TESTIMONY

Issues

Lane is the former director of the Community Intensive Training for Youth Program (“CITY”) at Central Alabama Community College (“CACC”); Steve Franks is the former president of CACC. As director of CITY, Lane conducted an audit and discovered that state representative Susan Schmitz was on CITY’s payroll, but had not come to work at the office or performed any work outside the office for CITY. Lane terminated Schmitz’s employment after she refused to report to work. After Schmitz’s termination at CITY, the FBI investigated her for mail fraud and fraud concerning a program receiving federal funds. Lane was subpoenaed and testified at both of Schmitz’s criminal trials. Lane testified that Schmitz had not been reporting to work at CITY, and was only receiving paychecks. Following Schmitz’s criminal trials, Franks terminated Lane. Lane sued Franks in his official and individual capacities, alleging that Franks violated Lane’s First Amendment rights by terminating Lane in retaliation for testifying against Schmitz. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that because Lane’s speech was made in his official capacity as CITY’s director, he failed to state a claim for retaliation. The Supreme Court’s decision will clarify the scope of the First Amendment as it relates to protecting testifying public employees from retaliation by their employers.

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This case asks the Supreme Court to decide whether a trial court may bar defense counsel from discussing a defendant’s ongoing testimony during an overnight recess. Villarreal argues that this restriction violates the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the attorney-client privilege. Texas counters that the restriction is a qualified order that does not infringe on constitutionally protected communications. The outcome of this case has profound implications for the fairness of trials and defendants’ testimony. 

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Issues

This case asks the United States Supreme Court to determine whether a federal court of appeals should presume that an asylum applicant's testimony is credible when the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) and an immigration judge (“IJ”) failed to make an explicit adverse credibility determination about the testimony. Ming Dai, an asylum applicant alleging persecution in China for violating the one-child family-planning policy, argues that his testimony must be deemed credible because (1) a federal court of appeals cannot evaluate credibility on its own and (2) the IJ and BIA failed to explicitly state that his testimony lacked credibility as required by the Immigration and Nationality Act in order to make an adverse credibility finding. The government counters that presumed credibility in absence of an explicit adverse credibility determination circumvents the statutory limitation that federal appellate courts are only permitted to reject the IJ or BIA’s determination that an applicant’s testimony is insufficient to meet his burden of proof if no reasonable adjudicator could have reached the same determination. The outcome of this case has important implications for the asylum process, immigration rights for asylum seekers, and the differing roles and responsibilities of administrative agencies and appellate courts. 

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