Legal Docket - Eleven opinions

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday morning and a brand new work week for The World and Everything in It. Today is the 20th of June, 2022.

Good morning to you, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

We expect the U.S. Supreme Court to hand down more opinions tomorrow morning as today the court is closed for the federal holiday of Juneteenth.

Anticipation is high ahead of decisions about abortion, gun rights, school funding and private prayer at public school.

Today, we’ll summarize the eleven opinions released last week. We’ll move quickly through, so buckle up!

REICHARD: Ok, let’s go: In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled against a Native American prosecuted two times for a single incident of rape.

Merle Denezpi argued this was double jeopardy, and the Fifth Amendment protects him against that.

But the majority justices disagreed. They pointed out that Denezpi’s single act broke two laws: the tribal code’s assault-and-battery ordinance—as well as aggravated sexual abuse in Indian country, which is found in the United States code.

Therefore, no Double Jeopardy here because two distinct sovereigns enforcing two different laws prosecuted Denezpi—once in federal court, and once in a Court of Indian Offenses.

EICHER: Next, a loss for a Mexican citizen who was deported once from the United States and then re-entered the country. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reinstated that removal order and placed him into detention.

The man argued that he should have a bond hearing before a judge and that proceeding would determine if he could be released from detention and remain in the United States pending resolution of his claims.

But a unanimous court decided the federal government may detain immigrants indefinitely in removal proceedings without a bond hearing.

Here, the man said he feared torture if he returned to Mexico. An asylum officer determined his fear was reasonable. But it can take years to process these kinds of claims, and the man would have to remain in detention the whole time.

REICHARD: The wrinkle is that in 2001, the Supreme Court held that detaining an immigrant indefinitely would raise serious due process issues. That’s why lower courts in this case favored the noncitizen.

Rather than extend that earlier decision, the court pointed to a doctrine known as constitutional avoidance. That says federal courts must decide cases on statutory grounds in lieu of the Constitutional grounds where possible. So the court held the immigration statute at issue in this case did not require the government to hold a bond hearing.

Because the high court did not reach the constitutional claims of the noncitizen, it remanded the case to lower court to analyze that aspect.

EICHER: The next case is similar. It involves class-action members who face long detention pending deportation proceedings and asks whether they as a class are entitled to bond hearings. The majority held that the governing law bars class-action relief and that district courts have no authority to order the government to hold bond hearings as a class.

The bottom line is that this pair of decisions will make it much more difficult for aliens to challenge deportation orders.

REICHARD: Okay, moving right along now with opinion number four.

This one says federal district courts have no authority to order discovery in international arbitration disputes.

Here, two companies are fighting over alleged fraud in a business transaction. Each signed an arbitration agreement to settle problems before an arbitration board in Germany. One company seeks relevant documents and testimony and wants a federal district court to compel the other side to provide the documents and testimony.

But all nine justices agreed federal district courts have no authority to do so. The law in question doesn’t apply to arbitration panels like this one, only to certain bodies that adjudicate controversies.

EICHER: This next decision didn’t actually result in an opinion. Instead, the case ended as a “DIG.” That’s a legal acronym that stands for “dismissed as improvidently granted”—D-I-G.

Thirteen Republican-governed states led by Arizona sought to intervene in a case out of the 9th circuit. Intervene is when a third party wants to enter into an existing lawsuit between two other parties. These states want to defend a Trump administration rule that aimed to screen out immigrants who seek green cards and who would likely qualify for taxpayer funded benefits like Medicaid.

President Biden rescinded the rule and during oral argument, government lawyers argued a new and different rule was on the way.

You could hear a hint of the eventual DIG in this comment from Justice Clarence Thomas. This is from oral argument in February:

THOMAS: What makes this case different from any other case? I mean, when administrations change -- I think this is my fifth administration change. And the new administration often changes its position in cases.

REICHARD: This next decision concerns an international child-custody dispute and it’s a temporary victory for the mother of the boy at the center of the fight.

