Good morning, everyone! Welcome to our live blog. I managed to start in 2019 rather than 2014, so I'm already off to a great start today.
We're expecting orders from last week's conference at 9:30, followed by opinions in argued cases at 10 am.
Probably the biggest petition, in terms of profile, on last week's conference was Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, the case of an Oregon couple who declined on religious grounds to bake a custom wedding cake for a same-sex marriage. The case has been considered at nine consecutive conferences, by my count.
Okay, I'm going in to wait for orders. Back shortly.
We have five new grants. I will do them one at a time.
First is Atlantic Richfield v. Christian.
Second is McKinney v. Arizona, a capital case.
Third is Intel Corp Investment v. Sulyma.
Fourth is an international child custody case, Monasky v. Taglieri.
And Fifth is Comcast v. National Association of African American Owned Media, limited to the first question.
The court denied review in al-Alwi v. Trump, a Guantanamo detention case. Justice Kavanaugh did not participate in the case; Justice Breyer has a statement respecting the denial.
To go back to the grants, Atlantic Richfield is a case about whether federal law preempts state-law claims for clean-up of hazardous waste beyond what EPA had ordered. The US solicitor general had recommended that review be denied even though it agreed with Atlantic Richfield that the Montana Supreme Court's decision was wrong.
Monasky v. Taglieri is a case about how to establish "habitual residence" for a very young baby (and the standard of review for habitual residence) for purposes of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
McKinney v. Arizona is about whether the current law or instead the law in effect when a defendant's conviction originally became final applies to resentencing.
The Intel Corp. case is about the interpretation of the ERISA statute of limitations.
And the Comcast case is about whether race discrimination claims under 42 USC 1981 require but-for causation, or whether it is instead enough that race was a motivating factor in the defendant’s decision.
Breyer writes that the D.C. Circuit "agreed with the Government that it may continue to detain" al-Alwi "so long as armed hostilities between United States forces and [the Taliban and al-Qaeda] persist. The Government represents that such hostilities are ongoing, but does not state that any end is in sight. As a consequence, al-Alwi faces the real prospect that he will spend the rest of his life in detention based on his status as an enemy combatant a generation ago, even though today's conflict may differ substantially from the one Congress anticipated when it passed the" Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
Breyer concludes that he would, in an appropriate case, grant review to decide whether "Congress has authorized and the Constitution permits continued detention."
Anyway, I seem to have segued into coverage of the merits opinions at some point. As is virtually always the case (except for the last day), we don't know how many cases we are getting, nor do we know which ones.
Five minute buzzer just sounded. Will go peek to see if the boxes are here yet.
We have two boxes, everyone. For those of you who aren't regulars here, the number of boxes of opinions waiting to be distributed in the public information office is a very rough proxy for the number of opinions we might expect.
Going in to wait for opinions now. Back soon.
We have the first opinion, in Quarles v US. From Justice Kavanaugh. The Sixth Circuit is affirmed, and it is unanimous. Justice Thomas has a concurring opinion.
The case involves the Armed Career Criminal Act, which requires at least a 15-year prison sentence for a felon who unlawfully possesses a gun and has three prior convictions for a "serious drug offense" or a "violent felony," with "violent felony" being defined to include "burglary."
The Court has defined burglary to mean the unlawful entry into or remaining in a building, with the intent to commit a crime. The question is whether a "remaining in" burglary occurs only if a person has the intent to commit a crime at the exact moment when he first remains in a building or instead when he forms the intent to commit a crime at any time while unlawfully remaining in a building. The court today concludes that "remaining-in" burglary occurs when the defendant forms the intent to commit a crime at any time while unlawfully remaining in a building or structure.
Going back in for the next one, which could come from any of the justices.
Justice Sotomayor has the opinion in Return Mail v. USPS.
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