Fifth Amendment

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Two defendants were charged in Puerto Rico court and federal court on the same set of facts and for largely the same crimes. See Luis M. Sanchez Valle v. The People of Puerto Rico, 2015 WL 1317010 (P.R. 2015), at 2a, 4a (pincited to linked document). Each defendant was convicted and sentenced in federal court first, and then moved to dismiss the pending state charges. The defendants argued that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited Puerto Rico from prosecuting them for the same crimes they were convicted of in federal court. See id. at 2a–5a. The trial courts granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, but the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals reversed. Relying on the dual sovereignty doctrine, the court held that Puerto Rico, an independent sovereign, could charge the defendants for crimes under the Puerto Rico Constitution. See id. However, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court reversed, deciding that Puerto Rico had no sovereign status, derived its power to prosecute from the U.S. Constitution, and thereby could not charge the defendants for the same crime. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Puerto Rico Supreme Court was right. See Brief for Petitioner, The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico at i. Puerto Rico argues that the island is a sovereign state, and that under the dual sovereignty doctrine, there are no double jeopardy concerns. See id. at 19, 22. However, Valle contends that the Puerto Rico has no sovereign status. See Brief of Respondents, Luis M. Sánchez Valle and Jaime Gómez Vásquez at 3. The Court’s decision will affect the balance of the federal system and the dignity of the people of Puerto Rico. See id. at 61.

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Reginald Lett was convicted of second-degree murder in a Michigan state court in his second trial for the same offense. In his first trial, the judge determined that the jury was deadlocked and declared it a mistrial. Lett then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. His petition was granted. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling on the basis that Lett’s Fifth Amendment right to be free from Double Jeopardy had been violated because the trial court had not used “sound discretion” in finding a “manifest necessity” to declare a mistrial and terminate the ongoing proceedings. This case presents the Supreme Court with the opportunity to clearly articulate what state courts must do before declaring a mistrial to avoid running afoul of the Fifth Amendment.

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Police in Houston, Texas questioned Genovevo Salinas in 1992 during a murder investigation. Salinas answered all of their questions until the police asked whether he thought that casings found at the murder scene would match the shotgun the police found in his house. In response, Salinas remained silent. Later, he was charged with murder, tried, and convicted partially on the basis of evidence that he had remained silent during police questioning before he was arrested and given his Miranda warnings. Salinas claims that the Texas trial court should not have admitted evidence of his silence because of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. He argues that allowing evidence of his silence would violate the Fifth Amendment by forcing him to speak or have his silence used against him. The State of Texas argues that the evidence was appropriately admitted and outside the protection of Fifth Amendment privilege because Salinas’s silence was non-testimonial and the police questioning was non-coercive. The Supreme Court’s decision will determine the scope of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and, more specifically, whether it extends to the protection of a defendant’s pre-arrest, pre-Miranda statements to the police.

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In 1981 the City of San Francisco enacted the Hotel Conversion Ordinance ("the HCO") in order to stem the depletion of housing for the poor, elderly, and disabled by controlling the conversion of hotel units from residential to tourist use. The HCO, as revised in 1990, places harsh requirements on the owners of hotels who want to convert their property from residential to tourist use. These requirements include the construction of a new residential unit for each unit that is converted, or a payment to the city of 80 percent of the cost of constructing such a replacement. The owners of the San Remo Hotel sought to convert their hotel from residential to tourist use, and challenged the legality of the HCO under the takings clause of the California constitution. The California Supreme Court upheld the HCO, and the owners of the hotel then challenged it in federal court under the takings clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however, ruled that they were precluded from raising this issue by virtue of the state court's prior ruling.

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In 2004, local youths broke into a Southern Union storage center that was improperly storing mercury; the incident resulted in a spill and cleanup effort. Southern Union was charged with storing hazardous waste without a permit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. After a jury found Southern Union guilty, the district court judge determined that the violation had continued for 762 days and imposed a fine of $38 million. On appeal, Southern Union argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Apprendi required that the jury determine the period of the violation, not the judge. Southern Union contends that if the determination of the period of violation is left to the judge, the court could impose a fine in excess of the actual violation, violating Southern Union’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. In contrast, the United States asserts that Apprendi is not applicable because it dealt with deprivations of life and liberty interests, not the criminal fines that are at issue here. The decision in this case has implications for consistent treatment of defendants and the efficiency of courts.

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This case will address whether certain undisclosed evidence falls under the standard for prosecutorial disclosures as described by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The defendants, Russell Overton and Charles Turner, were convicted of a murder that occurred in 1984 and contend that several pieces of evidence were improperly withheld by the prosecution, resulting in a violation of their Fifth Amendment right to due process. The United States asserts that the evidence in question does not fall within the scope of the Brady standard, and therefore no post-conviction relief is required. The outcome of this case will further articulate the standards of materiality, favorability, and suppression under Brady and elucidate what information a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to know before trial.

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