The Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act will empower the President and the Congress to eliminate unnecessary spending while discouraging waste in the first place. This is critically important both because we should never tolerate taxpayer dollars going to programs that are duplicative or ineffective and because, especially in the current fiscal environment, we cannot afford this waste.

The proposed legislation is similar to that introduced to Congress by former president George W. Bush [official profile] in 2006, which was defeated in the Senate [official website] by a Democratic filibuster. In 1998, the Supreme Court [official website] ruled in Clinton v. City of New York [Cornell LII backgrounder] that the Line Item Veto Act (LIVA) [legislative materials] violated the Presentment Clause of the US Constitution [text], which only provides for the president to sign or veto a bill in its entirety. LIVA gave the president the unilateral ability to veto certain spending provisions after they had been signed into law, unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress voted to override the line item veto.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that a district court has an obligation to defer to an ERISA plan administrator's reasonable interpretation of the terms of the plan if the plan administrator arrived at the interpretation outside the context of an administrative claim for benefits. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had ruled that a district court is under no obligation to defer to an ERISA plan administrator's interpretation and that a district court has "allowable discretion" to adopt any "reasonable" interpretation of the terms of the plan.

[Case law] set[s] forth ... that an appellate court may, in its discretion, correct an error not raised at trial only where the appellant demonstrates that (1) there is an "error"; (2) the error is "clear or obvious ... "; (3) the error "affected the appellant's substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means" it "affected the outcome of the district court proceedings"; and (4) "the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." In our view, the Second Circuit's standard is inconsistent with the third and the fourth criteria set forth in these cases. The third criterion ... means that there must be a reasonable probability that the error affected the outcome of the trial. Th[e] standard [used by the Second Circuit] is irreconcilable with our "plain error" precedent. In cases applying this fourth criterion, we have suggested that, in most circumstances, an error that does not affect the jury's verdict does not significantly impugn the "fairness," "integrity," or "public reputation" of the judicial process.

The trial error at issue in this case undermined the defendant's substantial rights by allowing the jury to convict him on the basis of an incorrect belief that lawful conduct was unlawful. ... [T]he Court of Appeals properly exercised its discretion to remedy the error and to order a retrial.

Respondent Glenn Marcus was convicted of sex trafficking and forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act [text, PDF], enacted in October 2000, for conduct that spanned from January 1999 to October 2001. In February, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] for the case. Counsel for the US government argued that, "[u]nder Rule 52(b), a defendant asserting a forfeited claim of error may prevail only by showing at a minimum a reasonable possibility that the error actually affected the outcome of the case." Counsel for the respondent argued for the application of the Second Circuit's standard.

Th[e] structural or stylistic change ... does not provide a "clear indication" that Congress meant to alter its treatment of machineguns as an offense element. A more logical explanation for the restructuring is that it broke up a lengthy principal paragraph, which exceeded 250 words[,] ... into a more readable statute. This is in step with current legislative drafting guidelines, which advise drafters to break lengthy statutory provisions into separate subsections that can be read more easily. ... These points are overcome, however, by the substantial weight of the other Castillo factors and the principle that Congress would not enact so significant a change without a clear indication of its purpose to do so. The evident congressional purpose was to amend the statute to ... make [it] more readable but not otherwise to alter the substance of the statute. The analysis and holding of Castillo control this case. The machinegun provision in [s.] 924(c)(1)(B)(ii) is an element of an offense.

Respondents Martin O'Brien and Arthur Burgess made a failed attempt to rob an armored car in 2005, using a firearm that the FBI alleged had been modified to operate as a fully-automatic weapon. The court heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] in February. Counsel for the petitioner, the US government, argued that the language of the statute requires a judge to make the determination. Counsel for the respondents argued that such a result is foreclosed by the Supreme Court's statutory interpretation jurisprudence.

Football teams that need to cooperate are not trapped by antitrust law. "[T]he special characteristics of this industry may provide a justification" for many kinds of agreements. The fact that NFL teams share an interest in making the entire league successful and profitable, and that they must cooperate in the production and scheduling of games, provides a perfectly sensible justification for making a host of collective decisions. But the conduct at issue in this case is still concerted activity under the Sherman Act that is subject to s. 1 analysis.

The NFL and its 32 member teams teams reached an agreement with Reebok [corporate website] to license and sell consumer headwear and clothing with the respective teams' logos and not to grant licenses to Reebok's competitors for 10 years. The antitrust suit was brought by American Needle [corporate website], which argued that the contract violated the Sherman Act.

For disparate-treatment claims - and others for which discriminatory intent is required - that means the plaintiff must demonstrate deliberate discrimination within the limitations period. But for claims that do not require discriminatory intent, no such demonstration is needed. Our opinions, it is true, described the harms of which the unsuccessful plaintiffs in those cases complained as "present effect[s]" of past discrimination. But the reason they could not be the present effects of present discrimination was that the charged discrimination required proof of discriminatory intent, which had not even been alleged. That reasoning has no application when, as here, the charge is disparate impact, which does not require discriminatory intent.

