The Supreme Court of the United States decided one case this morning:

Madison County v. Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y., No. 10-72: The Court granted review in this case to decide whether local taxing authorities, which had lawfully imposed real property taxes on land owned in fee simple by an Indian Tribe, were nonetheless barred from collecting the taxes through foreclosure due to the Tribe's sovereign immunity from suit. After review was granted, respondent Oneida Nation passed a tribal declaration and ordinance waiving “its sovereign immunity to enforcement of real property taxation through foreclosure by state, county and local governments within and throughout the United States,” but petitioners questioned the validity, scope, and permanence of that waiver. Today, in a per curiam decision, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court judgment and remanded the case to the Second Circuit for that court to address, in the first instance, whether to revisit its ruling on sovereign immunity (and other related rulings) in light of this new factual development.


Late in the day last Friday, January 7, the Court announced it had granted review in seven cases:

Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., No. 09-1403: Whether plaintiffs in a fraud-on-the-market securities action must establish loss causation at the class certification stage by a preponderance of admissible evidence.

Lafler v. Cooper, No. 10-209: Is a state habeas petitioner entitled to relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel where his counsel deficiently advises him to reject a favorable plea bargain but the defendant is later convicted and sentenced pursuant to a fair trial?

Missouri v. Frye, No. 10-444: Can a defendant who validly pleads guilty later assert a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel by alleging that, but for counsel’s error in failing to communicate a plea offer, he would have pleaded guilty with more favorable terms? The Court also directed the parties to address the following question: What remedy, if any, should be provided for ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargain negotiations if the defendant was later convicted and sentenced pursuant to constitutionally adequate procedures?

United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, No. 10-382: Whether the attorney-client privilege entitles the United States to withhold from an Indian tribe confidential communications between the government and government attorneys implicating the administration of statutes pertaining to property held in trust for the tribe.

Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan, No. 10-568: Whether state restrictions on voting by elected officials are subject to strict scrutiny.

Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., No. 10-779: Whether a law that restricts access to information in nonpublic prescription drug records and affords prescribers the right to consent before their identifying information in prescription drug records is sold or used in marketing runs afoul of the First Amendment.

McNeill v. United States, No. 10-5258: Whether a state law conviction can be treated as a serious drug offense for purposes of a longer sentence under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act if the state law provided for a maximum prison term of at least ten years when the crime was committed but had been revised to provide for a shorter maximum by the time of federal sentencing.