Today in Supreme Court History: January 4, 2012

1/4/2012: President Obama makes three appointments to the NLRB. The Supreme Court would find these appointments unconstitutional in NLRB v. Noel Canning.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Theatre Enterprises, Inc. v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 346 U.S. 537 (decided January 4, 1954): jury properly heard issue of whether movie producers and distributors conspired (in violation of the Clayton Act) to restrict first-run movies to downtown theaters (jury found for defendant; plaintiff’s argument on appeal was that the judge should have directed verdict in its favor with jury hearing only damages)

Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (decided January 4, 1932): this case is the source of the “Blockburger rule”, important in sentencing and Double Jeopardy situations: here, each sale of narcotics, no matter how close in time, held to be a separate offense because each sale had a separate fact

Marine Transit Corp. v. Dreyfus, 284 U.S. 263 (decided January 4, 1932): admiralty courts have power to order arbitration (suit arose when 19,200 bushels of wheat sank into the Erie Canal when ship hit a guide wall; somehow this reminds me of the fact that my grandmother, who lived on the Canal, made noodle soup that was too watery)

[F.D. Wolf]

Another case of note decided on January 4 was Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U.S. 1 (1904), in which a unanimous Court held that citizens of Puerto Rico, which Spain had ceded to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish-American War, were not "aliens" and therefore were not subject to detention or deportation by immigration officials when arriving in the mainland United States.

The Court wrote that it was unnecessary to decide whether Puerto Rican citizens were United States citizens under either the terms of the treaty or the 1900 statute that created the civil government of Puerto Rico because they were not "aliens" as that term was contemplated in the 1891 statute in question. Congress would grant U.S. citizenship to Puerto Rican citizens in 1917.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.

How to treat a people after we’ve taken over their land has always been a quandary. Slaves? Aliens? Tribesmen? We were conquerors but there was also that pesky “all men are created equal” business.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ummm -- it was a Spanish Colony -- it was the Spanish who took over their land -- we just took it from the Spanish.

[wolfefan]

Sovereign Citizens might find Dreyfus to be a court case they would follow. Did the flag in the court have fringe?

[Noscitur a sociis]

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here, each sale of narcotics, no matter how close in time, held to be a separate offense because each sale had a separate fact

That’s not the important part of the Blockburger holding. The important part, and the articulation of the rule, is that the same sale that simultaneously violated two different statutes could support two separate convictions.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks

[Dr. Ed 2]

"(decided January 4, 1932): ... 19,200 bushels of wheat sank into the Erie Canal"

Today that would be an environmental issue -- in decomposing, the wheat would suck all the dissolved oxygen out of the water and kill all the fish.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It was a necessary decision.

Let’s say it’s a felony (punishable by 10 years) to sell a pound or more of cocaine. Let’s say somebody sells a 10-pound bag. You can’t chop that up into 10 felonies with a sentence of 100 years.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Why?

[Noscitur a sociis]

To the extent there’s a problem with this course of action, Blockburger isn’t what creates it.