The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, is an act of the United States Congress signed into law on April 24, 1996. The bill was introduced by then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention. The Court's 6–3 judgment on June 28, 2004, reversed a D.C. Circuit decision which had held that the judiciary has no jurisdiction to hear any petitions from foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay.
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision with regard to aggravating factors in crimes. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maxima based on facts other than those decided by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision has been a cornerstone in the modern resurgence in jury trial rights. As Justice Scalia noted in his concurring opinion, the jury-trial right "has never been efficient; but it has always been free."
Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court applied the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey, to capital sentencing schemes, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. Ring overruled a portion of Walton v. Arizona, which had rejected that contention.
Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the one year statute of limitations for filing habeas corpus petitions that was established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that where the government has unintentionally failed to object to the filing of a petition after the AEDPA limitations period has expired, it is not an abuse of discretion for a district court to nevertheless sua sponte dismiss the petition on that basis.
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.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down six per curiam opinions during its 2004 term, which began October 4, 2004 and concluded October 3, 2005.
Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld two important aspects of the capital sentencing scheme in Arizona — judicial sentencing and the aggravating factor "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" — as not unconstitutionally vague. The Court overruled the first of these holdings in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). The second of these holdings has yet to be overturned.
Richard Kenneth Djerf is an American mass murderer, currently on death row in Florence, Arizona. His case is often compared with that of John List, with the exception that Djerf killed someone else’s family.
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.
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Guantanamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1986), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court.
Whorton v. Bockting, 549 U.S. 406 (2007), was a United States Supreme Court case about the application of the Confrontation Clause and whether Crawford v. Washington (2006) applied retroactively. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that Crawford did not apply retroactively.
Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding a prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge to remove a young African American woman, Juror 16, from a defendant's drug trial jury in a California court case, based on her youth and on her alleged "eye rolling" in answer to a question. The defendant, Steven Martell Collins, challenged the striking of Juror 16, saying her exclusion was based on race, but the trial judge agreed that the prosecutor's reasons were race-neutral. The California Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's ruling, and the Federal District Court dismissed Collins' habeas corpus petition with prejudice. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, stating that the dismissal was unreasonable based, among other reasons, on the lack of evidence that the eye rolling had occurred.
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 ten per curiam opinions during its 2010 term, which began October 4, 2010 and concluded October 1, 2011.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions related to criminal sentencing.
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.
Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–1 ruling, applied the rule of Ring v. Arizona to the Florida capital sentencing scheme, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. In Florida, under a 2013 statute, the jury made recommendations but the judge decided the facts.
Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies" for immigration purposes, is unconstitutionally vague. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) classifies some categories of crimes as "aggravated felonies", and immigrants convicted of those crimes, including those legally present in the United States, are almost certain to be deported. Those categories include "crimes of violence", which are defined by the "elements clause" and the "residual clause". The Court struck down the "residual clause", which classified every felony that, "by its nature, involves a substantial risk" of "physical force against the person or property" as an aggravated felony.
