US Supreme Court issues 5 unanimous rulings
Additional details on the civil cases are available at scotusblog.
Fry v. Pliler- Justice Scalia authored the opinion. The Court concluded that a federal habeas court must assess the prejudicial impact of constitutional error in a state court court criminal trial under the "substantial and injurious effect" standard set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson 507 U.S. 619 (1993), even if the state appellate court failed to recognize the error and did not review it for harmlessness under the "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt" standard set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Justice Stevens issued an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, which was joined by Justice Souter and Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer in part. Those justices would have reversed the 9th Circuit's decision applying the Brecht standard to the constitutional error found by the federal district court in its habeas review.
Watson v. Philip Morris- a lawsuit against a private company cannot be shifted from state court to federal court simply because the company was acting under federal agency regulations.
Long Island Care at Home v. Coke - home health care workers who are employed by outside agencies are not entitled to minimum wages and overtime pay under federal law.
U.S. v. Atlantic Research Corp. - a federal superfund law allows a company that has not been sued over a hazardous waste dump to sue another party, including federal agencies, to recover some of the cleanup costs.
Beck v. PACE International Union - a company that sponsors its own pension plan for workers does not have the duty to consider merging it with another plan as a method of ending the plan while continuing benefits.
The Court issued certiorari in three cases:
Kimbrough v. U.S. - it appears that this case presents the issue of whether it is fair to punish crack cocaine crime far more severely (100 to 1) than those involving cocaine powder under the federal sentencing guidelines.
Gall v. U.S. - It appears that this may be the replacement case for Claiborne (which was dismissed after the defendant was killed). The 8th Circuit concluded that a district court was unreasonable in granting probation to a defendant who was a middleman in a onspiracy which distributed 10,000 tablets of ecstasy. The Circuit found that the extraordinary downward variance from the sentencing guidelines range of 30 to 37 months was not supported by extraordinary circumstances. The lower court citation is 446 F.3d 884 (8th Cir. 2006).
Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn - it appears that this case involves the issue of whether federal courts must allow testimony in a workplace discrimination trial by other workers, who are not parties to the case, to testify that they were also victims of job bias .