Today in Supreme Court History: May 25, 1861

5/25/1861: John Merryman arrested. Chief Justice Taney ruled that his detention was unconstitutional in Ex Parte Merryman.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Choteau v. Burnet, 283 U.S. 691 (decided May 25, 1931): status as Native American does not excuse obligation to pay income tax on amounts received from tribe’s oil and gas leases

Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County, 377 U.S. 218 (decided May 25, 1964): school district couldn’t avoid desegregation order by closing all schools and using the money for vouchers to private schools all of which happened to exclude blacks

Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. 651 (decided May 25, 2023): Clean Water Act did not apply to enjoin backfilling for home renovation; road separated property from arguable “wetland” (5 - 4 decision)

Phillips v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 283 U.S. 589 (decided May 25, 1931): summary taxation order (as to assets of dissolved corporation) does not violate Due Process because taxpayer may contest the order in court even though court will review only for clearly erroneous

United States v. Dickey, 268 U.S. 378 (decided May 25, 1925): First Amendment protected newspaper’s publication of private person’s tax return information (identity, address, amount paid) because Congress had already authorized the IRS to make this information available for public inspection (doesn’t sound like a good enough reason)

Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30 (decided May 25, 1970): unexplained and objected-to eight-year delay of trial for armed robbery violated Sixth Amendment speedy trial right; witnesses had disappeared, files lost, etc.; conviction reversed

Carpenter v. Strange, 141 U.S. 87 (decided May 25, 1891): full faith and credit extended to New York court’s probate of will even though it determined property rights out of state

Chang Chan v. Nagle, 268 U.S. 346 (decided May 25, 1925): pursuant to Immigration Act of 1924 (part of ongoing exclusion of Asians) Chinese women married to American citizens not eligible thereby for citizenship and not permitted to enter country

Avery v. Georgia, 345 U.S. 559 (decided May 25, 1953): To compose jury panel, judge selected names from jury box. White prospective jurors were on white slips, black jurors on yellow slips, and guess what? -- not a single yellow slip was selected, and the resulting all-white jury found black defendant guilty of rape. Conviction reversed.

Schacht v. United States, 398 U.S. 58 (decided May 25, 1970): actor who wore Army uniform in street play protesting Vietnam War atrocities not guilty under statute criminalizing impersonation of servicemen “in a manner to bring the military into disrepute” due to statutory exception for performance in theatrical production; statute struck anyway as violating First Amendment

Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines, 359 U.S. 520 (decided May 25, 1959): Illinois law uniquely requiring trucks to have curved mudflaps violated Dormant Commerce Clause because it burdened interstate commerce (requiring truckers from other states to buy them just to go through Illinois) (Illinois is a hard state to go around; would a similar Rhode Island law be o.k.?)

[Michael P]

Should the summary for Phillips v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue end with "clear error", or an added noun, rather than "clearly erroneous"?

(And thanks for continuing to post these -- they're much more interesting and informative than learning that John Merryman was arrested 163 years ago today.)

[Dan Schiavetta]

You're much welcome.

Yes, "clear error" is better. I was trying to simplify the holding and slipped into legalese.

Though I'm not sure even that is correct, looking at the case again. The holding was that the finding will not be reviewed if there is evidence to support it -- is there a way to crunch that down into fewer words? Or am I making conciseness too much of a virtue?

When I was a law review editor I devised a hierarchy of writing:

Exact
Clear
Simple
Orderly
Persuasive
Interesting
Entertaining

IOW, don't be "orderly" at the expense of being "Clear", etc. Maybe I was focusing too much on "Simple" here.

[Michael P]

I am not a lawyer, much less one specializing in tax law, but based on my reading of the syllabus and the bits of the opinion related to judicial review, I would summarize along the lines of "even though courts will broadly defer to administrative findings of controlling facts".

The Court laid out a few bases under which the taxpayer might appeal as to the findings of fact, which seem to me similar to being able to appeal to a judicial fact-finder's conclusions, and maybe that's what "clear error" means. I don't understand the jargon well enough to be confident. I also don't know the usual rules for appealing findings of fact well enough to say to what extent the rules in this opinion differ from those.

[Dan Schiavetta]

There are various standards of review, from "de novo" (we don't pay any attention to what the lower court/agency found; we'll start over) to "jurisdictional" (we will reverse only if they didn't have jurisdiction to hear this case). In between are "broad discretion", "abuse of discretion", "arbitrary and capricious", "deviates materially", "against the weight of the evidence" . . . it's a long list.

[Drewski]

“because Congress had already authorized the IRS to make this information available for public inspection (doesn’t sound like a good enough reason)”

I don’t understand the objection. Congress mandated, not just authorized, that the information be made available to the public. You could just walk into an IRS office and look at these tax records. The local Comissioner could also make them available elsewhere. Yet the law said you couldn’t write down or publish what you were allowed to look at. Seems like a very straightforward application of 1A. The government’s argument that the IRS records were not public records because printing them for public inspection was not an act of publication (making them public records) is pretty spurious.

I think you may just have a pre-existing notion that tax and income information is private by default, but there’s no reason for that to be the case except the preferences of the legislature. I’m not even sure it’s the better policy.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Trump decided to keep his tax information private and it couldn't be accessed.

[Drewski]

Well, yes, because it's no longer 1925 and Congress has since decided to make that information private. They can do that. What they can't do is make the records public while also banning republication by the press.

[David Nieporent]

Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. 651 (decided May 25, 2023): Clean Water Act did not apply to enjoin backfilling for home renovation; road separated property from arguable “wetland” (5 – 4 decision)

Sackett was a 9-0 decision. True, four justices would have adopted a slightly different interpretation of the CWA, but all 9 agreed that the standard employed by the EPA was wrong and that the Sacketts' property was not covered.

[Dan Schiavetta]

My summary was correct but not phrased well. Will rephrase. Thanks.

[SRG2]

I wonder whether Griffin would be decided the same way today.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It would require a drastic extension of Carson v. Makin (allowing state aid to private schools where there are no public schools) and a functional reversal of Brown.

[SRG2]

Indeed, but it is not too hard to devise an argument deferring to states v. Feds and also that Brown might have been justifiable under conditions prevailing in the 50s but things are very different now, don't you know? And history and tradition, etc. etc.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. 651 (decided May 25, 2023): Clean Water Act did not apply to enjoin backfilling for home renovation; road separated property from arguable “wetland” (5 – 4 decision)
After 20 years of litigation.
Not withstanding the 5-4 decision this is just another cases that argues for an end to Chevron.