The woman in this case married a man in Italy. Together, they had a son, who was born there. But the marriage was abusive, she said, and so four years ago when she paid a visit to the United States and brought the son, she never went back.

The father sued to get the child back pursuant to a treaty called the Hague Convention. It establishes how to return an internationally abducted child from one member country to another.

EICHER: The case bounced around for a while before reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. The question there was what the Hague Convention requires: specifically, how the courts are supposed to protect children who may be at risk in an abusive home environment.

The mother’s lawyer, Karen King, during oral argument inserted urgency into a needed resolution:

KING: The child here is almost 6 years old. He has spent the vast majority of his life in legal limbo. Reversal provides the safe and swift closure he deserves.

REICHARD: Alas, swift closure is not to be, but the boy does remain with his mother in the United States for now as the case is remanded to lower court.

The trial court now has to determine whether supervision and counseling measures for the father are enough to protect the child during the time authorities resolve custody.

EICHER: Another opinion came down 6-3 against a former member of the Marine Corps. The military denied him disability benefits, even after the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it was wrong in its initial interpretation of the law.

Back in 1975, Kevin George joined the Marine Corps and passed the initial physical. But he did not disclose that he’d suffered recent episodes of schizophrenia—and during training he suffered another one that prompted the Marines to issue a medical discharge.

George argued he is entitled to disability benefits because his short time of service made his condition worse. Because this happened back in the 1970s, the VA could at that time reject claims by showing a condition existed prior to service.

REICHARD: But then in 2003 the VA ditched that interpretation. The new practice would be for the VA to hold off denying benefits until it could prove a veteran’s service didn’t make any pre-existing condition worse.

The VA argued back in April that its original decision wasn’t a mistake at the time. Here’s lawyer Anthony Yang:

YANG: For nearly 60 years now, the regulation governing clear and unmistakable error provided that such error cannot be based on a change in interpretation of the law….

By a vote of 6-3, the court agreed because the decision to deny benefits at that time wasn’t wrong.

A tart dissent by Justice Neil Gorsuch said not giving George a new hearing was inexcusable and warned that broader implications will soon become evident.

EICHER: Next decision was another arbitration dispute that handed victory to the cruise line Viking River.

Angie Moriana worked as a sales rep for Viking and she’d signed an arbitration agreement with her employer. But she filed a class action on behalf of herself and other employees for wage and hour violations. She based her case on California state law and state supreme court precedent.

Her employer argued that the arbitration agreement she signed stops a class-action claim like that.

The majority justices agreed, although it’s a fractured opinion with many concurrences and dissents. This is a win for employers, but it’s probably not the last word on California state law and the Federal Arbitration Act.

REICHARD: Moving on now to decision number 9: a split court allows a Native American tribe in Texas to offer electronic bingo on its reservation.

Texas wanted to prohibit Indian tribes from operating bingo games on tribal lands. But the state permits bingo in other venues under certain circumstances, and so the high court handed victory to the tribe, reasoning it doesn’t matter that the tribal game-play is electronic.

The majority made up an unusual coalition of conservative and liberal justices: the five included conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett along with liberals Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Justice Gorsuch frequently sides with Native American tribes.

EICHER: This next case has to do with errors judges make.

A man named Dexter Kemp received a 35-year prison sentence for drug and firearms offenses. He tried to vacate the sentence by arguing he was the victim of bad lawyering. A judge rejected the claim and more than a year later, Kemp moved to reopen his case.

A judge denied that because it was too late.

The Supreme Court had to decide whether the governing rules permit court review of a district court judge’s error of law if the litigant doesn’t raise a complaint within a year’s time. The ruling was 8-1 that the answer is no.

REICHARD: Final decision from last week is a unanimous victory for the American Hospital Association against the federal government.

The court ruled the US Department of Health and Human Services improperly cut reimbursement rates to healthcare organizations that care for low-income patients. That’s because the agency failed to gather important pricing information before cutting hospital drug reimbursements by $1.6 billion.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion and ended it by noting that some arguments put forth by the government are not properly resolved at the Supreme Court. It’s for Congress to fix some things.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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