Because per curiam decisions are issued from the Court as an institution, these opinions all lack the attribution of authorship or joining votes to specific justices. All justices on the Court at the time the decision was handed down are assumed to have participated and concurred unless otherwise noted.
Javier Cavazos, Acting Warden, v. Shirley Ree Smith
Citations:
565 U.S. 1
Prior history:
Petition denied, sub nom. Smith v. Mitchell, No. CV-01–4484–ABC (C.D. Cal., Mar. 22, 2004); rev'd, 437 F. 3d 884 (9th Cir. 2006); summarily vacated and remanded, sub nom. Patrick v. Smith, 550 U.S. 915 (2006), judgment reinstated, 508 F. 3d 1256 (9th Cir. 2007) (per curiam); summarily vacated and remanded, 558 U.S. 1143 (2010); judgment reinstated, sub nom. Smith v. Mitchell, 624 F. 3d 1235 (9th Cir. 2010) (per curiam)
565 U.S. 1 Decided October 31, 2011. Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded.
The Court reversed, for the third time, a judgment of the Ninth Circuit that had set aside the conviction of a woman for the death of her infant grandson attributed to shaken baby syndrome (SBS). The Court ruled that the Ninth Circuit's judgment, which had questioned the sufficiency of the expert testimony supporting SBS as the victim's cause of death, was contrary to the deferential standard of review established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 for such petitions.
Ginsburg filed a dissent, joined by Breyer and Sotomayor.
Smith's sentence was subsequently commuted by California Governor Jerry Brown to time served, releasing her after a decade in prison.[2]
565 U.S. 18 Decided November 7, 2011. District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District, vacated and remanded.
The Court vacated a Florida state court judgment refusing to compel arbitration in a lawsuit involving claims brought against auditor KPMG by investors who were defrauded by Bernie Madoff. The Court ruled that the state court erred in determining only that some, but not all, of the claims in the lawsuit were not subject to arbitration, because the Federal Arbitration Act does not permit courts to issue a blanket refusal to compel arbitration simply because some of the claims could be resolved by the court without arbitration.
Bobby v. Dixon
Full caption:
David Bobby, Warden v. Archie Dixon
Citations:
565 U.S. 23
Prior history:
Defendant convicted at trial sub. nom. State v. Dixon; affirmed (Ohio App., 1995); affirmed, 2004 Ohio 1585, 101 Ohio St.3d 328, 805 N.E.2d 1042 (2004); habeas petition denied sub nom. Dixon v. Houk, No. 05-01290 (N.D. Ohio, 2005); reversed, 627 F. 3d 553 (6th Cir. 2010)
565 U.S. 23 Decided November 7, 2011. Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded.
The Court ruled that the Sixth Circuit erred in setting aside a murder conviction in Ohio state court, because although the defendant's initial confession was given without the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, his subsequent confession was voluntary and therefore admissible against him.
565 U.S. 65 Decided December 12, 2011. Seventh Circuit reversed.
The Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's setting aside of a state court criminal conviction for sexual assault, where the alleged victim had been declared an unavailable witness and her testimony from a previous mistrial was admitted. Because the state court's decision to admit the testimony was not an unreasonable application of the Court's Confrontation Clause jurisprudence, the Seventh Circuit's decision failed to give the state court the benefit of the doubt as required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
Though she had testified willingly and was cross-examined at the first trial, which was declared a mistrial, the witness subsequently claimed to fear for her safety and went into hiding, failing to appear for the second trial. The prosecution made numerous and repeated attempts to locate her through her family and friends, and the state trial court, characterizing such efforts as "superhuman," consequently granted its motion to have her declared unavailable and her testimony from the first trial admitted. The defendant was convicted of one of the charges and after losing an appeal in state court, filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court.
The Seventh Circuit ruled that the prosecution had not made the requisite good faith effort to locate the witness, describing particular steps that had not been taken. The Court considered these efforts unlikely to have made a difference, and "the Sixth Amendment does not require the prosecution to exhaust every avenue of inquiry, no matter how unpromising."
Perry v. Perez
Full caption:
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, et al. v. Shannon Perez, et al[3]
565 U.S. 388 Argued January 9, 2012. Decided January 20, 2012. District Court for the Western District of Texas vacated and remanded.
The Court vacated and remanded a federal court's interim legislative redistricting in Texas, a state covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for which preclearance of redistricting by the state is required. Due to a significant increase in the state's population recorded in the 2010 census, the state had to redistrict, but in the District Court's view, could not obtain preclearance of its proposed plan in time for the 2012 elections. The District Court accordingly drew an interim district map itself. The Supreme Court found that the District Court's map was not deferential enough to the state's plan and policies, altering it without regard to whether those particular elements of the state's plan were legally flawed or had a reasonable probability of failing preclearance.
Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, stating that he believed Texas could implement its redistricting plan regardless of its failure to obtain preclearance in time, because in his view, §5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.
Ryburn v. Huff
Full caption:
Darin Ryburn, et al. v. George R. Huff, et al.
Citations:
565 U.S. 469
Prior history:
Judgment for defendants, sub nom. Huff v. City of Burbank, C.D. Cal., 2009 (unreported); reversed in part and remanded, 632 F.3d 539 (9th Cir. 2011)
565 U.S. 469 Decided January 23, 2012. Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded.
The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's judgment that police officers were not entitled to qualified immunity for entering a private home without a warrant, finding that their belief that violence was imminent, and that a warrantless entry was appropriate, was reasonable under the circumstances.
The police officers were questioning the mother of a student who had been rumored to be planning to shoot other students at school. The mother initially failed to answer the phone, hung up after she did, and after coming outside to speak to the officers, failed to ask them what the questioning was about, and immediately ran back inside when she was asked if there were any guns inside. Finding this behavior alarming, the officers followed her in. No guns were found, and the rumors about the student's intentions turned out to be false.
