Supreme Court of the United States, 2005

Chief Justice Rehnquist dissents, arguing that the Supreme Court should defer to the Tax Court's interpretation of Rule 183 regarding disclosure of special trial judge reports, and that taxpayer arguments are not colorable.

Justice Kennedy concurred in the Court’s opinion, agreeing that Tax Court Rule 183(c) mandates deference to the special trial judge’s factual findings and requires the Tax Court judge to review the report submitted under Rule 183(b).

The Court held that Tax Court Rule 183 does not authorize the practice of withholding a special trial judge’s initial report from the record on appeal when the Tax Court judge adopts a revised version.

The Court held that Tax Court Rule 183 does not authorize the Tax Court to withhold the special trial judge’s original report from the appellate record while presenting a later, potentially collaborative version as the special trial judge’s opinion.

The Court held that, when determining whether a guilty plea under an overbroad burglary statute qualifies as an Armed Career Criminal Act predicate, a sentencing court may examine only a limited set of judicial records showing that the plea necessarily admitted generic burglary.

The Court affirmed convictions under a Wisconsin statute criminalizing combinations to maliciously injure business. It held the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect combinations intended to cause malevolent harm, even if some acts involved might otherwise be lawful.

The Court reversed judgments of the Court of Claims that denied compensation for seized property because the petitioner corporations were owned by a German stockholder. It held that under the Trading With the Enemy Act, a domestic corporation's enemy status is not fixed by the nationality of its stockholders.

The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, holding that Totten v. United States bars suits against the government based on covert espionage agreements, regardless of the legal theory asserted (e.g., due process or estoppel), because adjudication risks revealing the secret relationship.

The Court held that the Totten doctrine categorically bars suits by former spies to enforce covert espionage agreements, including due‑process and estoppel claims, and therefore reversed the Ninth Circuit and dismissed the action.

The Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments categorically forbid imposing the death penalty on offenders who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, deeming Stanford v. Kentucky no longer controlling.

Justice O'Connor dissents from the Court's categorical rule prohibiting the execution of offenders for crimes committed before age 18. She argues that objective evidence of national consensus is inconclusive and that proportionality analysis does not justify a blanket ban.

Justice Scalia, dissenting, argues the Court wrongly establishes a categorical rule barring execution of offenders under 18, citing an implausible national consensus and subjective moral judgment. He criticizes reliance on foreign law and overruling prior precedent Stanford v. Kentucky.

The Court held that a dredge qualifies as a 'vessel' under the LHWCA and Jones Act if it is capable of maritime transportation, regardless of its primary purpose or whether it is in motion at the time of injury.

The Court held that a judge's midtrial grant of a motion for a required finding of not guilty was an acquittal protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Because Massachusetts had not clearly established before trial that such an acquittal was subject to reconsideration, the judge could not revoke it after the defendant…

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting, agrees with the Court's conclusion that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar trial courts from reconsidering midtrial acquittal rulings before final judgment, but she argues the decision should rest on due process grounds since the defendant suffered no prejudice from the initial error.

The Supreme Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a trial judge from reconsidering a midtrial acquittal once the trial has proceeded to the defendant’s case, unless state law provides for reconsideration. The Court reversed the Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition for a writ of certiorari as improvidently granted because the petitioner failed to properly present his federal constitutional claim in the Mississippi Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, per curiam, reversed the Sixth Circuit's second grant of habeas relief to Gary Bradford Cone, a Tennessee death-row inmate whose jury had found the 'especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel' aggravating circumstance at sentencing. Applying 28 U.S.C.

The Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not require reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify walking a narcotics-detection dog around the exterior of a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop, because a sniff that reveals only the presence of contraband compromises no legitimate privacy interest.

Justice Ginsburg dissents, arguing that a drug-detection dog sniff of a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop violates the Fourth Amendment absent reasonable suspicion, as it broadens the seizure beyond its original scope.

Justice Souter dissents, arguing that a canine drug sniff during a traffic stop constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment because dogs are fallible, undermining Place v. United States rationale that sniffs are sui generis.

The Court held that when a litigant's recovery constitutes income, the portion paid to an attorney under a contingent-fee agreement is included in the litigant's gross income. This rule applies regardless of state law property interests in the fee, as the attorney-client relationship is fundamentally principal-agent.

Justice O'Connor concurred in the judgment, emphasizing that the six-month presumption from Zadvydas is just a presumption and may not apply to inadmissible aliens. She noted statutory tools for detaining security-risk aliens and conditions of supervised release.

The Court held that the limiting construction of 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6) announced in Zadvydas v. Davis — detention beyond the 90-day removal period only as long as reasonably necessary to effect removal, with a six-month presumptive period — applies equally to aliens ordered removed who are inadmissible under 8 U.S.C.

Two five-Justice majorities resolved the constitutional and remedial questions. Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Scalia, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, held that the Sixth Amendment applies to the mandatory Federal Sentencing Guidelines: except for prior convictions, facts necessary to exceed the maximum authorized…

Justice Thomas dissents, contending the majority misreads Zadvydas v. Davis by applying a 'lowest common denominator' principle that extends statutory detention limits to inadmissible aliens despite constitutional distinctions preserved in Zadvydas. He argues Zadvydas was wrongly decided and 8 U.S.C.