Source: https://www.wiggin.com/publications/intel-corp-v-advanced-micro-devices-inc-02-572-pliler-v-ford-03-221-aetna-health-inc-v-davila-02-1845-hiibel-v-sixth-judicial-district-court-of-nevada-03-5554-and-order-list/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:29:50+00:00

Document:
The Court issued four opinions and an order list yesterday. That leaves 12 cases to go, including most of the big cases for this Term. Let's get right to the opinions.
In general, the Court's conclusions reject categorical limits on the authority of district courts under Section 1782, preferring instead to leave appropriate application of that Section to the district court's discretion. The Court's conclusions are as follows: (1) "Interested person" under the statute is not limited to foreign sovereigns, and in this case includes AMD, who does not even have the status of "litigant" in the European Commission case. The fact that the statute's caption suggests it is limited to "litigants" does not control. Complainants before the European Commission (such as AMD) have sufficient rights in the process to qualify as "interested persons." (2) The European Commission qualifies as a "foreign or international tribunal" under the statute, even though it is not a judicial body. (3) Section 1782 does not limit its assistance to "pending" matters, and so the fact that the Intel case is still in the investigation stage has no bearing on the reach of Section 1782, so long as a dispositive ruling by the Commission is "within reasonable contemplation." In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that Congress had specifically deleted the word "pending" from the statute in 1964. (4) Section 1782 does not incorporate a "foreign-discoverability rule." That is, it does not bar a court from ordering production of documents that would not be discoverable if they were located in the foreign jurisdiction. The statutory language and legislative history contain no such restriction, and if Congress had intended such a restriction, it would certainly have said so. Similarly, the statute does not require courts to limit discovery to those documents that would be discoverable in domestic litigation analogous to the foreign proceeding.
After announcing these conclusions, Ginsburg noted that a court is not required to grant Section 1782 discovery applications. To guide courts in their exercise of discretion under this section, Ginsburg highlighted several factors that should shape that discretion (e.g., whether the party from whom discovery is sought is a participant, nature of the proceedings abroad, receptivity of the foreign tribunal to US assistance, etc.) Scalia penned a one paragraph concurrence. He agreed with Ginsburg's conclusion, but couldn't join her opinion because it relied on legislative history. Breyer dissented. He believes that the court should read the statute to impose categorical limits on district courts because discovery, and discovery-related disputes, are very expensive.
Next, in Pliler v. Ford (03-221), the Court reversed a Ninth Circuit decision that had required district courts to issue specific warnings to pro se petitioners before dismissing their "mixed" habeas petitions. A "mixed" habeas petition contains both exhausted and unexhausted claims, and under Rose v. Lundy, must be dismissed. Since 1996, however, there has been a one-year statute of limitations for habeas claims, and thus if a petitioner (such as Ford) files a mixed petition, the dismissal of his petition could result in the loss of all his claims -- including exhausted claims -- if the limitations period expires while he pursues his claims in state courts. To avoid this result, courts across the country have adopted a "stay and abeyance procedure," in which they (1) dismiss unexhausted claims from the original petition, (2) stay the remaining claims pending exhaustion of the dismissed claims in state court, and (3) after exhaustion, allow amendment of the habeas petition to add the newly exhausted claims. In this case, the Ninth Circuit held, with respect to this procedure, that before dismissing Ford's mixed habeas petition, the court should have told him (1) that it could not consider a stay motion unless he first dismissed the unexhausted claims, and (2) that if he elected to dismiss his entire petition and return to state court, his federal claims would be time barred absent cause for equitable tolling.
The Supreme Court (opinion by Thomas for himself, the Chief, O'Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy) reversed the Ninth Circuit. The basic rationale for the opinion is that district courts are not obliged to act as counsel for pro se litigants. To do so would undermine a district court's role as impartial decisionmaker. Moreover, the warnings themselves could be misleading. That's just about it for the analysis. O'Connor concurred. She noted that the propriety of the stay-and-abeyance procedure -- a procedure adopted in at least seven of the circuits -- was not before the Court, and further noted that on remand, the Ninth Circuit should consider whether there were grounds for equitable tolling in this case. Stevens concurred, joined by Souter. While he agrees with the dissents, he believes that the outcome in this case (remand for further proceedings on the applicability of equitable tolling) is the proper one. Ginsburg (joined by Breyer) dissented. She thinks the Court should have reviewed the propriety of the stay-and-abeyance procedure. Breyer also dissented. He believes not only that the Court should have addressed the stay-and-abeyance procedure, but also that the Court should have approved that procedure.
wrong conclusion, but since I've said enough about this ERISA case, I'll skip this part. Ginsburg (joined by Breyer) concurred. She believes that the outcome of this case is correct in light of the Court's jurisprudence, but believes that Congress needs to step in to fill gap in ERISA's remedial scheme, namely that while federal law preempts virtually all state law remedies, very few federal substitutes are provided.
Finally, in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (03-5554), the Court held that a Nevada statute requiring a person to identify himself when detained by an officer under suspicious circumstances does not violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. In response to a telephone call reporting an assault at Hiibel's location, a police officer asked Hiibel to identify himself. When he refused, he was arrested, and ultimately convicted, for failing to identify himself. In a 5-4 decision, the Court (opinion by Kennedy for himself, the Chief, O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas) affirmed his conviction. Kennedy began by tracing the history and roots of the "stop and identify" statutes, and the constitutional limits (due process, Fourth Amendment) imposed on those statutes. After this historical review, Kennedy turned to whether the statute at issue violated the Fourth Amendment. It does not, according to Kennedy, because a request for identification does not, by itself, constitute a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. Moreover, obtaining a suspect's name during a Terry stop (a stop for reasonable suspicion) serves important governmental purposes. Although prior cases have suggested that Terry-stopped individuals do not need to reveal their names, those cases are not controlling. Similarly, the stop and identify statute does not violate the Fifth Amendment. That amendment protects against self-incrimination, but the act of revealing your name is not generally incriminating. Stevens dissented. He would find that the statute violates the Fifth Amendment. Breyer (joined by Souter and Ginsburg) also dissented. He reads prior cases to provide that an individual who is stopped in a Terry stop does not have to respond to any police interrogation.
1. Whitfield v. United States (03-1293) and Hall v. United States (03-1294): These cases ask whether the commission of an overt act is an element of the crime of conspiracy to commit money laundering under 18 USC 1956(h).
2. Shepard v. United States (03-9168): I'm not sure what the precise question presented is, but from a review of the lower court opinion, it looks like the Court will consider the definition of "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act and what kinds of materials (e.g., police reports?) the courts may consider to determine whether a particular state law crime qualifies as a violent felony.
That's all until Thursday, when the Court is scheduled to hand down more opinions. Until then, thanks for reading!

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