• Hamilton, Chapter 13 Trustee v. Lanning, which involves evidence considered by a bankruptcy court.
• New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board, involving ability of the National Labor Relations Board to take action when some of its members are not present.
• Levin, Tax Commissioner of Ohio v. Commerce Energy, Inc., involving jurisdictional questions of the Tax Injunction Act.
For analysis of the cases, see SCOTUSblog here.
The justices also rejected a plea from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to review a federal judge's decision that allowed prosecutors in Mississippi to charge a Ku Klux Klansman for a kidnapping that happened more than 40 years ago. The Fifth Circuit argued that the judge's decision should be nullified because too much time had passed for prosecutors to charge James Ford Seale. The justices, without comment, let stand the federal judge's ruling that the statute of limitations had not expired on a federal kidnapping charge against Seale, reported The Associated Press. The news service noted that Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia said the Court should have reviewed the matter in U.S. v. Seale.
The high court returned to hearing oral argument today and will consider a couple of high-profile criminal procedural cases on Wednesday. In Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, the justices will consider the liability of prosecutors who relied on false testimony to win a murder conviction. Martin Magnusson provides pre-argument analysis of Pottawattamie for ACSblog here. In Wood v. Allen, the high court will review a case on federal involvement in a state criminal proceeding.
a prison sentence on an unrelated crime when a detective first interviewed him. When the detective read Mr. Shatzer his Miranda rights, Mr. Shatzer responded that he wanted an attorney present while the detective asked him questions. The detective wrote in his report, "When I attempted to again initiate the interview, he told me that he would not talk about this case without having an attorney present." The detective then terminated the interview and closed the case. Two years and seven months later, though, a different detective conducted a follow-up investigation. That detective read Mr. Shatzer his Miranda rights and then -- without allowing Mr. Shatzer any access to an attorney -- interrogated him. Mr. Shatzer then confessed that he had committed a crime.