General Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R045; No. 09-1298; 5/23/11. When, to protect state secrets, a court dismisses a Government contractor’s prima facie valid affirmative defense to the Government’s allegations of contractual breach, the proper remedy is to leave the parties where they were on the day they filed suit.
|
Brown v. Plata, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R046; No. 09-1233; 5/23/11. The three-judge court’s mandate limiting California’s prison population is necessary to remedy the violation of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights to adequate medical and mental health care and is authorized by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
|
Chamber of Commerce of United States of America v. Whiting, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R047; No. 09-115; 5/26/11. Arizona’s Legal Arizona Workers Act, which provides that the licenses of state employers that knowingly or intentionally employ unauthorized aliens may be, and in certain circumstances must be, suspended or revoked, is not preempted by the federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Control Act, which invalidates “any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ . . . unauthorized aliens,” 8 U. S. C. §1324a(h)(2).
|
United States v. Tinklenberg, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R048; No. 09-1498; 5/26/11. The Speedy Trial Act of 1974—which provides that in “any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial . . . shall commence within seventy days” after the arraignment, 18 U. S. C. §3161(c)(1), but lists a number of exclusions from the 70-day period, including “delay resulting from any pretrial motion,” §3161(h)(1)(D)—contains no requirement that the filing of a pretrial motion actually caused, or was expected to cause, a trial’s delay; rather, subparagraph (D) stops the clock from running automatically upon the filing of such a motion irrespective of whether the motion has any impact on when the trial begins.
|
Fowler v. United States, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R049; No. 10-5443; 5/26/11. Where a defendant killed someone to prevent him from communicating with law enforcement officers, but did not have federal officers particularly in mind, the Government must show that there was a reasonable likelihood that a relevant communication would have been made to a federal officer in order to establish a violation of the federal witness tampering statute, which criminalizes “kill[ing] another to . . . prevent the communication to . . . a law enforcement officer . . . of the United States” of “information relating to the . . . possible commission of a Federal offense,” 18 U. S. C. §1512(a)(1)(C).
|
Camreta v. Greene, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R050; No. 09-1454; 5/26/11. This Court generally may review a lower court’s constitutional ruling at the behest of government officials who have won final judgment on qualified immunity grounds; because mootness has frustrated Camreta’s ability to challenge the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that he must obtain a warrant before interviewing a suspected child abuse victim at school, that part of the Ninth Circuit’s decision must be vacated.
|
Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R051; No. 10-98; 5/31/11. The objectively reasonable arrest and detention of a material witness pursuant to a validly obtained warrant cannot be challenged as unconstitutional on the basis of allegations that the arresting authority had an improper motive; former Attorney General Ashcroft did not violate clearly established law in allegedly authorizing federal officials to obtain valid material-witness warrants to detain terrorism suspects, and thus he is entitled to qualified immunity.
|
Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S. A., 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R052; No. 10-6; 5/31/11. Induced infringement of a patent under 35 U. S. C. §271(b) requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement, not simply deliberate indifference to a known risk that a patent exists; although the Federal Circuit applied a deliberate indifference test in this case, its judgment must be affirmed because the evidence was plainly sufficient to support a finding of petitioners’ culpability under the doctrine of willful blindness.
|
Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R053; No. 09-1159; 6/6/11. The University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980 (Bayh-Dole Act) does not automatically vest title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors or authorize contractors to unilaterally take title to such inventions.
|
Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R054; No. 09-1403; 6/6/11. Although securities fraud plaintiffs must demonstrate that a defendant’s deceptive conduct caused their claimed economic loss (the “loss causation” requirement) to prevail in a private securities fraud action, they need not prove loss causation in order to obtain class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.
|
McNeill v. United States, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R055; No. 10-5258; 6/6/11. In order to sentence a felon unlawfully in possession of a firearm to the 15-year mandatory prison term provided by the Armed Career Criminal Act for an offender who has three prior convictions for a “serious drug offense”—i.e., “an offense under State law . . . for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law,” 18 U. S. C. §924(e)(2)(A)(ii) —a federal court must look to the maximum term applicable to the defendant’s prior drug offense at the time of his state conviction for that offense, not to the state prison term applicable to the offense at the time of federal sentencing.
|
Fox v. Vice, 563 U. S. 2 ___ (2011)
R056; No. 10-114; 6/6/11. When a plaintiff’s suit involves both frivolous and non-frivolous claims, a court may grant reasonable attorney’s fees to the defendant under 42 U. S. C. §1988, but only for costs that the defendant would not have incurred but for the frivolous claims; here, the lower courts applied the wrong standard in awarding fees to defendant-respondents.
|