|
|
|
|
Welcome to the November 5 edition of Bold Justice, Ballotpedia's newsletter about SCOTUS and other judicial happenings around the U.S. Can't wait to gobble up more judicial news this fall? Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Daily Brew for the most up-to-date political information. |
This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in six cases. All of the cases came to the court through its appellate jurisdiction (most of the court’s cases are appeals from federal courts of appeal or state supreme courts). Two of the cases are on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
The court has heard 17 cases so far this term. On November 2, the court agreed to hear six additional cases. As of publication, it has agreed to hear 53 cases. In its previous term, SCOTUS heard arguments in 69 cases.
Click the links below to read more about the specific cases SCOTUS will hear this week:
November 5
- The Commonwealth of Virginia banned the mining of uranium in 1981, following the discovery of a uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. In Virginia Uranium v. Warren, Virginia Uranium, the owner of the uranium mine, filed suit, asking the court to declare that the state ban was preempted by the federal Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and to compel the state to grant uranium mining permits. The district court granted the Commonwealth's motion to dismiss the complaint, finding the AEA does not "regulate nonfederal uranium deposits or their conventional mining." Virginia Uranium appealed, and the Fourth Circuit Court affirmed the lower court's ruling.
The issue: Whether the AEA preempts a state law that on its face regulates an activity within its jurisdiction (here uranium mining), but has the purpose and effect of regulating the radiological safety hazards of activities entrusted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- In Sturgeon v. Frost, John Sturgeon sued the National Park Service. In 2007, the National Park Service rangers told Sturgeon that he could not operate his hovercraft on the Nation River because it was within the boundaries of Alaska’s Yukon-Charley National Preserve conservation unit. The National Park System prohibits hovercraft. Sturgeon sued the park service, saying the State of Alaska owned the river and the park service could not enforce its hovercraft ban. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled the park service’s hovercraft ban was legal because the ban applied nationwide. The Supreme Court then reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision and remanded the case. The Ninth Circuit Court then ruled the waters of the Nation River were public lands under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 and the parks service could regulate hovercraft use on the river.
The issue: Whether the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act prohibits the National Park Service from exercising regulatory control over State, Native Corporation, and private land physically located within the boundaries of the National Park System in Alaska.
November 6
- In 2010, Michael Loos fell in a train yard when he was working for BNSF Railway. After being terminated for attendance policy violations, Loos sued BNSF Railway claiming retaliation under the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA) and negligence under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA). In BNSF Railway Company v. Loos, the district court found Loos could not establish a basis for suing his former employer for retaliation under FRSA. The Eighth Circuit Court affirmed the decision. On the issue of negligence, a jury found Loos was entitled to $30,000 for lost wages and $11,212.78 for medical expenses. BNSF asked the court to reduce the award by the amount of payroll taxes Loos would have owed under the Railroad Retirement Act (RRTA). The district court denied the motion because it found no RRTA tax was owed on the award. The Eighth Circuit Court affirmed the district court’s ruling.
The issue: Whether a railroad's payment to an employee for time lost from work is subject to employment taxes under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act.
- Russell Bucklew was convicted of murder, kidnapping, and rape, and he was sentenced to death by a jury. In Bucklew v. Precythe, Bucklew filed an action claiming that his rare medical condition would cause his death by lethal injection to be a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Bucklew asked to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia. He also questioned whether two members of Missouri’s lethal injection team were qualified to carry out his execution. The district court ruled against all of Bucklew's claims, and the Eighth Circuit Court affirmed the lower court’s findings.
The issue:
(1) Whether a court evaluating an as-applied challenge to a state’s method of execution based on an inmate’s rare and severe medical condition should assume that medical personnel are competent to manage his condition and that procedure will go as intended.
(2) Whether evidence comparing a state’s method of execution with an alternative proposed by an inmate must be offered via a single witness, or whether a court at summary judgment must look to the record as a whole to determine whether a factfinder could conclude that the two methods significantly differ in the risks they pose to the inmate.
(3) Whether the Eighth Amendment requires an inmate to prove an adequate alternative method of execution when raising an as-applied challenge to the state’s proposed method of execution based on his rare and severe medical condition.
(4) Whether petitioner Russell Bucklew met his burden under Glossip v. Gross to prove what procedures would be used to administer his proposed alternative method of execution, the severity and duration of pain likely to be produced, and how they compare to the state’s method of execution.
