Month: August 2017

The U.S. Supreme Court will revisit the issue of partisan gerrymandering during the upcoming term. The key issue in Gill v Whitford is whether the redistricting plan passed by Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2011 is an unconstituti...

In Jesner v Arab Bank, PLC, the Supreme Court will consider whether liability under the Alien Tort Statute extends to corporate defendants. The decision will significantly impact whether corporations can be held liable in U.S. courts for human rights...

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will return to work in less than a month. The new term will feature several high-profile cases, including Christie v NCAA. The Court will resolve the State of New Jersey’s long-standing battle to legalize spor...

In BNSF Railway v Tyrrell, the Court addressed when courts have jurisdiction over corporate defendants. It held that “the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause does not permit a state to have an out-of-state corporation before its courts wh...

In Advocate Health Care Network v Stapleton, 581 U. S. ____ (2017), the Supreme Court held that church-affiliated hospitals qualify as a “church plan” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). The Court’s decision, whi...

In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co v Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, 582 U.S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court tightened the requirements for exercising personal jurisdiction. It held that California courts lacked specific jurisdictio...

In Turner v United States, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant new trials to several defendants convicted of the brutal 1984 murder of Catherine Fuller in Washington, D.C. The defendants had argued that prosecutors withhel...

In Weaver v Massachusetts, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held that “structural error” requires a showing of prejudice when raised via an ineffective assistance claim. The decision provides clarity regarding the intersection of the...

In Jae Lee v United States, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Korean immigrant received ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorney erroneously advised him that pleading guilty to a drug charge would not result in dep...

In Maslenjak v United States, 582 U. S. ____ (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that trivial misstatements made during naturalization proceedings can’t serve as grounds for revoking citizenship. Rather, the illegal act must have playe...