Live blog of opinions | June 21, 2019
We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released opinions in four argued cases: Flowers v. Mississippi, North Carolina Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, Rehaif v. United States and Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania. SCOTUSblog is sponsored by Casetext: A more intelligent way to search the law.
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I saw it was a rough time for the 4th circuit yesterday. Is a vacated and remand a way of saying "Consider this question again, here's a pointer in the direction we'd like you to go but there are multiple answers you can pick and we'll let you know if we agree." while a reverse and remand is "Here's the right answer, and we're remanding for you to tie up any remaining loose ends."?
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It sounds very likely that we'll have additional dates for opinions. What about orders? Is next Monday it until fall? Been following Kleber v. CareFusion Corp. (ADEA case which got some publicity in the NY Times recently in an article on age bias) and wondering if we'll learn soon whether it will be granted cert.
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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.
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In the American Legion v. American Humanist decision, Justice Alito specifically named the three judges that were in the minority for the Fourth Circuit vote regarding whether to review En Banc. Is that level of specificity unusual for procedural history? It seemed an unusual detail to add.
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an earlier commenter suggested SCOTUS is likely to remand the census case. I disagree. The government actually did file their response last night. But the fact that SCOTUS never even asked for the solicitor general’s view after the motion was first filed suggests to me that they won’t be acting on it until after they hand down an opinion. I’m plagiarizing this speculation from [Professor] Josh Blackman
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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.
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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."
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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."
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Here's the opinion in Flowers v. Mississippi. Amy Howe will have our analysis:
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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.
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Here's the link to the Kaestner decision. Erin Scharff will have our analysis:
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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."
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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.
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In Kaestner, the key seems to be that the only tie to North Carolina was the existence of in-state beneficiaries. Justice Sotomayor emphasized that there were no distributions to a North Carolina resident, the trustee resided out of state, and trust administration was split between New York and Massachusetts. The existence of in-state beneficiaries was not enough of a "minimum connection" for the state to assert the tax.
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Here's the opinion in Rehaif. Evan Lee will have our analysis:
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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.
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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."