November 7
- In 2000, the USS Cole was bombed while it was in Yemen. In Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, the families of the injured service members filed a lawsuit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) against the government of Sudan for its alleged involvement in the attack. Under the law, plaintiffs can have a clerk of the U.S. court serve the head of the ministry of foreign affairs, which the plaintiffs in this case did, but they did so at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, rather than in Sudan. The Sudanese government argued the plaintiffs had to file their complaint in Sudan. The Second Circuit Court ruled the plaintiffs met the requirements of the law and denied Sudan’s request for a rehearing.
The issue: Whether the Second Circuit erred by holding—in direct conflict with the D.C., Fifth, and Seventh Circuits and in the face of an amicus brief from the United States—that plaintiffs suing a foreign state under the FSIA may serve the foreign state under 28 U.S.C § 1608(a)(3) by mail addressed and dispatched to the head of the foreign state's ministry of foreign affairs "via" or in "care of" the foreign state's diplomatic mission in the United States, despite U.S. obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to preserve mission inviolability.
- In Culbertson v. Berryhill, attorney Richard Culbertson represented four individuals in court who were appealing denials of social security disability benefits. Culbertson won all four cases, and then asked the district court to receive his attorney fees. Federal law states that an attorney who represents a client seeking social security benefits and wins can receive fees "not in excess of 25 percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the claimant is entitled." The court decided his fees based on the precedent of the Eleventh Circuit Court, which applied the 25 percent cap to the aggregate amount received from representing the client in court and in front of the Social Security Administration. Culbertson appealed because other circuit courts had ruled that the cap applied only to fees received for court representation. The Eleventh Circuit Court affirmed the district court's ruling.
The issue: Whether fees subject to § 406(b)'s 25-percent cap include, as the Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits hold, only fees for representation in court or, as the Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits hold, also fees for representation before the agency.
|
SCOTUS is beginning its November sitting this week. The sitting is part of the court's October 2018-2019 term, but the Court did not always hold one session per year. How many sessions did the original Court hold in a year?
- One session in October
- Two sessions—One in February and one in August
- Four sessions—One each in January, April, July, and October
- Six sessions—One session every two months
Choose an answer to find out! |
Confirmations
The United States Senate did not confirm any additional nominees since our last issue.
The U.S. Senate has now confirmed 84 federal judges—53 district court judges, 29 appeals court judges, and two Supreme Court justices—nominated by President Donald Trump (R).
New nominations
President Trump did not announce any new nominations since our last issue.
He has announced 178 nominations since taking office on January 20, 2017.
Vacancies
The federal judiciary currently has 135 vacancies. Of those 135 vacancies, 79 have no nominee. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 20 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump’s first term. There are 56 pending nominations to seats tracked by Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count.
Committee action
The Senate Judiciary Committee did not report any new nominees out of committee since our last issue.
Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancy information? We figured you might. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.
Need a daily fix? Our Federal Vacancy Warning System has got you covered with continuing updates on the status of all federal judicial nominees.
Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals President Trump has nominated. |
Every issue, we at Ballotpedia highlight a federal court you should know more about. Right now, we’re taking a closer look at the United States courts of appeals, or circuit courts. They are the intermediate appellate courts of the U.S. federal courts. There are 13 U.S. courts of appeals.
In this edition, we're enjoying some jazz and Cajun food at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Fifth Circuit has jurisdiction over the nine United States district courts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The court also had jurisdiction over Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, until it was split in 1981. (Florida, Alabama, and Georgia became the Eleventh Circuit.)
The Fifth Circuit has 17 authorized judgeships. Eleven of the court's 16 current judges were appointed by Republican presidents. There is one vacancy.
Since 2007, SCOTUS reversed 42 decisions of 61 cases from the Fifth Circuit, a rate of 68.9 percent.
The Fifth Circuit played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement, hearing many of the most controversial and climactic cases. A 1964 Time Magazine article on the Fifth Circuit entitled, "The Fascinating & Frenetic Fifth," said this about the court: "Apart from the Supreme Court, the most fascinating bench in the U.S. is the Deep South's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals—the trail-blazing intermediate court that handles most of the nation's civil rights cases by hearing appeals from district courts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. 'Without the Fifth Circuit,' says a leading civil rights lawyer, 'we would be on the verge of actual war fare in the South.'" |
Join us November 26 for another edition of Bold Justice, where we’ll preview the cases being argued and provide updates on other judicial news. |
|
|
|
|
