The Term’s final stretch is here, and the Court is releasing opinions every Monday. (At some point in June, it will probably begin releasing opinions on Thursdays as well, and perhaps on other days.) On Monday, May 14th, the Court released five opinions dealing with issues as disparate as lawyers who concede their clients’ guilt, who has a right to privacy in a rental car, and the legality of sports betting. (ISCOTUS co-director Carolyn Shapiro discussed several of them on WGN’s Legal Face-Off.)

McCoy v. Louisiana

The Court ordered a new trial in McCoy v. Louisiana, a capital murder case in which the defendant’s counsel, in the hopes of avoiding a death sentence, admitted that the defendant had killed the victims, despite the defendant’s express objections. Robert McCoy was charged with of first degree murder in the deaths of the mother, stepfather, and son of his estranged wife. McCoy’s lawyer, Larry English, urged McCoy to take a guilty plea; McCoy refused, continuing to maintain his innocence. Then, two weeks before the trial, English told McCoy that he intended to admit that Mr. McCoy had killed the victims, a move that McCoy emphatically opposed. At trial, English in fact “conceded McCoy’s role in the killings” both in his opening and closing arguments, arguing for second degree murder. McCoy expressly objected to this strategy, and exercised his right to testify during the trial that he was innocent and present his alibi at the time of the murders. Ultimately, the jury found McCoy guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to death.

In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Ginsburg, the Court held that, unlike strategic decisions that serve to achieve a client’s objectives, the decision to assert innocence is one for the client to make – it is his choice about what his actual objectives are. The Court further clarified that because McCoy did not make an admission that he intended to commit perjury in asserting his innocence, nor did English doubt that such an assertion would be truthful, English’s actions in going against his client’s wish to profess innocence violated McCoy’s right to autonomy under the Sixth Amendment. The Court emphasized  McCoy’s fundamental right to make his own decisions about how to proceed with his defense, and that a jury is almost certain to be swayed by a lawyer who admits his own client’s guilt. The dissent, written by Justice Alito and joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, argued that English did not admit that McCoy was guilty of first-degree murder, but that he was guilty of committing one element of the offenses charged with (the actus reus: killing the victims) but not the other (the mens rea: intent). Slate and the Cato Institute praise the majority’s ruling, and the Washington Post provides more background.

Byrd v. United States

A second criminal case, Byrd v. United States asked whether a driver has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a rental car when he has the permission of the renter to drive the car but the rental agreement does not have that person listed as an authorized driver. If so, the driver can assert a Fourth Amendment claim related to the search.

Terrence Byrd was stopped at a checkpoint when he was driving a car that his girlfriend had rented. After searching the car, alleging that they had obtained Byrd’s consent and thus had probable cause (which he disputes), state troopers found heroin and body armour in the car.

The Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Kennedy, stated “[f]ew protections are as essential to individual liberty as the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Court criticized the Government’s proposed rule that drivers of rental cars whose names are not on the rental agreement always lack an expectation of privacy, because the rental company has not explicitly authorized them as drivers, as too restrictive. But the Court also disagreed with Byrd’s contention that the sole occupant of a car always has a reasonable expectation of privacy via mere possession and control, because that would afford privacy expectations to people who would have no such expectation, such as a car thief. The Court remanded the case on this issue. NPR discusses the implications that both McCoy and Byrd have for individual rights in criminal justice cases.

Murphy v. NCAA

Murphy v. NCAA also received significant news coverage, as it invalidated a federal statute that prohibited modifications or repeal of state-law prohibitions on sports gambling. More specifically, the Court held that the statute unconstitutionally “commandeered” the regulatory power of States in contravention of New York v. United States and the Tenth Amendment. USA Today notes states now have the opportunity to legalize sports gambling “as they see fit,” and the Washington Post explores other implications here. As Forbes notes, however, states do not have to legalize such gambling and can regulate it in a variety of ways. The case also suggests that the Trump administration’s efforts to require state and local government cooperation in immigration enforcement faces an uphill battle.

Justice Breyer joined most of Justice Alito’s majority opinion but joined the portion of Justice Ginsburg’s dissent that addressed “severability,” the fate of the parts of the statute that were not expressly held unconstitutional but that the majority held could not be separated from the unconstitutional portion. Stephen Wermiel of SCOTUSblog explains how this case may not be 6-3 or 7-2 but rather 6-1-2. (Severability was last a major issue in the first Obamacare case, NFIB v. Sebelius.)

United States v. Sanchez-Gomez and Dahda v. United States

In a unanimous decision, the Court vacated and remanded a case for mootness. U.S. v. Sanchez-Gomez dealt with a challenge to full restraints used during non-jury, pretrial proceedings. The restraints at issue in this case include full five-point restraints where the “defendant’s feet are shackled together and a waist chain connects to tightly restrain their cuffed hands,” Jurist reports. The Court declined to reach the merits of the claim, however, but made clear that there were other ways defendants subjected to this practice could litigate its constitutionality. And in the 8-0 decision in Dahda v. U.S. (Justice Gorsuch was recused), the Court analyzed the use of wiretapping as a means by which to intercept communications of drug dealers in Kansas, and rejected the argument that the orders were facially insufficient under the relevant statute, 18 U.S.C. §2518(3).

