Metrish v. Lancaster

Retroactivity: due process violation: habeas relief: under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Lancaster may obtain federal habeas relief only if the Michigan Court of Appeals, in rejecting his due process claim, unrea­sonably applied “clearly established Federal law, as determined by this Court.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). This standard is “difficult to meet”: Lancaster must show that the Michigan Court of Appeals’ de­cision rested on “an error well understood and comprehended in ex­isting law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Har­rington v. Richter, 562 U. S. ___, ___; Held: Lancaster is not entitled to federal habeas relief; in Rogers, the petitioner contested the Tennessee Supreme Court’s retroactive abolition of the common-law “year and a day rule,” which barred a murder conviction “unless the victim had died by the de­fendant’s act within a year and a day of the act.” 532 U. S., at 453. This Court found no due process violation. “Judicial alteration of a common law doctrine of criminal law,” the Court held, “violates the principle of fair warning, and hence must not be given retroactive ef­fect, only where the alteration is ‘unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.’ ” Id., at 462. Judged by this standard, the retroactive aboli­tion of the year and a day rule encountered no constitutional imped­iment. The rule was “widely viewed as an outdated relic of the com­mon law,” had been routinely rejected by modern courts and legislators, and had been mentioned in reported Tennessee decisions “only three times, and each time in dicta.” Id., at 462–464; this Court has never found a due process violation in circumstances remotely resembling Lancaster’s case—i.e., where a state supreme court, squarely ad­dressing a particular issue for the first time, rejected a consistent line of lower court decisions based on the supreme court’s reasonable in­terpretation of the language of a controlling statute. Fairminded ju­rists could conclude that a state supreme court decision of that order is not “ ‘unexpected and indefensible by reference to existing law.’ ” Id., at 462 (U.S. S. Ct., 20.05.13, Metrish v. Lancaster, J. Ginsburg, unanimous).

Rétroactivité : violation du droit à un procès équitable : remède de l'habeas (fédéral) : pour l'emporter dans la procédure fédérale de l'habeas, le requérant doit démontrer que l'autorité inférieure a appliqué de manière déraisonnable du droit fédéral clairement établi. Cette démonstration est difficile à apporter. En l'espèce, la requête d'habeas est rejetée. Dans une affaire antérieure jugée par la Cour Suprême, le requérant contestait l'abolition rétroactive par la cour suprême de l'état du Tennessee de la règle de la Common law prévoyant qu'une condamnation pour meurtre ne pouvait être prononcée si la victime décédait au-delà d'une année et un jour suivant l'acte délictueux. La Cour Suprême a jugé que la cour suprême du Tennessee n'avait pas commis de violation du droit à un procès équitable. Une telle violation n'aurait pu être retenue que si la modification du droit était imprévue et indéfendable au regard du droit précédemment en vigueur, ce qui n'est pas le cas s'agissant d'une règle comme la règle de l'année plus un jour, largement critiquée.

Bullock v. BankChampaign, N.A.

Bankruptcy: discharge from a debt: 11 U. S. C. §523(a)(4), which provides that an individual cannot obtain a bankruptcy discharge from a debt “for fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity, embez­zlement, or larceny; the term “defalcation” in the Bankruptcy Code includes a culpa­ble state of mind requirement involving knowledge of, or gross reck­lessness in respect to, the improper nature of the fiduciary behavior; while “defalcation” has been an exception to discharge in a bankruptcy statute since 1867, legal authorities have long disagreed about its meaning. Broad definitions of the term in modern and older dictionaries are unhelpful, and courts of appeals have disagreed about what mental state must accompany defalcation’s definition; in Neal v. Clark, 95 U. S. 704, this Court interpreted the term “fraud” in the Bankruptcy Code’s exceptions to discharge to mean “positive fraud, or fraud in fact, involving moral turpitude or inten­tional wrong, as does embezzlement; and not implied fraud, or fraud in law, which may exist without the imputation of bad faith or immo­rality.” Id., at 709. The term “defalcation” should be treated similar­ly. Thus, where the conduct at issue does not involve bad faith, mor­al turpitude, or other immoral conduct, “defalcation” requires an intentional wrong. An intentional wrong includes not only conduct that the fiduciary knows is improper but also reckless conduct of the kind that the criminal law often treats as the equivalent. Where ac­tual knowledge of wrongdoing is lacking, conduct is considered as equivalent if, as set forth in the Model Penal Code, the fiduciary “con­sciously disregards,” or is willfully blind to, “a substantial and unjusti­fiable risk” that his conduct will violate a fiduciary duty; “embezzlement” requires conversion, “larceny” requires taking and carrying away another’s property, and “fraud” typically requires a false statement or omission; while “defalcation” can en­compass a breach of fiduciary obligation that involves neither conver­sion, nor taking and carrying away another’s property, nor falsity (U.S. S. Ct., 13.05.13, Bullock v. BankChampaign, N.A., J. Breyer, unanimous).

