Volume 442 — United States Reports

This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 442 of the United States Reports:

Held: inter alia, that the jury was correctly instructed on the elements of the cause of action and on the principles for assessing actual damages. It also found the evidence sufficient to support the jury verdict. 572 F. 2d, at 714-718. Our grant of certiorari was limited to the punitive damages question. See 439 U. S. 892 (1978).

Respondents were convicted, after a joint trial in a Tennessee court, of murder committed during the commission of a robbery. None of the respondents took the witness stand, and their oral confessions, found by the trial court to have been freely and voluntarily given, were admitted into evidence through police officers' testimony.

Petitioner's testimony before a grand jury in June 1976 implicated one Musgrave in various drug-related offenses, and an indictment of Musgrave followed. Held: Since the indictment and jury instructions specified the September 30 interview as the ancillary proceeding, the Court of Appeals erred in predicating its affirmance on petitioner's October 21 testimony.

United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, where two statutes criminalize the same act and those statutes have different maximum penalties, the maximum penalty of the statute the prosecutor chose to charge under applies. The decision whether and how to charge is still subject to constitutional constraints. For example, prosecution decisions cannot be a violation of equal protection.

In the settlement of a state-court collection suit, respondent stipulated that petitioner should have judgment against respondent. Shortly thereafter, respondent filed for bankruptcy, and petitioner sought to establish that respondent's debt to him was not dischargeable because it was the product of respondent's fraud, deceit, and malicious conversion and thus came within §§ 17a(2) and (4) of the Bankruptcy Act, which provide that such debts are not affected by a discharge.

Respondents (three adult males) and a 16-year-old girl (Jane Doe) were jointly tried in a New York state court on charges, inter alia, of illegally possessing two loaded handguns found in an automobile in which they were riding when it was stopped for speeding. The guns had been positioned crosswise in Jane Doe's open handbag on either the front floor or front seat on the passenger side where she was sitting.

Held: A federal prisoner's allegation that a postsentencing change in the policies of the United States Parole Commission has prolonged his actual imprisonment beyond… Held: A federal prisoner's allegation that a postsentencing change in the policies of the United States Parole Commission has prolonged his actual imprisonment beyond the period intended by the sentencing judge will not support a collateral attack on the original sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Pp. 184-190.

Held: A Washington statute that requires each major political party to have a State Committee consisting of two persons from each county in the… Held: A Washington statute that requires each major political party to have a State Committee consisting of two persons from each county in the State does not, by so restricting the composition of the State Committee, violate the rights of members of a political party to freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth…

Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case that held a subsequent Miranda warning is not sufficient to cure the taint of an unlawful arrest, when the unlawful arrest led to a coerced confession.

Petitioner brought suit in Federal District Court alleging that respondent, who was a United States Congressman at the time this case commenced, had discriminated against petitioner on… Held: A cause of action and damages remedy can be implied directly under the Constitution when the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is violated. Cf. Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619; Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478. Pp. 233-249.

Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 (1979), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision upheld the constitutionality of a state law, which granted a hiring preference to veterans over non-veterans.

Held: that this provision deprives the Arizona Employment Relations Board — charged with responsibility for enforcing the Act — -of any discretion to compel agricultural employers to furnish materials, information, time, or facilities to labor organizations desirous of communicating with workers located on the employers’ property and that the section for this reason violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the…

A New York State Police investigator, after purchasing two films from petitioner's "adult" bookstore and after viewing them and concluding… Held: The Fourth Amendment does not permit the action taken here, where, except for the specification of copies of the two films previously purchased by the investigator, the warrant did not purport to particularly describe the things to be seized but, instead, left it entirely to the discretion of the officials conducting the search to…

Petitioner brought a class action on behalf of herself and all persons in the United States who purchased hearing aids manufactured by respondents, alleging that, because of antitrust violations… Held: Consumers who pay a higher price for goods purchased for personal use as a result of antitrust violations sustain an injury in their "property" within the meaning of § 4. Pp. 337-345. (a) Statutory construction must begin with the language employed by Congress.

Held: however, that there was no need for injunctive relief because the Fish and Wildlife Service had completed during the pendency of the appeal a “Programmatic EIS” that adequately evaluated the environmental consequences for the NWRS of various budgetary alternatives. 13 Id., at 126, 581 F. 2d, at 904 .

After respondent, a former officer, director, and loan officer of petitioner Great American Federal Savings and Loan Association (Association) received a right-to-sue letter upon filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he brought this suit against the Association and its directors in Federal District Court, alleging that the Association had intentionally embarked upon a course of conduct the effect…

Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court Case from 1979. Its plaintiff was a hearing-impaired student who, after being denied access to the school's nursing department, filed a lawsuit against claiming violation of her rights under the Fourteenth amendment and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Held: if a constitutional violation is alleged, even with respect to the most important state statute, a plaintiff is free to bring his suit in federal court without any requirement that he first exhaust state judicial remedies. 3 In requiring abstention in this case, the Court, in my judgment, is departing from these well-established principles and extending Younger beyond its logical bounds.

