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In 2002, an Immigration Naturalization Service agent discovered that Juan Resendiz-Ponce was in the United States illegally and had him deported. A year later border patrol agents detained Resendiz-Ponce after he presented false documentation and falsely stated his intended destination. The United States brought suit against Resendiz-Ponce for attempting to re-enter the country after having been previously deported, and he was convicted. While the indictment alleged that Resendiz-Ponce had attempted to re-enter the United States illegally, it did not allege that he presented false documents, made false statements, or performed any other act associated with his alleged attempt. Resendiz-Ponce appealed his conviction, claiming that the indictment’s failure to allege an act introduced a fatal flaw into his trial. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with this argument and reversed the conviction. In reviewing the case, the Supreme Court will determine whether the omission of an element from a federal indictment requires automatic reversal on appeal.

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Respondent Joseph Olson was injured and nearly killed when a nine-ton rock fell on him while he was working in a mine in Arizona. In his suit for damages he alleged that the federal agency responsible for ensuring his safety, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, was negligent in its inspection of the mine and was responsible for his injuries. The federal government argued in its defense that under the Federal Tort Claims Act it can be held liable under state law only in the way in which a private person, not a government agency, is held liable. Thus, the government urged that since there was no like action against private persons for this type of situation, it could not be held liable. This case may have potentially significant effects not just on individuals and their ability to sue the federal government, but also federal agencies and their ability to avoid tort liability during the course of carrying out their duties.

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In 1964, pursuant to the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938, the Navajo Nation entered into an agreement with a third party to lease a substantial portion of Navajo land for coal mining activities. In 1984, pursuant to the terms of the lease, the Nation sought the assistance of the Secretary of the Interior to renegotiate the royalty rate allotted in the lease to comport with changed market conditions. After a series of negotiations, in 1987 the Nation agreed to-and the Secretary of the Interior approved-a series of amendments to the original lease. In 1993, the Nation initiated proceedings in the Court of Federal Claims alleging that the Secretary had been improperly influenced by the coal company, and as a result, had breached his fiduciary duty to the Nation when he approved the 1987 lease amendments. After a series of appeals, in 2003, the Supreme Court held the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938 did not create an actionable claim for breach of fiduciary duty against the United States. On remand, the Federal Circuit read the Supreme Court's decision narrowly, and held that the Nation's claim was nonetheless actionable based on a common law fiduciary duty arising from the network of statutes and regulations defining the relationship between the Navajo Nation and the United States.

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A jury convicted Respondent Glenn Marcus on federal charges of sex trafficking and forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. On appeal, a Second Circuit panel vacated the convictions as a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause, because Congress enacted the statute two years after the earliest criminal conduct the indictment alleged. Although Marcus failed to preserve the ex post facto violation for appeal, the Second Circuit cited the “plain error doctrine” found in Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, for authority to vacate. Rule 52(b) provides that when “[a] plain error [] affects substantial rights [it] may be considered even though it was not brought to the court's attention.” Petitioner United States asserts that the Court of Appeals’ “any possibility” standard contradicted Supreme Court precedent. The government argues that a defendant has to demonstrate a “reasonable possibility” a conviction was based on his pre-enactment conduct to violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. Marcus disputes the government’s interpretation, contending that the Second Circuit decision was consistent with Supreme Court precedent.

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FBI agents installed a Global Positioning System (“GPS”) tracking device on Antoine Jones’s vehicle as part of a drug trafficking investigation. The United States used the locational data from the GPS in a federal trial that resulted in Jones’s conviction for conspiracy. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed that conviction, holding that the agents needed a warrant before installing the GPS. The United States argues that a warrant was unnecessary because Jones had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements in public and was never deprived use of his Jeep. Jones responds that he has a privacy interest in the aggregation of his movements over a prolonged period and that the aggregation of such information interferes with his use of the Jeep. The Supreme Court’s decision will affect how police employ new technologies to reduce the manpower and cost required for criminal investigations. The Court’s decision will also consider how citizens can protect themselves from government officials’ possible abuse of new technologies, particularly where misuse threatens fundamental privacy rights.

