Source: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/terms/ot2017/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 06:21:52+00:00

Document:
Holding: Because the Waters of the United States Rule – a definition of the statutory term “waters of the United States” proffered by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers in a 2015 regulation – falls outside the ambit of Section 1369(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act, challenges to the rule must be filed in federal district courts.
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit was right to review the Bankruptcy Court’s determination of non-statutory insider status for clear error (rather than de novo).
Holding: The Bankruptcy Code allows trustees to set aside and recover certain transfers for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate, including certain fraudulent transfers “of an interest of the debtor in property”; the Bankruptcy Code also sets out a number of limits on the exercise of these avoiding powers, including the Section 546(e) safe harbor – which, inter alia, provides that a “trustee may not avoid a transfer that is a … settlement payment … made by or to (or for the benefit of) a … financial institution .. or that is a transfer made by or to (or for the benefit of) a … financial institution … in connection with a securities contract.” In the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed by Valley View Downs and its parent company, the only relevant transfer for purposes of the Section 546(e) safe harbor is the transfer that the trustee, FTI Consulting Inc., seeks to avoid, i.e., the transfer from Valley View to Merit Management Group for the sale of Bedford Downs Management’s stock.
Holding: David Patchak filed suit challenging the authority of the secretary of the Interior Department to take into trust a property (Bradley Property) on which Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians wished to build a casino. In an earlier appeal in the case, the Supreme Court held that the secretary lacked sovereign immunity and that Patchak had standing, and it remanded the case for further proceedings. Congress subsequently enacted the Gun Lake Act, which “reaffirmed as trust land” the Bradley Property, Section 2(a), and provided that “an action . . . relating to [that] land shall not be filed or maintained in a Federal court and shall be promptly dismissed,” Section 2(b). The court of appeals properly affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Patchak’s lawsuit pursuant to that statute.
Holding: Inter partes review -- which authorizes the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider and cancel an already-issued patent claim, under 35 U. S. C. §§311–319 -- does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution.
Holding: Provisions of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act that prohibit state authorization and licensing of sports gambling schemes violate the Constitution’s anticommandeering rule; no other PASPA provisions are severable from the provisions at issue.
Holding: To convict a defendant under 26 U. S. C. §7212(a) -- which forbids “corruptly or by force or threats of force . . . obstruct[ing] or imped[ing], or endeavor[ing] to obstruct or impede, the due administration of [the Internal Revenue Code]” -- the federal government must prove the defendant was aware of a pending tax-related proceeding, such as a particular investigation or audit, or could reasonably foresee that such a proceeding would commence.
Holding: The United States may pursue its complaint in intervention asserting a claim that New Mexico has violated the Rio Grande Compact.
Holding: The mere fact that a driver in lawful possession or control of a rental car is not listed on the rental agreement will not defeat his or her otherwise reasonable expectation of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Holding: The Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception does not permit the warrantless entry of a home or its curtilage in order to search a vehicle therein.
Holding: The process that Ohio uses to remove voters on change-of-residence grounds does not violate the National Voter Registration Act.
Issue(s): (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces erred in holding that petitioners' claims—which asserted that a judge's service on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review disqualifies him or her from continuing to serve on either the Army or Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals under 10 U.S.C. § 973(b)(2)(A)(ii)—were moot; (2) whether these judges' service on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review disqualifies them from continuing to serve on the Army or Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals under 10 U.S.C. § 973(b)(2)(A)(ii); (3) whether the judges' simultaneous service on both the U.S Court of Military Commission Review and the Army or Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals violates the appointments clause; and (4) whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review this case and Dalmazzi v. United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1259(3).
Issue(s): (1) Whether the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces erred in holding that the petitioner's challenge to Judge Martin T. Mitchell's continued service on the U.S. Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, after he was nominated and confirmed to the Article I U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, was moot – because his CMCR commission had not been signed until after the U.S. Air Force CCA decided her case on the merits, even though she moved for reconsideration after the commission was signed; (2) whether Judge Mitchell's service on the CMCR disqualified him from continuing to serve on the AFCCA under 10 U.S.C. § 973(b)(2)(A)(ii), which requires express authorization from Congress before active-duty military officers may hold a “civil office,” including positions that require “an appointment by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate”; (3) whether Judge Mitchell's simultaneous service on both the CMCR and the AFCCA violated the appointments clause; and (4) whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review this case and Cox v. United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1259(3).
Holding: Because service advisors at car dealerships are “salesm[e]n . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles,” 29 U. S. C. §213(b)(10)(A), they are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime-pay requirement.
Issue(s): Whether the Fifth Amendment is violated when statements are used at a probable cause hearing but not at a criminal trial.
Holding: A miscalculation of a Federal Guidelines sentencing range that has been determined to be plain and to affect a defendant’s substantial rights calls for a court of appeals to exercise its discretion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) to vacate the defendant’s sentence in the ordinary case.
Holding: The state of Illinois’ extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public-sector employees violates the First Amendment; Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., which concluded otherwise, is overruled.
