy

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Case at a Glance

After Lucio Flores Ortega pled guilty to second-degree murder, the trial court advised him that he had the right to file an appeal within 60 days. When he sought to file his appeal after the 60-day period had passed, it was denied as untimely. The Supreme Court is now asked to decide whether Ortega's defense counsel had a Sixth Amendment duty to file a timely notice of appeal even if Ortega can't prove he specifically told her that he wanted to pursue an appeal.

• Previewed by Robin K. Magee

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Case at a Glance

This case involves a police stop of a man whose only suspicious act was to run immediately after making eye contact with a police officer. The constitutional rule, first announced by the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio, is that a police stop of a person satisfies the Fourth Amendment only if the police have a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is in progress or is about to occur. The police officer’s reasonable suspicion must be evaluated under the "totality of the circumstances" test and supported by specific and articulable facts.

• Previewed by Ronald J. Bretz

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More information about this case is available in Cases of Interest to the School Community.

Case at a Glance

The Interstate Agreement on Detainers permits state prisoners to insist on a trial within 180 days of being told of their indictment in another state. Prosecutors argue that defendants waive this speedy trial right when they consent to being tried more than 180 days after being told of the right. A contrary ruling would permit defendants to manipulate the system and avoid justice, prosecutors argue. Defense attorneys counter that the speedy trial provision is nearly absolute, trumped only when a defendant affirmatively states that he is waiving his right.

• Previewed by Steve Lash

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Case at a Glance

Section 1962(d) of the RICO Act provides a civil remedy for one whose business or property is injured by another's conspiracy to commit “racketeering activities” (defined as two or more incidents of statutorily identified criminal conduct occurring within 10 years of each other, and which includes murder, robbery, extortion, mail and wire fraud and the fraudulent sale of securities). The RICO plaintiff must show both a conspiracy and the commission of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy that proximately caused the plaintiff’s injury. The question in this case is whether that overt act must be an “act of racketeering” as defined in the statute.

• Previewed by Mary Phelan D’Isa

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Case at a Glance

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act gives a claimant four years from the date a claim “arises” to file a civil lawsuit. Here, the Supreme Court is asked to decide exactly when a civil racketeering claim arises. Does the claim arise on the date the complainant discovers the injury, or does it arise on the date the complainant both discovers the injury and learns that the defendant's racketeering activity caused it?

• Previewed by Mary Phelan D’Isa

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Case at a Glance

When can a court review the validity of a Medicare regulation? The government argues that the Social Security Act prevents courts from reviewing some regulations until after a plaintiff has had them applied to him or her, asked the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to review them, and received the Secretary's final decision. An association of nursing homes, however, argues that the Act only bars the pre-enforcement review of claims brought by individuals regarding benefit and provider status. In the association's view, courts are not precluded from engaging in a pre-enforcement review of constitutional or statutory challenges to Medicare regulations.

• Previewed by Elliott B. Pollack

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Case at a Glance

In this case, the Supreme Court will address the question of whether a son who has "disclaimed" his inheritance rights under state law may nonetheless be deemed to have “property” or “rights to property” in his mother's estate for purposes of a federal tax lien sought by the United States.

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court will decide whether a state university can collect, in addition to tuition, a mandatory student fee to fund groups and organizations that advocate positions that some students find objectionable. If the objecting students in this case prevail, universities will either have to stop funding controversial student organizations altogether or else offer objecting students some kind of opt-out procedure and a partial refund of their fees.

• Previewed by Thomas E. Baker

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Case at a Glance

In this case, the Court of Appeal of California denied a convicted defendant’s motion to represent himself on appeal. The appellant argues that Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), recognized that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee criminal defendants the right to serve as their own attorneys, and mandates that the right to appear pro se extends to appeals. California responds that the Supreme Court should overrule Faretta, and that in any event the case does not extend to appeals because long settled decisional law indicates that the right to appeal is based on statutory law rather than on the Constitution.

• Previewed by Alan Raphael

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Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court has once again agreed to review the ability of Congress to require states to administer federal regulations. In this case, South Carolina argues that the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act violates the Tenth Amendment.

• Previewed by Michael J. Collins

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Case at a Glance

In Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc., 501 U.S. 560 (1991), a sharply divided Court voted 5-4 to uphold an Indiana public indecency statute that generally prohibited public nudity. Now, in a case involving a constitutional challenge to a similar public indecency law, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused to apply Barnes. Ruling that "no clear precedent" arose out of Barnes' "hodgepodge of opinions," the state court said it felt free to strike down the Erie, Penn., law on First Amendment grounds. The City of Erie, however, argues that this amounted to a decision to willfully disregard binding precedent in violation of the supremacy clause.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

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Case at a Glance

A trial judge erroneously denied a defendant’s motion to remove a prospective juror for cause. The defendant then used one of his peremptory challenges to keep the man from sitting on the jury. The defendant now contends that the Ninth Circuit properly reversed his conviction because the trial court’s error left him with one fewer peremptory challenges than he would have been entitled to if the judge had ruled properly. The United States seeks reinstatement of the defendant's conviction, arguing that it is reasonable to have required the defendant to use one of his peremptory challenges in these circumstances.

• Previewed by Alan Raphael

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Case at a Glance

The justices take another crack at a states' rights case, this time deciding whether states can be sued under the False Claims Act. The case asks whether the Act subjects states to liability and, if so, whether the Eleventh Amendment nevertheless prohibits private citizens from suing them under this federal whistleblower statute. Fearing that a ruling in favor of the federal government could subject them to enormous civil penalties in subsequent False Claims Act suits, other states around the nation are watching this case closely.

• Previewed by Steve Lash

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Case at a Glance

Federal law has two options for cable operators who transmit sexually explicit programming. They can "fully scramble" their signal to ensure nonsubscribers won't receive any portion of it as the result of so-called "signal bleed." Alternatively, they can limit their transmissions to a "safe harbor" period (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.). Because most cable operators cannot afford to fully scramble their transmissions, 70 percent of the cable systems that used to carry Playboy on a 24-hour basis now must limit it to the 8-hour "safe harbor" period. A U.S. district court declared the federal law unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court has agreed to review that ruling.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

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Case at a Glance

Before 1993, Texas had to prove that a sex-offense victim had told a third person about the crime within six months of the alleged offense in order to convict a defendant based solely on the victim's testimony. This requirement did not apply, however, if the victim had been younger than 14 at the time of the offense. The law was changed in 1993 to make this exception available to victims who were under the age of 18. The Supreme Court is now asked to determine whether this change in the law can be applied to a defendant charged after 1993 with an offense that was committed prior to 1993.

• Previewed by Rachel A. Van Cleave

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