Faillite : décharge d'une dette : la loi fédérale sur la faillite prévoit qu'une personne ne peut obtenir d'être déchargée d'une dette dans la faillite si elle a commis une fraude ou une "défalcation" alors qu'elle agissait à titre fiduciaire, ou si elle a commis un "embezzlement" ou un "larceny". Le terme "défalcation" tel qu'utilisé dans la loi sur la faillite comporte un état d'esprit coupable impliquant la connaissance de la nature inappropriée du comportement en tant que fiduciaire, ou impliquant une absence de considération de ce comportement. Au plan subjectif, la "défalcation" implique donc l'intention (y compris "aurait dû savoir") ou à défaut une certaine mauvaise foi ou une certaine immoralité.

Bowman v. Monsanto Co.

Patent: patent exhaustion: defense of patent exhaustion, which gives the purchaser of a patented article, or any subsequent owner, the right to use or resell that article; patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patent­ed seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder’s permission; under the patent exhaustion doctrine, “the initial authorized sale of a patented article terminates all patent rights to that item,” Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc., 553 U. S. 617, 625, and confers on the purchaser, or any subsequent owner, “the right to use or sell” the thing as he sees fit, United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241, 249–250. However, the doctrine restricts the patent­ee’s rights only as to the “particular article” sold, id., at 251; it leaves untouched the patentee’s ability to prevent a buyer from making new copies of the patented item. By planting and harvesting Monsanto’s patented seeds, Bowman made additional copies of Monsanto’s pa­tented invention, and his conduct thus falls outside the protections of patent exhaustion; in the more ordinary case, when a farmer purchases Roundup Ready seed from Monsanto or an affiliate, he will be able to plant it in accordance with Monsan­to’s license to make one crop (U.S.S.Ct., 13.05.13, Bowman v. Monsanto Co., J. Kagan, unanimous).

Brevet : l'acheteur d'une chose brevetée, ou un possesseur subséquent de la chose, dispose du droit d'usage ou de revente de l'objet. S'agissant d'une semence brevetée, un fermier viole le brevet s'il reproduit ces semences par le biais d'une plantation puis d'une récolte. En effet, agir ainsi revient à copier la chose brevetée, et non simplement à l'utiliser ou à la revendre.

McBurney v. Young

Privileges and Immunities Clause: Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) grants Virginia citizens access to all public records, but grants no such right to non-Virginians; Virginia’s FOIA does not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects only those privileges and immunities that are “fundamental.” See Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm’n of Mont., 436 U. S. 371, 382, 388; while the Privileges and Immunities Clause protects the right of citizens to “ply their trade, practice their occupation, or pursue a common calling,” Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U. S. 518, 524, the Court has struck down laws as violating this privilege only when they were enacted for the protectionist purpose of burden­ing out-of-state citizens. See, e.g., Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 395, 397. The Virginia FOIA’s citizen/noncitizen distinction has a nonprotectionist aim; the Privileges and Immunities Clause “secures citizens of one state the right to resort to the courts of another, equally with the citizens of the latter state,” Missouri Pa­cific R. Co. v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co., 257 U. S. 533, 535, but that “requirement is satisfied if the nonresident is given access . . . upon terms which . . . are reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any rights he may have, even though they may not be . . . the same in ex­tent as those accorded to resident citizens,” Canadian Northern R. Co. v. Eggen, 252 U. S. 553, 562; petitioners’ sweeping claim that the Virginia FOIA violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause because it denies them the right to access public information on equal terms with Common­wealth citizens is rejected because the right to access public infor­mation is not a “fundamental” privilege or immunity of citizenship.

