These abstracts of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions were obtained from FindLaw & Justia.

This page includes only the criminal law and related decisions.

Cornell's Legal Information Institute will email copies of the official syllabi.

Supreme Court website
 

United States Supreme Court Review-Preview-Overview:  October 2008-09 Terms; thru August 18, 2009
  by Paul Rashkind, Chief, Appellate Division, Office of the Federal Public Defender, S.D. FLA.
 

Recent Decisions
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Good confrontation clause opinion
(June 25, 2009)
Melendez-Diaz v. Mass., No. 07–591
Defendant's drug conviction is reversed, where the trial court's admission of the prosecution's certificates by laboratory analysts, stating that material seized by police and connected to Defendant was cocaine of a certain quantity, violated petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him.

Search violates fourth amendment
(June 25, 2009)
Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1. v. Redding, No. 08-479
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging an unlawful search of a student, the denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is affirmed where the search of Plaintiff's underwear violated the Fourth Amendment because the facts did not give school officials reasonable suspicion to search her underwear.

No constitutional right to obtain post-conviction access to State's evidence for DNA testing.
(June 18, 2009)
District Atty.'s Offc. v. Osborne, No. 08–6
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action seeking the evidence used to convict Defendant of sexual assault for the purposes of DNA testing, summary judgment for Plaintiff is reversed where, assuming Plaintiff's claims could be pursued using Section 1983, he had no constitutional right to obtain post-conviction access to the State's evidence for DNA testing.

Double Jeopardy / partial acquittal
(June 18, 2009)
Yeager v. US, No. 08–67
In an appeal from the District Court's order denying Defendant's motion to dismiss his wire fraud indictment on Double Jeopardy grounds, the order is reversed where an apparent inconsistency between a jury's verdict of acquittal on some counts and its failure to return a verdict on other counts does not affect the acquittals' preclusive force under the Double Jeopardy Clause.

Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar court from conducting a full hearing on Defendant's mental capacity after trial.
(June 01, 2009)
Bobby v. Bies, No. 08-598
In a capital habeas matter, the Court of Appeals' order prohibiting the state court from holding a post-conviction hearing on whether Defendant was mentally retarded is reversed where the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar the state court from conducting a full hearing on Defendant's mental capacity after trial.

Michigan v. Jackson overruled
(May 26, 2009)
Montejo v. Louisiana, No. 07-1529
Capital murder conviction is vacated, where Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986), is overruled, because requiring an "initial invocation" of the right to counsel in order to trigger the Jackson presumption might work in states that require an indigent defendant formally to request counsel before an appointment is made, but not in more than half the states that appoint counsel without request from the defendant.

Using telephone to make misdemeanor drug purchase does not "facilitate" felony drug distribution
(May 26, 2009)
Abuelhawa v. US, No. 08-192
Drug distribution conviction is reversed and the case remanded, where Defendant's drug purchases from a third party over the phone constituted misdemeanors, because using a telephone to make a misdemeanor drug purchase does not "facilitate" felony drug distribution in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 843(b).

In aggravated identify theft, government must show defendant knew id at issue belonged to another person
(May 4, 2009)
Flores-Figueroa v. US, No. 08-108
Defendant's aggravated identity theft conviction is reversed where 18 U.S.C. section 1028A(a)(1) requires the government to show that a defendant knew that the means of identification at issue belonged to another person.

Defendant's statement to confidential informant admissable to impeach testimony at trial
(April 29, 2009)
Kansas v. Ventris, No. 07-1356
Scalia, writing 7-2 (Stevens, Ginsburg dissenting), holds that Defendant’s confession to state agent/cellmate informant, elicited in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, is still admissible to impeach Defendant’s inconsistent testimony at trial.
     After counsel was assigned, defendant’s cellmate, informant for the state, elicited an admission from defendant that he robbed and killed decedent. At trial, defendant testified the co-defendant did it. The state was permitted to impeach defendant with prior inconsistent statement. Kansas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the state cannot exploit fruits of constitutional violation.
     Supremes reversed, holding that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is prophylactic, “exclusion comes by way of deterrent sanction rather than to avoid violation of the substantive guarantee.” Since the constitutional violation occurred only at the time of the uncounseled interrogation and not when the fruits were used against the defendant at trial, the statement is admissible for impeachment purposes: “We have held in every other context that tainted evidence--evidence whose very introduction does not constitute the constitutional violation, but whose obtaining was constitutionally invalid--is admissible for impeachment.”