The Court will continue to release opinions through May and June, so don’t forget to check back with ISCOTUSnow for updates!

ISCOTUS Editorial Coordinator Anna Jirschele, Chicago-Kent Class of 2018, ISCOTUS Fellow Zoe Arthurson-McColl, Chicago-Kent Class of 2020, and ISCOTUS Co-Director and Chicago-Kent faculty member Carolyn Shapiro contributed to this post.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue opinions on Monday morning, May 14. Virtually all of the major cases argued this Term, even some from October, are yet to be decided, and the Court is off to its slowest start in many years, so Monday could be a bit of a blockbuster.

But as we wait for the latest opinions, let’s look back at the Court’s three most recent opinions — all issued during the week of April 2. The most politically charged of those opinions was Jesner v. Arab Bank, in which, by a 5-4 vote, the Court held that foreign corporations may not be defendants in suits brought under the ATS. Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion, joined in part by Chief Justice Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch. (Justice Thomas also filed a concurring opinion, andJustices Alito and Gorsuch filed opinions concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.)J ustice Sotomayor filed a 34-page dissent, joined by Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Ginsburg.

The ATS is a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that grants district courts original jurisdiction over “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Under the ATS, the petitioners, foreign nationals injured or killed by terrorist attacks between 1995 and 2005 in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, brought suit against Arab Bank, PLC, a foreign corporation that allegedly facilitated the acts of terrorism that caused their injuries. The United States District Court of the Eastern District of New York dismissed their claims after the Second Circuit’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., which held that foreign corporations could not be sued under the ATS (the Court affirmed the holding in Kiobel, but on the grounds that claims cannot normally be brought pursuant to the ATS when all conduct relevant to the suit took place outside of the United States). The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal, which the petitioners appealed, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

The five-justice majority emphasized that Congress enacted the ATS to “promote harmony in international relations by ensuring foreign plaintiffs a remedy for international law violations”, in order to discourage litigation against the United States. This case, the Court emphasized, does the opposite. “At a minimum, the relatively minor connection between the terrorist attacks at issue in this case and the alleged conduct in the United States well illustrates the perils of extending the scope of ATS liability to foreign national corporations like Arab Bank,” stated Kennedy in the opinion. “For 13 years, this litigation has ‘caused significant diplomatic tensions’ with Jordan, a critical ally in one of the world’s most sensitive regions.”

The dissent argued that, by “categorically foreclosing foreign corporate liability” under the ATS, the Court is “[absolving] corporations from responsibility under the ATS for conscience-shocking behavior.” Analogizing to Citizens United v. SEC, Justice Sotomayor concluded that by shielding corporations from liability under the ATS, the Court “allows these entities to take advantage of the significant benefits of the corporate form and enjoy fundamental rights, without having to shoulder attendant fundamental responsibilities.”

While Joan Biskupic at CNN, writes that Jesner is evidence of increasing tension between the liberal and conservative blocs on the Court, Walter Olson, at the Cato Institute, argues that the decision “[confirms] that is it up to Congress, not the judiciary, to decide whether and when American courts should entertain international human rights cases against foreign defendants.”

Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC , one of the most highly-anticipated intellectual property opinions of the Term, was written by Justice Thomas. The only dissenters were Justice Gorsuch, who wrote an opinion, and Chief Justice Roberts, who joined him. This case was about inter partes review – an administrative process that allows the Patent and Trade Office (“PTO”) to reconsider and cancel patents that were (allegedly) improperly issued because they fail the novelty or nonobviousness standards. The Court upheld this procedure against claims that it violates Article III or the Seventh Amendment jury right., holding that Congress had properly delegated inter partes review to the PTO, and that “the Seventh Amendment poses no independent bar to the adjudication of that action by a nonjury factfinder.” In the related case of SAS Institute, Inc. v. Iancu, the Court held, 5-4, that when it undertakes inter partes review, the PTO must consider all of the challenges raised to the patent.

Adam Liptak of The New York Times writes that supporters of inter partes review see it as a way to combat “patent trolls” – companies that obtain patents and then, rather than use the patents, demand royalties and sue for damages. Critics of the decision have said that the Court is undermining the stability and effectiveness of patents as property rights that form the foundation of the U.S. innovation economy. And Joe Nocera explored the views of different industries in Bloomberg, painting a picture of tech companies on one side (supporting inter partes review because of how often patents are challenged in court) against drug companies on the other side (criticizing inter partes review because it cuts down on their ability to build “patent fortresses” around a branded drug to maintain that drug’s profitability). In addition, Nocera writes that patent examiners may not be getting it right the first time because the Patent and Trademark Office is entirely overwhelmed with patent applications –receiving upwards of 640,000 applications each year, with only around 8,000 patent examiners.

ISCOTUS Fellows Elisabeth Hieber, Chicago-Kent Class of 2019, and Eva Dickey, Chicago-Kent Class of 2020, contributed to this post, which was edited by ISCOTUS Editorial Coordinator Anna Jirschele, Chicago-Kent Class of 2018, and overseen by ISCOTUS Co-Director and Chicago-Kent faculty member Carolyn Shapiro.