Thanks to cases engaging the Double Jeopardy and Excessive Fines Clauses, the current Supreme Court Term is already rich and interesting for criminal justice fans. But over at SCOTUSblog, recent posts about relists and petitions to watch add to the potential excitement concerning the Court's criminal docket. It is very unlikely that the Justice will grant cert on all or even most of these cases, but even one or two grants from this bunch would make an already exciting Term that much more intriguing:
Relists:
United States v. Haymond, 17-1672 (and Sperling v. United States, 17-8390)
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit erred in holding “unconstitutional and unenforceable” the portions of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k) that required the district court to revoke the respondent’s 10-year term of supervised release, and to impose five years of reimprisonment, following its finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the respondent violated the conditions of his release by knowingly possessing child pornography.
Wood v. Oklahoma, 17-6891 (and Jones v. Oklahoma, 17-6943)
Issues: (1) Whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into Oklahoma’s capital-sentencing determinations proves that the petitioner’s death sentence is unconstitutional under the Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether Oklahoma’s capital post-conviction statute, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1089(D)(8)(b), and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the statute in this case deny the petitioner an adequate corrective process for the hearing and determination of his newly available federal constitutional claim in violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses.
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit properly used Moore v. Texas, a Supreme Court decision from 2017, to find that an Ohio court unreasonably applied Atkins v. Virginia in 2008, despite the Ohio court’s reliance on the clinical judgments of experts to find that Danny Hill was not intellectually disabled.
New petitions to watch:
Prison Legal News v. Jones, 18-355
Issue: Whether the Florida Department of Corrections’ blanket ban of Prison Legal News violates a petitioner’s First Amendment right to free speech and a free press.
Castillo v. United States, 18-374
Issue: Whether a criminal defendant convicted of violating the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, 46 U.S.C. § 70501, et seq., and subject to a mandatory minimum sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 960, is eligible for relief from that mandatory minimum under the statutory “safety valve” of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f).
Haight v. United States, 18-370
Issue: Whether a criminal offense with a mens rea of recklessness qualifies as a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e).
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