When petitioner railroads proposed a seasonal increase in the shipping rates for grain and soybeans, a number of shippers filed protests with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) requesting that… Held: To the extent that the Court of Appeals interpreted the ICC's order as a final decision that the proposed tariff was lawful, rather than simply a discretionary decision not now to investigate its lawfulness, it misconstrued the order.

Torres v. Puerto Rico, 442 U.S. 465 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case holding that the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure applies to Puerto Rico.

Held: “ 'does not draw in question the legislative acts of the defendant member of Congress or his motives for performing them.’ ” 408 U. S., at 526 , quoting Johnson, supra, at 185 .

Petitioner, then a Member of Congress, was indicted in 1976 for conspiring to solicit and accept, and for soliciting and accepting, bribes in return for being influenced in the performance of… Held: Mandamus was not the appropriate means of challenging the validity of the indictment on the ground that it violated the Speech or Debate Clause. Direct appeal to the Court of Appeals was available and was the proper course. Pp. 505-508.

Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979), is a United States Supreme Court case that reaffirmed the prosecution's burden of proof of the mental element of a crime by striking down a jury instruction that "the law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts". In Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307 (1985), Justice Brennan wrote about "Sandstrom and the wellspring due process principal from which it is drawn" as follows: Sandstrom v. Montana made clear that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a State from making use of jury instructions that have the effect of relieving the State of the burden of proof on the critical question of intent in a criminal prosecution.

In 1954, the Federal Power Commission, now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity authorizing the sale to petitioner United Gas Pipe Line… Held: Section 7(b) requires producers to continue supplying in interstate commerce all gas produced from a dedicated leasehold until they obtain permission for abandonment from the Commission. Pp. 535-539.

Terminally ill cancer patients and their spouses brought this action to enjoin the Government from interfering with the interstate shipment and sale of Laetrile, a drug not approved for distribution… Held: The Act makes no express exception for drugs used by the terminally ill and no implied exemption is necessary to attain congressional objectives or to avert an unreasonable reading of the terms "safe" and "effective" in § 201(p)(1). Pp. 551-559.

ccounting firm was retained by a securities brokerage firm (Weis) registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a member of the New York Stock Exchange (Exchange), and in… Held: There is no implied private cause of action for damages under § 17(a). Pp. 568-579. (a) In terms, § 17(a) simply requires broker-dealers to keep such records and file such reports as the SEC may prescribe, and does not purport to create a private cause of action in favor of anyone.

Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed Georgia's procedures for the commitment of a child to a mental hospital based on the request of a parent. The Court rejected, by a vote of 6–3, a class-action lawsuit from a group of minors, who claimed that the state's procedures were insufficient to ensure that parents did not use state mental hospitals as a "dumping ground" for children, and to ensure that minors committed to mental hospitals by their parents actually suffered from a condition sufficient to justify commitment. In so doing, the Court reversed a lower court ruling holding numerous aspects of the Georgia mental health system unconstitutional.

Appellees filed a class action in Federal District Court against the Pennsylvania Secretary of Public Welfare and the directors of three state mental health facilities, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and contending that Pennsylvania's procedures for the voluntary admission of mentally ill and mentally retarded children to a state hospital violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U.S. 653 (1979), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that in a land dispute, 25 U.S.C. § 194 applied only to individuals and not a state, that federal law governed the tribe's right to possession, but that state law was to be used in determining how that applied to the natural movement of a river's boundaries.

Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided an issue of Federal statutory hearing rights.

Respondent, at the time 161/2 years old, was taken into custody by Van Nuys, Cal., police on suspicion of murder. Held: The California Supreme Court erred in finding that respondent's request for his probation officer was a per se invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights under Miranda, and therefore also erred in holding that because the police did not cease interrogating respondent the statements and sketches made during the interrogation should have…

Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), was a Supreme Court case holding that the installation and use of a pen register by the police to obtain information on a suspect's telephone calls was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and hence no search warrant was required. In the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun rejected the idea that the installation and use of a pen register constitutes a violation of the suspect's reasonable expectation of privacy since the telephone numbers would be available to and recorded by the phone company anyway.

Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that, absent exigency, the warrantless search of personal luggage merely because it was located in an automobile lawfully stopped by the police, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment and not justified under the automobile exception. Similar to United States v. Chadwick (1977), the luggage was the subject of police suspicion before being placed in the vehicle.

Intervenor labor union filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board with respect to respondent hospital's… Held: Given the definition of "immediate patient-care areas" as areas "such as patients' rooms, operating rooms, and places where patients receive treatment," the NLRB's order prevents respondent from applying its no-solicitation rule not only to its lobbies, cafeteria, and gift shop but also to the corridors and sitting rooms that adjoin…

Held: which lasted from the late morning into the evening and produced over 300 pages of testimony. On September 23, the District Court dismissed the petition and ordered that the stay of execution previously issued by it terminate at noon on September 30.