I'm not going to publish them, because I feel like it might be a little self-serving, but thanks to those of you have left kind comments for us. They are much appreciated. This is one of my favorite SCOTUSblog jobs, in no small part because it's so much fun to interact with the blog's readers.
Five-minute buzzer just sounded.
Two boxes of opinions again. For those of you who are not regulars here, the number of boxes is a rough proxy for the number of opinions we might expect. More boxes = more opinions.
Okay, going in to the press office to wait for opinions. Back soon.
Justice Kavanaugh has the opinion in Flowers v. Mississippi.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Mississippi is reversed and remanded.
Kavanaugh's opinion is joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor and Kagan.
Alito has a concurring opinion; Thomas dissents, joined in part by Gorsuch.
This was a case in which Flowers was tried six times for the murders of four people in a furniture store. In his sixth trial, the state struck five of six prospective black jurors; he argued that the state violated Batson v. Kentucky, which bars racial discrimination in jury selection.
Justice Kavanaugh goes through a relatively lengthy description of how the Court came to adopt the Batson framework.
In reviewing the history of Mr. Flowers' various trials, Justice Kavanaugh says: "The numbers speak loudly. Over the course of the first four trials, there were 36 black prospective jurors against whom the State could have exercised a peremptory strike. The State tried to strike all 36."
The same prosecutor had tried Flowers before and struck 41 of the 42 black jurors in the six trials, combined. Kavanaugh writes that "all of the relevant facts and circumstances taken together establish that the trial court committed clear error in concluding that the State's peremptory strike of" one black juror, who was similarly situated to a white juror who was not struck, "was not motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent."
The court sends the case back for "further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."
The opening section of Justice Kavanaugh's opinion emphasizes that the decision is based on "the extraordinary facts of this case" and that "we break no new legal ground"
Alito agrees with the Supreme Court that Flowers' "capital conviction cannot stand."
Going back in for the next opinion.
Justice Thomas, in dissent: "The majority’s opinion is so manifestly incorrect that I must proceed to the merits. Flowers presented no evidence whatsoever of purposeful race discrimination by the State in selecting the jury during the trial below."
We have the next opinion, from Justice Sotomayor in NC Department of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust. The decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina is affirmed. The decision is unanimous, although Alito filed a concurring opinion that is joined by Roberts and Gorsuch.
Justice Thomas concludes his dissenting opinion in blistering fashion: "If the Court’s opinion today has a redeeming quality, it is this: The State is perfectly free to convict Curtis Flowers again. Otherwise, the opinion distorts our legal standards, ignores the record, and reflects utter disrespect for the careful analysis of the Mississippi courts. Any competent prosecutor would have exercised the same strikes as the State did in this trial. And although the Court’s opinion might boost its self-esteem, it also needlessly prolongs the suffering of four victims’ families. I respectfully dissent."
This was a case about whether the state could tax the income from a trust when the beneficiaries of the trust live in the state, even when the beneficiaries do not receive income from the trust in a particular tax year, have no right to ask for the income and are uncertain to receive it. The answer is no.
Going back in to wait for the next one.
We have the next (but not final) opinion, from Justice Breyer. It is in Rehaif v. United States. The decision of the Eleventh Circuit is reversed and remanded.
The line-up in Rehaif is consistent with two trends in criminal cases at SCOTUS: (1) Justice Alito is the most reliably government-friendly Justice in criminal cases, and (2) the other conservative Justices have displayed an increasing skepticism about the federal government's exercise of its prosecutorial powers.
This is a case about whether, to prosecute someone for violating a federal law that makes it illegal to be an undocumented immigrant with a firearm, the government has to prove that the immigrant knew he was in the country illegally or whether the government just has to show that he know that he had a gun. The answer is that the government has to show both: "To convict a defendant, the Government therefore must show that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and also that he knew he had the relevant status [not in the country legally] when he possessed it."
We have the fourth and final opinion of the day, from the Chief Justice in Knick v. Township of Scott. The Third Circuit's decision is vacated and remanded.
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