Consolidated Cases: Establishing Commonality for Finality
“There’s many a slip ‘twixt’ the cup and the lip” because “the opera ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.” Or, a case can quickly go in an unanticipated direction because there is no final appealable judgment until all claims are adjudicated – and knowing when that happens in consolidated actions can be tricky.
Coming Soon to the Supreme Court: Umaña v. United States?
On August 12, 2014, a divided Fourth Circuit denied a petition for rehearing en banc that had been filed by capital defendant Alejandro Umaña. Umaña had sought the rehearing en banc of a panel opinion, 750 F.3d 320 (4th Cir. 2014), in which a majority held that the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause does not apply to the sentencing selection phase of capital sentencing. Eight judges (Chief Judge Traxler, Judge Wilkinson, Judge Niemeyer, Judge King, Judge Shedd, Judge Duncan, Judge Agee, and Judge Floyd) voted to deny the rehearing en banc, while five (Judge Motz, Judge Gregory, Judge Keenan, Judge Wynn, and Judge Thacker) voted to grant the petition.
A leader in the MS-13 transnational criminal gang, Umaña was convicted in federal court of murdering two brothers (who were not affiliated with any gang) in a bar in Greensboro, N.C., after the brothers got into an argument with Umaña and other MS-13 members about the music that should be played on the jukebox. After the jury found Umaña eligible for the death penalty in the first portion of the sentencing phase, the proceeding moved to the sentencing selection phase. Over Umaña’s objection, the district court allowed the government to introduce hearsay testimony from Los Angeles police detectives concerning statements that MS-13 informants had given the detectives implicating Umaña in several unrelated murders in Los Angeles. Umaña argued that the Confrontation Clause required the government to produce the informants themselves at the sentencing selection phase. In a 2-to-1 decision, the Fourth Circuit panel (Niemeyer and Agee, with Gregory dissenting) affirmed the admission of the informants’ statements through the detectives.
Some Good News for the Blog
By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)
Just a few weeks shy of the Maryland Appellate Blog’s first anniversary, we have two pieces of good news to share.
First, one of our sillier posts caught the attention of Marcia Coyle, who covers the Supreme Court for PBS NewsHour and the National Law Journal. Marcia interviewed me for a piece in today’s NLJ, which also features a new piece I wrote matching today’s justices with Marvel and DC superheroes.
Big thanks are due: to Marcia Coyle, who couldn’t have been nicer; to Mike Moline, who edited my piece for the better; to Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, who encourages and retweets my malarkey; to my wife for putting up with me writing a post while on vacation; and, as always, to the whole Maryland Appellate Blog board for their contributions and support.
Second, we now have a blog manager, Chris Mincher. Like me, Chris graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and worked on the Libel Show, Virginia Law Weekly, and the Journal of Law and Politics. Unlike me, Chris held leadership positions with those groups, was a law clerk (with Court of Appeals Judge Robert N. McDonald), and is a real journalist (with a résumé that includes The Washington Post and The Onion’s AV Club).
As blog manager, Chris will be responsible for keeping everyone on schedule and for continuing to work out the kinks in our editorial processes. You can look forward to fewer typos. He has already begun contributing to the blog. Chris will of course be keeping his day job as an associate at Silverman | Thompson | Slutkin | White LLC.
One Month to Go, Only Seven Cases Left! (With One Potential Blockbuster)
By Michael Wein
[EIC’s Update, 8/27/2014: The Court this morning decided Kulbicki, along with Spacesaver, and Brooks. It decided Raynor this afternoon.]
[EIC’s Update, 8/18/2014: The Court has since decided Chesapeake Bay, Peters, and NIHC. We’re still waiting on Spacesaver, Raynor, Brooks, and, notably, Kulbicki.]
As a follow up on previous posts by myself and members of this Blog, the Court of Appeals, under the helm of Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbara, appears to be smoothly finishing work for the remaining cases from the 2013 Term by the self-imposed deadline of August 31, 2014. Per the handy “Pending Cases” link on the Court of Appeals’ website, discussed previously here, only seven cases from the term remain on the Court of Appeals’ docket. Read More…
Why Aren’t Briefs Actually Brief?
Fairly often, as I prepare an appellate brief, my husband will offer to write it for me. As he is a retired assistant fire chief, this always intrigues me, so I’ll ask him how he would take all the complex issues I have to address and present them to the court. His reply typically tells me the simplest (and shortest) brief would say, “I’m right and they’re wrong.”
Obviously, I have not used this technique, but it helps to keep this concept in mind when writing a brief. At the most basic level, isn’t that what each of us is trying to say in our briefs? Whether we have 35 pages or 50 pages available to us, it all really boils down to an effort to persuade the appellate court to accept and adopt the position we present on behalf of our client.
Highlights of FBA’s “Highlights of the Supreme Court’s 2013-2014 Term”
On July 17, the Federal Bar Association hosted its second-annual panel discussion of the highlights of the Supreme Court’s most recent term. Held at the U.S. Courthouse in Baltimore, presenters included the Hon. Benson Everett Legg (Ret.), former judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; the Hon. Joseph F. Murphy Jr. (Ret.), former judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland; Suget Raman, the current appellate chief of the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for the District of Maryland; and Jonathan Biran, a previous appellate chief of that Office and, more notably, current contributor to this blog. (Potential bias alert: Judge Legg is this author’s former employer, and Judge Murphy and the author are currently members of the same firm.) A recap of the event, along with these distinguished commentators’ takes on the cases that most caught their attention, appears below (after the jump).
July 2014 Maryland Certiorari Grants
Ta-da! A new batch of cert grants to get you through the dog days of summer. Check out this sundry lineup of cases — including one on warrantless cell phone searches incident to arrest, a topic that’s all the rage these days in criminal procedure — after the jump.
Nominations Are Open for the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100
The ABA Journal is taking nominations for its annual Blawg 100 list of must-read legal blogs. Given that the Maryland Appellate Blog is less than a year old, it would certainly be a coup to make the list. If you think we deserve consideration, and if you’re not a contributor or a person affiliated with a contributor, please consider taking a few minutes to nominate us. The ABA Journal’s post, with a nomination form at the end, is here.
Could Clarence Thomas Be Questioning Whether Citizens United Binds the States?
By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)
One of the more surprising denials of certiorari this past term at the U.S. Supreme Court was in Iowa Right to Life Comm. v. Tooker. There, the Eighth Circuit, applying FEC v. Beaumont, 539 U.S. 146 (2003), upheld an Iowa law that bans direct corporate contributions to political campaigns but permits such contributions by unions. Over at the Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen noted that Beaumont’s days appear to be numbered under recent Supreme Court election law decisions, but he concluded Chief Justice Roberts “is playing the long game, not wanting to move quickly.”
I agree that Chief Justice Roberts is playing the long game, but it only takes four justices to grant certiorari. In Beaumont itself, Justices Kennedy (concurring in the judgment) and Justices Scalia and Thomas (dissenting) telegraphed a willingness to reexamine the ban on corporate giving in a future case. It’s difficult to see why Justice Alito, having since joined the Court, would hesitate to vote to grant review in Iowa Right to Life, particularly given Iowa’s differing treatment of unions and corporations. Read More…
Maryland Appellate Blog 