No separate proof of intent required when gun discharged in course of violent or drug trafficking crime
(April 29, 2009)
Dean v. US, No. 08-5274
Defendant's firearm conviction is affirmed where defendant claimed he unintentionally fired his gun during a robbery, but 18 U.S.C. section 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) requires no separate proof of intent, and its 10-year mandatory minimum applies if a gun is discharged in the course of a violent or drug trafficking crime, whether on purpose or by accident.

Lower courts failed to adequately consider whether allegedly withheld evidence was material to sentence
(April 28, 2009)
Cone v. Bell, No. 07-1114
In a capital habeas proceeding, the denial of Petitioner's habeas petition is reversed where the state courts' rejection of Petitioner's Brady v. Maryland claim did not rest on a ground that barred federal review, and the lower courts failed to adequately consider whether the allegedly withheld evidence was material to Petitioner's sentence.

Vehicle search unreasonable
(April 21, 2009)
Arizona v. Gant, No. 07-542
The Arizona Supreme Court's reversal of Defendant's drug conviction is affirmed, where police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that an arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.

Conviction vacated where court erred in denying defense motion to suppress confession
(April 6, 2009)
Corley v. US, No. 07-10441
Defendant's bank robbery conviction is vacated, where the District Court erred by denying Defendant's motion to suppress his confession under McNabb v. US, 318 U.S. 332 (1943), and Mallory v. US, 354 U.S. 449 (1957), based on the government's delay in bringing him before a judge, where 18 U.S.C. section 3501 modified McNabb-Mallory but did not supplant it.

Automatic reversal of conviction not required when court denies defendant's premptory challenge to a juror
(March 31, 2009)
Rivera v. Illinois, No. 07-9995
Provided that all jurors seated in a criminal case are qualified and unbiased, the Due Process Clause does not require automatic reversal of a conviction because of the trial court's good-faith error in denying the defendant's peremptory challenge to a juror. Defendant's murder conviction is therefore affirmed.

Plain-error test applies
(March 25, 2009)
Puckett v. US, No. 07-9712
The plain-error test of Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b), which instructs parties how to preserve claims of error, applies to a forfeited claim that the government failed to meet its obligations under a plea agreement, and applies in the usual fashion. Sentence for bank robbery is therefore affirmed.

Ineffective assistance of counsel not found
(March 24, 2009)
Knowles v. Mirzayance, No. 07-1315
The District Court's grant of Petitioner's habeas petition is reversed, where, whether the state court's denial of his ineffective assistance claim is reviewed under 28 U.S.C. section 2254(d)(1)'s standard or de novo, Petitioner failed to establish that his counsel's performance was ineffective.
 

Delays sought by counsel are ordinarily attributable to the defendants they represent
(March 9, 2009)
Vermont v. Brillon, No. 08-88
The Vermont Supreme Court's reversal of Defendant's domestic violence conviction is reversed, where the Vermont Supreme Court held that delays attributable to Defendant's assigned counsel denied Defendant a speedy trial, but assigned counsel, just as retained counsel, act on behalf of their clients, and delays sought by counsel are ordinarily attributable to the defendants they represent.

Domestic relationship need not be element of domestic violence for firearm possession ban
(February 24, 2009)
US v. Hayes, No. 07-608
Defendant's conviction for possessing a firearm under 18 U.S.C. section 921 is affirmed, where a domestic relationship between the offender and victim need not be an element of the defendant's "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" to trigger Section 921's possession ban.

Divided court reinstates conviction in Washington drive-by shooting case
(January 21, 2009)
Waddington v. Sarausad, No. 07-772
In a case arising from a fatal drive-by shooting of a group of students standing in front of a Seattle high school, grant of a petition for habeas relief from defendant's conviction for being an accomplice to second-degree murder, attempted murder, and assault is reversed where: 1) Washington courts reasonably concluded that the trial court's instruction to the jury regarding accomplice liability was not ambiguous; and 2) even were it ambiguous, the circuit court still erred in finding the instruction so ambiguous as to cause a federal constitutional violation.