Last year, US President Barack Obama signed into law [JURIST report] the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 [S 181 materials], extending the deadline for employees to sue their employers for unequal pay discrimination under a disparate treatment theory. The law's "clarification" of equal pay protections effectively overturned the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], which held that "a pay-setting decision is a discrete act that occurs at a particular point in time" and that the statutory period for filing a discrimination claim with the EEOC begins when that discrete act occurs. The new law altered Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [text] to clarify that the six-month statute of limitations controlling racial, gender, or national origin employment discrimination suits is applicable to each instance of a discriminatory practice, including the receipt of each paycheck, not only to the initial discriminatory act. The initial lawsuit was brought by Lilly Ledbetter, a 19-year Goodyear employee, who alleged that she received less pay than male counterparts because of gender discrimination. The Supreme Court upheld the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's reversal [opinion, PDF] of a district court decision awarding Ledbetter $360,000 in damages.

The court also granted a limited petition in Sossamon v. Texas [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to decide whether an individual may sue a state or state official in his official capacity for damages for violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act [42 USC s. 2000cc text], which grants prisoners permission to obtain injunctive and declaratory relief against the government when it imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a inmate. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed [opinion, PDF] a grant of summary judgment in favor of Texas and ordered further proceedings to determine if Texas had been exceeded its bounds under the act by prohibiting Sossamon to use the prison chapel for Christian worship, even though it was available for other uses.

The court granted certiorari to another federal preemption case on Monday in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion [docket; cert. petition, PDF]. The court will decide whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) [text], which provides for judicial facilitation of private dispute resolution through arbitration when the transaction involves interstate commerce, preempts states from enforcing alternate solutions when arbitration clauses are considered unconscionable. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that the FAA does not preempt a California unconscionability law, which allowed a class action against AT&T mobile despite a contractual clause prohibiting such proceedings.

In Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn [docket; cert. petition, PDF] and Garriott v. Winn [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the court granted a consolidated petition, allowing one hour for oral argument. The court will determine the constitutionality of an Arizona tax credit for donations to organizations that provide scholarships at private schools, which allows scholarships funded by religious organizations to be granted only to students attending parochial schools. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that the taxpayers had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the law and allowed the claim to proceed. The outcome will determine if tax credit program unconstitutionally endorses or advances religion simply because taxpayers choose to direct more contributions to religious organization than nonreligious ones.

In Skinner v. Switzer [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the court will decide whether a convicted prisoner seeking access to biological evidence for DNA testing may assert a civil rights claim under Section 1983 [text] or if such a claim is cognizable only under a writ of habeas corpus. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed [opinion, PDF] a district court decision to dismiss Skinner's s. 1983 claim seeking access to DNA evidence that may prove his innocence in the murders for which he is now sentenced to death, stating that relief could only be sought through habeas corpus. The Supreme Court court also granted a stay of execution until the case is decided.

The court dismissed [opinion, PDF] a writ of certiorari as improvidently granted in Robertson v. US ex rel. Watson [docket; JURIST report], which challenged the constitutionality of a District of Columbia law under which a private party can bring an action for criminal contempt. The decision included a lengthy dissent from Chief Justice Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Sonia Sotomayor, maintaining that a criminal action can only be brought against a defendant by society as a whole, and therefore the lower court erred in its judgment upholding the law.

Also Monday, the Supreme Court delivered a per curiam opinion for a summary reversal in the capital case of Jefferson v. Upton [docket]. The court reversed and remanded the judgment of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which held that ineffective council defenses under habeas claims are subject to a higher standard than the normative "strong presumption of correctness" standard. The court's opinion is its twelfth summary reversal this session.

Judicial officers appointed to the new Military Court of Australia will have the same independence and constitutional protections that apply in other federal courts. ... This new structure will achieve a more integrated and efficient system in order to effectively deliver legal and justice services to both the civilian and defence community.

The new military courts would replace the interim arrangements that had been in use after the Australian Military Court (AMC) [Department of Defense backgrounder] was found unconstitutional [judgment text; JURIST report] by the High Court of Australia [official website] in August. The High Court held that the AMC employed the judicial power of the Commonwealth while AMC judges functioned within the hierarchy of the military, violating chapter three of the Australian Constitution [text]. The ruling cast doubt on approximately 170 cases that the AMC had ruled on since its inception in 2007. The case that prompted the ruling was brought as an appeal by sailor Brian Lane over a 2005 charge of indecent assault on a superior officer. Lane had argued [The Australian report] that the AMC did not have jurisdiction over the case and that the legislation creating the court was invalid. In response to the ruling, Faulker said that the previous military justice system would be reinstated [press release], which consisted mainly of trials by court martial and ADF magistrates. The AMC was established by the government of former prime minister John Howard [BBC profile] after a series of Senate Committee reports were critical of the system of military justice and recommended extensive changes.

In December, the FBI released a preliminary report covering the first half of 2009 [JURIST report], indicating a 4.4 percent decrease in violent crime from January to June. Specifically, murder decreased 10 percent, robbery dropped 6.5 percent, forcible rape fell 3.3 percent, and aggravated assault decreased 3.2 percent. While violent crime rates dropped across the country as a whole, in cities of populations between 10,000 and 24,999, violent crime increased 1.7 percent. The drop follows a 1.9 percent decrease for 2008 and a 0.7 percent decrease [JURIST reports] for 2007. That came after two years of increasing rates of similar crimes, including a 2006 increase of 1.3 percent and a 2005 increase of 2.3 percent [JURIST reports].