A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. In most jurisdictions, such periods exist for both criminal law and civil law such as contract law and property law, though often under different names and with varying details.
A writ of coram nobis is a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error that did not appear in the records of the original judgment's proceedings and that would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced. The term coram nobis is Latin for "before us" and the meaning of its full form, quae coram nobis resident, is "which [things] remain in our presence". The writ of coram nobis originated in the courts of common law in the English legal system during the sixteenth century.
Henry Watkins Skinner was an American death row inmate in Texas. In 1995, he was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two adult sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler. On March 24, 2010, twenty minutes before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution to consider the question of whether Skinner could request testing of DNA his attorney chose not to have tested at his original trial in 1994. A third execution date for November 9, 2011, was also ultimately stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 7, 2011.
Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the standard for when a federal court can grant habeas corpus relief to overturn a criminal conviction based on the state court's misapplication of established federal law. At issue was whether a criminal defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial was violated when relatives of the alleged victim were permitted to sit in the courtroom as spectators during the trial, wearing buttons that displayed the victim's image.
Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court decision involving the original jurisdiction of the federal district courts under 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205 (2007), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court determined that the federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to hear habeas appeals that are filed late, even if the district court said the petitioner had additional time to file.
Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a life sentence with the possibility of parole under Texas' three strikes law for a felony fraud crime, where the offense and the defendant's two prior offenses involved approximately $230 of fraudulent activity.
District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that the Constitution's due process clause does not require states to turn over DNA evidence to a party seeking a civil suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York State, 470 U.S. 226 (1985), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning aboriginal title in the United States. The case, sometimes referred to as Oneida II, was "the first Indian land claim case won on the basis of the Nonintercourse Act."
Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011), is a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the route through which a prisoner may obtain biological DNA material for testing to challenge his conviction; whether through a civil rights suit or a habeas corpus petition. A majority of the Court held that the civil rights path was the appropriate path.
Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154 (2010), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving copyright law. The Court held that failure to register a copyright under Section 411 (a) of the United States Copyright Act does not limit a Federal Court's jurisdiction over claims of infringement regarding unregistered works.
Stewart Organization, Inc. v. Ricoh Corp., 487 U.S. 22 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court further refined the test for determining whether federal courts sitting in diversity must apply state law as opposed to federal law under the Erie doctrine. The question in Stewart was whether the federal venue transfer statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), occupied the field or whether Alabama law's unfavorable stance towards forum-selection clauses should instead be applied. The Court held that the federal statute governed the District Court's decision whether to give effect to the forum-selection clause.
United States v. Kebodeaux, 570 U.S. 387 (2013), was a recent case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sex Offender Notification and Registration Act (SORNA) was constitutional under the Necessary and Proper Clause.
McQuiggin v. Perkins, 569 U.S. 383 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that actual innocence, if proven, is sufficient to circumvent the one-year statute of limitations for petitioners to appeal their conviction enacted within the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).
Nichols v. United States, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) does not require an individual to update his registration after departing a state.
James Chiun-Yue Ho is a Taiwanese-born American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed by President Donald Trump. Ho formerly served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2008 to 2010. He has been identified as a potential Supreme Court nominee should Donald Trump be reelected in 2024.
Rodney Rodell Reed is an American death row inmate who was convicted on May 18, 1998, by a Bastrop County District Court jury for the April 1996 abduction, rape, and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old resident of Giddings, Texas.
McDonough v. Smith, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court held that the 3-year statute of limitations for a fabrication of evidence civil lawsuit under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act begins to run when the criminal case ends in the plaintiff's favor.
Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. 349 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a plot to defraud a foreign government of tax revenue violates the federal wire fraud statute.
Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656 (2001) is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the rule established under Cage v. Louisiana (1990), where the Court held certain jury instructions unconstitutional because the words used did not suggest the degree of proof required by the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, was not "made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court." Tyler is the primary case regarding the retroactivity of new rules to successive habeas petitions.