The Court has repeatedly stated that the Constitution does not guar­antee the existence of FOIA laws. See, e.g., Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., 528 U. S. 32, 40. Moreover, no such right was recognized at common law or in the early Republic (U.S. S. Ct., 29.04.13, McBurney v. Young, J. Alito, unanimous).

Privileges and Immunities Clause : la loi de l’état de Virginie sur la libre information (FOIA) octroie libre accès aux dossiers publics à l’ensemble des citoyens de Virginie. Ce droit n’est pas octroyé aux citoyens des autres états. La Clause P&I garantit aux citoyens d’un état le droit de recourir aux Tribunaux d’un autre état dans la même mesure que le droit accordé aux citoyens de dit état. Cette exigence est déjà satisfaite si l’accès est accordé à la partie non résidente selon des termes raisonnables et adéquats aux fins de la mise en œuvre des droits de dite partie, même si ces termes ne sont pas de la même étendue que ceux accordés aux citoyens résidents. Le droit d’accéder à des informations publiques n’est pas un privilège ou une immunité « fondamentale » découlant de la citoyenneté. La Cour a jugé à réitérées reprises que la Constitution ne garantit pas l’existence des lois FOIA. Par ailleurs, une telle garantie n’était pas non plus reconnue par la Common law, ni sous l’empire du droit des premières Républiques. La Clause P&I n’est violée que si une loi de l’état est édictée dans le but protectionniste de rendre plus difficile l’activité économique des non-citoyens de l’état.

Moncrieffe v. Holder

Immigration and nationality: aggravated felony; discretionary relief: under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a noncitizen con­victed of an “aggravated felony” is not only deportable, 8 U. S. C.§1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), but also ineligible for discretionary relief; if a noncitizen’s conviction for a marijuana distribution offense fails to establish that the offense involved either remuneration or more than a small amount of marijuana, it is not an aggravated felony under the INA; under the categorical approach generally employed to deter­mine whether a state offense is comparable to an offense listed in the INA, see, e.g., Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U. S. 29, 33–38, the nonciti­zen’s actual conduct is irrelevant. Instead “the state statute defining the crime of conviction” is examined to see whether it fits within the “generic” federal definition of a corresponding aggravated felony. Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U. S. 183, 186; escaping aggravated felony treatment does not mean escaping deportation, because any marijuana distribution offense will still render a noncitizen deportable as a controlled sub­stances offender. Having been found not to be an aggravated felon, the noncitizen may seek relief from removal such as asylum or cancella­tion of removal, but the Attorney General may, in his discretion, deny relief if he finds that the noncitizen is actually a more serious drug trafficker (U.S.S.Ct., 23.04.13, Moncrieffe v. Holder, J. Sotomayor).

Immigration et nationalité : crime aggravé ; remèdes discrétionnaires : selon la loi fédérale sur l'immigration et la nationalité, un non-citoyen condamné pour crime aggravé peut être renvoyé du pays. En outre, il ne peut se prévaloir des remèdes discrétionnaires permettant d'échapper au renvoi. Si le jugement qui condamne un non-citoyen pour distribution de marijuana n'établit pas que l'infraction implique une rémunération ou implique davantage qu'une petite quantité de marijuana, il ne s'agit pas d'un crime aggravé au sens de la loi fédérale sur l'immigration. Selon l'approche catégorique généralement employée pour déterminer si une infraction à la loi pénale d'un état est comparable à une infraction listée dans dite loi fédérale, la conduite en l'espèce du non-citoyen n'est pas relevante. La loi de l'état est examinée pour déterminer si elle s'inscrit dans la définition fédérale d'un crime aggravé qui correspond.