Amy Howe

Oct 26 2018

Justices add three new cases to this term’s docket

This afternoon the justices announced that they had granted review in three new cases, involving issues ranging from patent and bankruptcy law to the federal law governing sex offenders. The justices did not act on several high-profile petitions for review, including a dispute over a cross on public land in the Washington, D.C., suburbs and a challenge to mandatory bar dues for lawyers. More orders from the justices’ private conference today are expected on Monday morning at 9:30 a.m., although the justices are unlikely to add any new cases to their docket with those orders.

In United States v. Haymond, the justices will weigh in on a challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law that requires additional prison time for sex offenders who violate the terms of their supervised release.

The defendant in the case is Andre Haymond, who was convicted on child pornography charges in 2010. A federal court sentenced Haymond to 38 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.

In 2015, Haymond was charged with violating his supervised release by (among other things) possessing pornography and child pornography, failing to tell the probation office about computers that he owned and repeatedly failing to attend sex-offender treatment sessions. A district court sentenced him to five additional years in prison, followed by five more years of supervised release.

Haymond appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which vacated the new prison sentence and sent his case back for resentencing. The court of appeals concluded that the federal law governing the revocation of supervised release and requiring additional prison time for sex offenders who violate the terms of their supervised release is unconstitutional, for two reasons: It takes away the sentencing judge’s discretion and imposes additional punishment on sex offenders based on new conduct, for which they had not been convicted by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

The federal government went to the Supreme Court over the summer, asking the justices to review the 10th Circuit’s ruling. The government told the court that the part of the law that the lower court struck down plays “an important role in protecting the public from harm,” and today the justices agreed to take up the case.

With a grant in Return Mail v. U.S. Postal Service, the justices agreed to consider whether the government is a “person” who can ask to institute proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. That law allows a “person” who has been sued for patent infringement to challenge the validity of the patent through a covered business method review before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

And in Mission Product Holdings v. Tempnology LLC, the justices agreed to decide an issue involving the rights of an entity that has permission to use intellectual property when the owner of that property goes through bankruptcy and rejects the agreement. The question before the court is whether, under federal bankruptcy laws, the owner’s rejection of the agreement giving permission to use its intellectual property terminates the rights to use the property.

All of three of the cases granted today are likely to be argued this winter, with a decision expected by late June.

This post was also published on SCOTUSblog.

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
Tweets by @AHoweBlogger
Recent ScotusBlog Posts from Amy
  • Justices throw out lower-court ruling allowing state court clerk to be sued in parental notification abortion case
  • Justices decline to halt execution of Texas man with intellectual disability claim
  • Justices take up case on federal admiralty law, seek government’s views on two pending petitions
More from Amy Howe

Recent Posts

  • Court rules for deaf student in education-law case
  • Parties disagree over court’s power to reach decision in election law case
  • Justices throw out lower-court ruling allowing state court clerk to be sued in parental notification abortion case
  • Justices decline to halt execution of Texas man with intellectual disability claim
  • Justices take up case on federal admiralty law, seek government’s views on two pending petitions
Site built and optimized by Sound Strategies