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In 2002, the Jicarilla Apache Nation (“Jicarilla,” “Jicarilla Tribe” or “Tribe”) filed a breach of trust action against the United States, alleging mismanagement of funds held in trust for the Tribe. In 2008, Jicarilla moved to compel the production of a few hundred documents exchanged between the government and its attorneys, but the government refused to disclose nearly 160 documents on the ground of attorney-client privilege. The Court of Federal Claims subsequently granted Jicarilla’s motion to compel production of the documents, and the Federal Circuit affirmed. Now, the United States argues that disclosure of the documents was unwarranted because no statute or regulation specifically requires the disclosure. The Jicarilla Tribe, however, contends that the government must be treated like an ordinary private trustee and forced to disclose information exchanged with its attorneys.

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In 2006, the IRS adjusted Respondent Home Concrete’s 1999 tax return, claiming that Home Concrete overstated its basis in sold assets. The Fourth Circuit found that this adjustment was untimely under the general three year statute of limitations for IRS actions, concluding that overstatements of basis are not omissions that would trigger an extended six year statute of limitations. Petitioner, the United States, argues that the language and purpose behind the statute clarify that overstating a sold asset’s basis triggers the extended period, and that the Fourth Circuit should have deferred to the IRS's statutory interpretation contained within a Treasury Department regulation finalized during the appeal. Home Concrete argues that Supreme Court precedent applies here, eliminating ambiguity in the statutory interpretation. The Supreme Court’s decision will resolve a circuit split over the proper limitations period; the decision will also address the degree of deference due to a Treasury regulation that may be interpreted as conflicting with Supreme Court precedent, and that may be viewed as applying retroactively. The Court’s decision may affect the IRS’s timeframe to detect certain complex tax schemes, and the time period within which taxpayers are subject to audits.

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In 1994, Randy Edward Hayes pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense under West Virginia law for the battery of his then-wife, Mary Ann Hayes. Ten years later, police arrested Hayes and charged and convicted him under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(A) for possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Hayes challenged the charge, alleging that since the West Virginia statute under which he was originally convicted did not have a domestic relationship between offender and victim as an element, he could not later be prosecuted under § 921(a)(33)(A), which, he argues, does require a domestic relationship between offender and victim as an element. The Government, while not denying that a domestic relationship is necessary for application of the statute, contends that a domestic relationship is not an element of the predicate offense of a violent misdemeanor in § 921(a)(33)(A). The Government points out that nine other courts of appeal have read the statute in this way. Hayes argues that the Government’s interpretation of the statute illegitimately broadens it beyond its intended meaning.  He says that the Fourth Circuit, which overturned his conviction, was correct in reading the statute’s definition of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” to include a domestic relationship element in the predicate offense. 

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Anticipatory search warrants are used by law enforcement to gain permission to perform a search where the probable cause mandated by the Fourth Amendment does not yet exist. Instead, probable cause is expected to materialize through the anticipated conduct of the suspect, such as when a suspect takes delivery of an illegal item or receives payment for an illegal act. Currently, there is a split between federal circuits as to how much information must be provided about a party against whom such a warrant is served. In this case, the Ninth Circuit reiterated its position that the Fourth Amendment requires the warrant to enumerate plainly the triggering event, just as it requires a particular description of the place to be searched and persons or items to be seized. The Ninth Circuit believes anticipatory warrants are particularly vulnerable to abuses of police power, and requiring the warrant to articulate the triggering event allows citizens to ensure that such searches are lawfully executed. The government argues, and other Federal Courts of Appeal have agreed, that the Fourth Amendment contains no such requirement, and the unique aspects of anticipatory warrants are adequately shielded from abuse by existing probable cause requirements inherent in the warrant application process.

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The Sixth Amendment to the United States constitution provides:  “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”  In Cuauhtémoc Gonzalez-Lopez’s criminal trial, the district court refused to allow Gonzalez-Lopez to hire the attorney of his choice.  On review, the Eighth Circuit held that this denial violated Gonzalez-Lopez’s Sixth Amendment right to proceed with the counsel of his choice. Gonzalez-Lopez argues that the Eighth Circuit’s holding that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right should stand. The government argues that the Eighth Circuit’s ruling conflicts with the Supreme Court’s ‘right to counsel’ decisions, which hold that a criminal defendant cannot obtain reversal of his conviction unless he establishes that an alleged error implicating his Sixth Amendment right to counsel compromised his right to a fair trial.

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