Can the Cops Search You Just 'Cause?

A look at that, and some other unsettling issues before the Supreme Court:

Arizona v. Grant

Question(s) presented
Does the Fourth Amendment require law enforcement officers to demonstrate a threat to their safety or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime of arrest in order to justify a warrantless vehicular search incident to arrest conducted after the vehicle’s recent occupants have been arrested and secured?

Herring v. U.S.

Question(s) presented
Whether the Fourth Amendment requires evidence found during a search incident to an arrest to be suppressed when the arresting officer conducted the arrest and search in sole reliance upon facially credible but erroneous information negligently provided by another law enforcement agent.

Pearson v. Callahan

Question(s) presented include:
1. Several lower courts have recognized a “consent once removed” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Does this exception authorize police officers to enter a home without a warrant immediately after an undercover informant buys drugs inside (as the Sixth and Seventh Circuits have held), or does the warrantless entry in such circumstances violate the Fourth Amendment (as the Tenth Circuit held below)?

2. Did the Tenth Circuit properly deny qualified immunity when the only decisions directly on point had all upheld similar warrantless entries?

Arizona v. Johnson

Question(s) presented
In the context of a vehicular stop for a minor traffic infraction, may an officer conduct a pat-down search of a passenger when the officer has an articulable basis to believe the passenger might be armed and presently dangerous, but has no reasonable grounds to believe that the passenger is committing, or has committed, a criminal offense?

Ashcroft, Formery Att'y Gen. v. Iqbal

Question presented
1. Whether a conclusory allegation that a cabinet-level officer or other high-ranking official knew of, condoned, or agreed to subject a plaintiff to allegedly unconstitutional acts purportedly committed by subordinate officials is sufficient to state individual-capacity claims against those officials under Bivens.

2. Whether a cabinet-level officer or other high-ranking official may be held personally liable for the allegedly unconstitutional acts of subordinate officials on the ground that, as high-level supervisors, they had constructive notice of the discrimination allegedly carried out by such subordinate officials.

Harbison v. Bell

Question(s) presented
Every jurisdiction that authorizes the death penalty provides for clemency, which is of vital importance in assuring that the death penalty is carried out justly. But, in this case the District Court held Mr. Harbison's federally-funded lawyers could not present, on his behalf, a clemency request to Tennessee's governor. The denial of clemency counsel contravenes basic principles of justice. As Chief Justice Rehnquist noted in Herrera v. Collins.

Clemency is deeply rooted in our Anglo-American tradition of law, and is the historic remedy for preventing miscarriages of justice where judicial process has been exhausted. Indeed, the clemency power exists because "the administration of justice by the courts is not necessarily always wise or certainly considerate of circumstances which may properly mitigate guilt." Thus, executive clemency is the "fail safe' in our criminal justice system." A system which includes capital punishment but does not provide a meaningful opportunity for executive clemency is "totally alien to our notions of criminal justice."

Yet, the lower courts arbitrarily denied Mr. Harbison's federally-funded habeas counsel permission to represent him in state clemency proceedings after the State had denied him counsel for that purpose. The District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit not only defied Congress' explicit directions to provide clemency counsel for the condemned, but denied Mr. Harbison a meaningful opportunity to present compelling facts mitigating his guilt and the punishment of death to the only person presently able to consider them, the Governor of the State of Tennessee.

Equally troubling, the Sixth Circuit barred Harbison from appealing the denial of clemency counsel by refusing to grant a certificate of appealability on the issue. In order to harmonize the law of the circuits and to decide an important issue regarding the appeals court's jurisdiction, this Court should resolve the following questions:

1. Does 18 U.S.C. §3599(a)(2) and (e) (recodifying verbatim former 21 U.S.C.§848(q) (4)(B)and (q) (8)), permit federally-funded habeas counsel to represent a condemned inmate in state clemency proceedings when the state has denied state-funded counsel for that purpose?

2. Is a certificate of appealability required to appeal an order denying a request for federally-funded counsel under 18 U.S.C. §3599(a)(2) and (e)?

Knowles v. Mirzayance

Question presented
Concluding that defense counsel was ineffective in advising petitioner to withdraw his not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity plea, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted habeas relief to petitioner without analyzing the state-court adjudication deferentially under "clearly established" law as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) and by supplanting the district court's factual findings and credibility determinations with its own, opposite factual findings. This Court vacated the Ninth Circuit decision and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Carey v. Musladin, 127 S. Ct. 649 (2006). On remand, the Ninth Circuit conceded that "no Supreme Court case has specifically addressed a counsel's failure to advance the defendant's only affirmative defense" but nonetheless concluded that its original decision was "unaffected" by Musladin and subsequent § 2254(d) decisions of this Court.

The questions presented are:

1. Did the Ninth Circuit again exceed its authority under § 2254(d) by granting habeas relief without considering whether the state-court adjudication of the claim was "unreasonable" under "clearly established Federal law" based on its previous conclusion that trial counsel was required to proceed with an affirmative insanity defense because it was the only defense available and despite the absence of a Supreme Court decision addressing the point?

2. May a federal appellate court substitute its own factual findings and credibility determinations for those of a district court without determining whether the district court's findings were "clearly erroneous?"

Montejo v. Louisiana

Question(s) presented
When an indigent defendant's right to counsel has attached and counsel has been appointed, must the defendant take additional affirmative steps to "accept" the appointment in order to secure the protections of the Sixth Amendment and preclude police-initiated interrogation without counsel present?

Issue(s)
Is the appointment of legal counsel alone sufficient to preclude police-initiated interrogation without counsel present under the Sixth Amendment?

Abuelhawa v. U.S.

Issue
Whether, if someone uses a cellular phone to buy drugs for personal use, which is a misdemeanor offense, that person can also be charged with a separate felony offense because using the cellular phone facilitated the sale of the drugs in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b).