The family sued the police, alleging under 42U.S.C.§1983 that their warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment. The District Court entered judgment for the officers, finding that their account of the incident was accurate and ruling that they were entitled to qualified immunity because they reasonably believed that violence was imminent. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed. Though it accepted the District Court's findings of fact, it instead found that the officers were objectively unreasonable in believing that anyone's safety was at risk, because in their view the mother merely exercised her legal right to end the questioning.
In reversing, the Court criticized the Ninth Circuit for basing its ruling upon a changed version of the facts, as well as for apparently assuming that lawful conduct could not give rise to a legitimate concern that violence was imminent. The Court also stated that the Ninth Circuit failed to look at the totality of the officers' encounter with the mother, instead incorrectly analyzing each step in isolation. Finally, the Ninth Circuit failed to give proper consideration to the perspective of the officers at the scene as events were unfolding, instead viewing the case "with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."
Wetzel v. Lambert
Full caption:
John E. Wetzel, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et al. v. James Lambert
Citations:
565 U.S. 520
Prior history:
Petition denied, sub nom. Lambert v. Beard, No. 02–9034 (E.D. Pa. July 24, 2007); reversed, 633 F. 3d 126 (3d Cir. 2011)
565 U.S. 520 Decided February 24, 2012. Third Circuit vacated and remanded.
Convicted in 1984 and sentenced to death for a robbery, James Lambert filed for habeas corpus due to the discovery of unreleased evidence that the prosecution had failed to disclose to the defense in violation of the decision in Betts v. Brady. A federal appeals court agreed, vacated Lambert's conviction and ordered him released unless the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania retried him within 120 days. The Supreme Court vacated this order and remanded the case for further review, finding that a burden of a retrial three decades after the crime "should not be imposed unless each ground supporting the state court decision is examined and found to be unreasonable under [the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996]."
Breyer filed a dissent, joined by Ginsburg and Kagan.
Marmet Health Care Center, Inc. v. Brown
Full caption:
Marmet Health Care Center, Inc., et al. v. Clayton Brown et al.[4]
Citations:
565 U.S. 530
Prior history:
Brown v. Genesis Healthcare Corp., No. 35494 (W. Va., June 29, 2011)
567 U.S. 516 Decided June 25, 2012. Supreme Court of Montana reversed.
In a case involving a state law prohibiting corporate expenditures that support or oppose a political candidate or party, the Supreme Court reversed the Montana Supreme Court's 2011 holding in Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Attorney General of Montana that the law did not violate the First Amendment. The Court's short opinion stated that "[t]here can be no serious doubt" that the issue had already been decided to the contrary by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010), which struck a similar federal law as unconstitutional. "Montana's arguments in support of the judgment below either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case."
Breyer filed a dissent, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, writing that he disagreed with the holding in Citizens United. Even accepting that decision, however, Breyer did not believe it precluded a finding that Montana had a compelling state interest in limiting corporate political expenditures in light of the particular "history and political landscape in Montana."
567 U.S. 758 Decided September 25, 2012. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia reversed and remanded.
The Court ruled that the federal district court gave the state insufficient deference to its political judgment when it invalidated a legislative redistricting map as contrary to the constitutional principle of "one person, one vote."
↑ Perry v. Perez, No. 11-713, was decided together with Perry v. Davis, No. 11-714 and Perry v. Perez, No. 11-715.
↑ Marmet Health Care Center, Inc. v. Brown, No. 11–391, was decided together with Clarksburg Nursing Home & Rehabilitation Center, LLC, dba Clarksburg Continuous Care Center, et al. v. Sharon A. Marchio, Executrix of the Estate of Pauline Virginia Willett, No. 11-394.
Related Research Articles
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down sixteen per curiam opinions during its 2005 term, which lasted from October 3, 2005, until October 1, 2006.
League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court ruled that only District 23 of the 2003 Texas redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act. The Court refused to throw out the entire plan, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to state a sufficient claim of partisan gerrymandering.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down seven per curiam opinions during its 2003 term, which began October 6, 2003 and concluded October 3, 2004.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down twelve per curiam opinions during its 2002 term, which began October 7, 2002 and concluded October 5, 2003.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2006 term, which began October 2, 2006 and concluded September 30, 2007.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down six per curiam opinions during its 2007 term, which began October 1, 2007 and concluded September 30, 2008.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2008 term, which began on October 6, 2008 and concluded October 4, 2009.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nineteen per curiam opinions during its 2009 term, which began on October 5, 2009, and concluded October 3, 2010.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2000 term, which began October 2, 2000 and concluded September 30, 2001.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2010 term, which began October 4, 2010 and concluded October 1, 2011.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down six per curiam opinions during its 2012 term, which began October 1, 2012 and concluded October 6, 2013.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2013 term, which began October 7, 2013 and concluded October 5, 2014.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2014 term, which began October 6, 2014 and concluded October 4, 2015.
Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case where the Court upheld the right of Arizona voters to remove the authority to draw election districts from the Arizona State Legislature and vest it in an independent redistricting commission. In doing so, the Court expressly rejected a nascent version of the independent state legislature theory.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eighteen per curiam opinions during its 2015 term, which began October 5, 2015 and concluded October 2, 2016.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2016 term, which began October 3, 2016 and concluded October 1, 2017.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down sixteen per curiam opinions during its 2017 term, which began October 2, 2017, and concluded September 30, 2018.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down seven per curiam opinions during its 2018 term, which began October 1, 2018, and concluded October 6, 2019.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2019 term, which began October 7, 2019 and concluded October 4, 2020.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020 and concluded October 3, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
