553 U. S., PART 1

United States v. Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Co., 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R029; No. 07-308; 4/15/08. The plain language of 26 U. S. C. §§7422(a) and 6511 requires a taxpayer seeking a refund for a tax assessed in violation of the Export Clause, just as for any other unlawfully assessed tax, to file a timely administrative refund claim before bringing suit against the Government.

MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R030; No. 06-1413; 4/15/08. The Illinois courts erred in upholding a state tax on an apportioned share of a multistate corporation’s capital gain realized from the sale of a business division after those courts determined that the division and the corporation were not “unitary.”

Baze v. Rees, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R031; No. 07-5439; 4/16/08. The Kentucky Supreme Court’s judgment upholding Kentucky’s three-drug lethal-injection protocol against petitioners’ claim that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishments” ban is affirmed.

Burgess v. United States, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R032; No. 06-11429; 4/16/08. Under 21 U. S. C. §841(b)(1)(A), which enhances the mandatory minimum sentence for certain federal drug crimes when the defendant was previously convicted of a “felony drug offense,” the quoted term is defined exclusively by §802(44) to “mea[n] an offense . . . punishable by imprisonment for more than one year under any law of . . . a State,” and does not incorporate the §802(13) definition of “felony” as any “offense classified by applicable . . . law as a felony,” so that a state drug offense punishable by more than one year qualifies as a “felony drug offense,” even if state law classifies the offense as a misdemeanor.

Begay v. United States, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R033; No. 06-11543; 4/16/08. Felony driving under the influence of alcohol, as defined by New Mexico law, is not a “violent felony” for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U. S. C. §924(e), which provides a 15-year mandatory minimum prison term for a defendant, convicted of possessing a firearm, who has three prior convictions “for a violent felony,” and defines “violent felony,” in relevant part, as a crime that “is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another,” §924(e)(2)(b)(ii).

Virginia v. Moore, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R034; No. 06-1082; 4/23/08. The police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they made an arrest that was based on probable cause but prohibited by Virginia law, or when they performed a search incident to the arrest.

Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R035; No. 07-21; 4/28/08. The Seventh Circuit’s judgment upholding the constitutionality of an Indiana statute requiring citizens voting in person to present government-issued photo identification is affirmed.

Gonzalez v. United States, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R036; No. 06-11612; 5/12/08. Express consent by a defendant’s counsel suffices to waive the right to have an Article III judge preside over jury selection in a federal felony trial and to permit a magistrate judge to preside pursuant to the Federal Magistrates Act, 28 U. S. C. §636(b)(3), which allows a magistrate judge to “be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

United States v. Ressam, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R037; No. 07-455; 5/19/08. Since respondent was carrying explosives when he made a false statement to a customs official in violation of 18 U. S. C. §1001, he was carrying them “during” the commission of that felony, in violation of §844(h)(2).

United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R038; No. 06-694; 5/19/08. As construed by this Court, 18 U. S. C. §2252A(a)(3)(B)—which criminalizes, in specified circumstances, the pandering or solicitation of child pornography—is not overbroad under the First Amendment or impermissibly vague under the Due Process Clause.

Department of Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R039; No. 06-666; 5/19/08. Kentucky’s differential tax scheme—which exempts from state income taxes interest on bonds issued by Kentucky or its political subdivisions but not on bonds issued by other States and their subdivisions—does not offend the Commerce Clause.

United States v. Rodriquez, 553 U. S. 1 ___ (2008)

R040; No. 06-1646; 5/19/08. Because a state drug-trafficking conviction qualifies as “a serious drug offense” if “a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law,” 18 U. S. C. §924(e)(2)(A)(ii), and the maximum term respondent faced on Washington state drug convictions was 10 years under a state recidivist law, the state convictions had to be counted under the Armed Career Criminal Act, §924(e), to enhance respondent’s sentence on his conviction for the federal crime of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, §922(g)(1).