Issue(s): Whether a United States provider of email services must comply with a probable-cause-based warrant issued under 18 U.S.C. § 2703 by making disclosure in the United States of electronic communications within that provider's control, even if the provider has decided to store that material abroad.
Holding: The existence of probable cause for Fane Lozman’s arrest for disrupting a city council meeting does not bar his First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim under the circumstances of this case.
Holding: Minnesota’s ban on political apparel at polling places violates the First Amendment’s free speech clause.
Holding: County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, addressed only a question of statutory interpretation of the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, not the question whether Indian tribes have sovereign immunity in in rem lawsuits. The Lundgrens now ask the Supreme Court to affirm on an alternative, common-law ground: that the tribe cannot assert sovereign immunity because this suit relates to immovable property located in Washington state, purchased by the tribe in the same manner as a private individual. Because this alternative argument did not emerge until late in this case, the Washington Supreme Court should address it in the first instance.
Holding: The defendants’ appeals challenging the use of full restraints during nonjury pretrial proceedings became moot when their underlying criminal cases came to an end before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit could render its decision.
Holding: Upon denial of class certification, a putative class member may not, in lieu of promptly joining an existing suit or promptly filing an individual action, commence a class action anew beyond the time allowed by the applicable statute of limitations.
Holding: A Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement is “based on” the defendant’s Federal Sentencing Guidelines range so long as that range was part of the framework the district court relied on in imposing the sentence or accepting the agreement; thus, Erik Hughes may seek a sentencing reduction under 18 U. S. C. §3582(c)(2).
Holding: Quill Corp. v. North Dakota and National Bellas Hess Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Illinois -- which held that a state cannot require an out-of-state seller with no physical presence in the state to collect and remit sales taxes on goods the seller ships to consumers in the state -- are overruled.
Issue(s): (1) Whether a treaty “right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations ... in common with all citizens” guaranteed “that the number of fish would always be sufficient to provide a ‘moderate living’ to the tribes”; (2) whether the district court erred in dismissing the state's equitable defenses against the federal government where the federal government signed these treaties in the 1850’s, for decades told the state to design culverts a particular way, and then filed suit in 2001 claiming that the culvert design it provided violates the treaties it signed; and (3) whether the district court’s injunction violates federalism and comity principles by requiring Washington to replace hundreds of culverts, at a cost of several billion dollars, when many of the replacements will have no impact on salmon, and plaintiffs showed no clear connection between culvert replacement and tribal fisheries.
Holding: Because the record in this case demonstrates that the judge had a reasoned basis for his decision, the judge’s explanation for reducing, under 18 U. S. C. §3582(c)(2), Adaucto Chavez-Meza’s sentence to the middle rather than the bottom of the amended Federal Guidelines range was adequate.
Holding: The president has lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him under 8 U. S. C. §1182(f) to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States; respondents have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that Presidential Proclamation No. 9645 violates the establishment clause.
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals erred when it held that “federal law” as interpreted by the Supreme Court “clearly” establishes that specific performance of the lower sentence that the parties had originally expected is constitutionally required.
Holding: Because the state court’s determinations of law and fact were not “so lacking in justification” as to give rise to error “beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement,” Vernon Madison’s claim to federal habeas relief must fail.
Holding: Police officer Andrew Kisela is entitled to qualified immunity because his actions did not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred in reversing a denial of federal habeas relief on the ground that the state court had unreasonably rejected Nicholas Beaudreaux’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim.
Holding: The district court’s order is affirmed insofar as it provided a court-drawn remedy for Senate Districts 21 and 28 and House Districts 21 and 57 and reversed as to the court’s actions concerning the legislature’s redrawing of House districts in Wake and Mecklenburg Counties.
Holding: On the unusual facts of this case, the court of appeals should not have rested its review of Keith Tharpe’s application for a certificate of appealability on the ground that it was indisputable among reasonable jurists that Barney Gattie’s service on the jury did not prejudice Tharpe.
Issue(s): Whether bankruptcy courts should apply a federal rule of decision (as five circuits have held) or a state law rule of decision (as two circuits have held, expressly acknowledging a split of authority) when deciding to recharacterize a debt claim in bankruptcy as a capital contribution.
Issue(s): Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit erred in holding – in direct conflict with the decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd and 9th Circuits – that Item 303 of Securities and Exchange Commission Regulation S-K creates a duty to disclose that is actionable under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5.
Issue(s): (1) Whether respondents' challenge to the temporary suspension of entry of aliens abroad under Section 2(c) of Executive Order No. 13,780 is justiciable; (2) whether Section 2(c)'s temporary suspension of entry violates the Establishment Clause; (3) whether the global injunction, which rests on alleged injury to a single individual plaintiff, is impermissibly overbroad; and (4) whether the challenges to Section 2(c) became moot on June 14, 2017.
Issue(s): Whether orders denying state-action immunity to public entities are immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.

References: §7212
 § 973
 § 973
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 § 1259
 § 973
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 § 1259
 §213
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 § 2703
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 §3582
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 §3582
 §1182