Byron White, Due Process, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Majority, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist

Superintendent v. Hill

Byron White, Due Process, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Majority, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

Massachusetts inmates who comply with prison rules can accumulate good time credits that reduce the term of imprisonment. Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., ch. 127, § 129 (West 1974). Such credits may be lost “if a prisoner violates any rule of his place of confinement.” Ibid. The question presented is whether revocation of an inmate’s good time credits violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if the decision of the prison disciplinary board is not supported by evidence in the record. We conclude that where good time credits constitute a protected liberty interest, a decision to revoke such credits must be supported by some evidence. Because the record in this case contains sufficient evidence to support the decision of the disciplinary board, we reverse.

I

Respondents Gerald Hill and Joseph Crawford are inmates at a state prison in Walpole, Mass. In May, 1982, they each received prison disciplinary reports charging them with assaulting another inmate. At separate hearings for each inmate, a prison disciplinary board heard testimony from a prison guard, Sergeant Maguire, and received his written disciplinary report. According to the testimony and report, Maguire heard an inmate twice say loudly, “What’s going on?” The voice came from a walkway that Maguire could partially observe through a window. Maguire immediately opened the door to the walkway and found an inmate named Stephens bleeding from the mouth and suffering

Due Process, Partial concurrence, partial dissent, William Rehnquist

Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman

Due Process, Partial concurrence, partial dissent, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

The Court properly concludes that Kansas did not violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause or the Due Process Clause when it chose to apply its own statute of limitations in this case. Different issues might have arisen if Texas, Oklahoma, or Louisiana regarded its own shorter statute of limitations as substantive. Such issues, however, are not presented in this case, and they are appropriately left unresolved. Accordingly, I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion.

In my view, however, the Supreme Court of Kansas violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause when it concluded that the three States in question would apply the interest rates set forth in the regulations of the Federal Power Commission (FPC). The Court correctly states that misconstruing those States’ laws would not, by itself, have violated the Constitution, for the Full Faith and Credit Clause only required the Kansas court to adhere to law that was clearly established in those States and that had been brought to the Kansas court’s attention. See ante at 486 U. S. 730 -731. Under the standard the Court articulates, however, the Clause was violated. Each of the three States has a statute setting an interest rate that is different from the FPC rate, and the Supreme Court of Kansas offered no valid reason whatsoever for ignoring those statutory rates. Neither has this Court suggested a colorable argument that could support

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure, Harry Blackmun, William Brennan

United States v. Mechanik

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure, Harry Blackmun, William Brennan / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court that the convictions obtained in the trial court against defendants Mechanik and Lill should not have been set aside. I write separately because I believe that the analysis adopted by the Court for determining the effect of a violation of the rules governing the conduct of grand juries effectively renders those rules a dead letter, thereby seriously undermining the grand jury’s traditional function of protecting the innocent from unwarranted public accusation.

The grand jury has two principal functions. First, it bears the weighty responsibility of investigating crime and determining whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 414 U. S. 343 (1974). The second, and no less important, task of the grand jury is to

serv[e] the invaluable function in our society of standing between the accuser and the accused, whether the latter be an individual, minority group, or other, to determine whether a charge is founded upon reason or dictated by an intimidating power or by malice and personal ill will.

Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375, 370 U. S. 390 (1962). To further the grand jury’s investigative function, the grand jury traditionally has been given “wide latitude” in its inquiries. Calandra, supra, at 414 U. S. 343. See also United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1, 410 U. S. 17 -18 (1973).

Concurrence, Due Process

United States v. Locke

Concurrence, Due Process / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.

I agree that the District Court erred in holding that § 314(c) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. § 1744(c), violates due process by creating an “irrebuttable presumption” of abandonment. Whatever the force of Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441 (1973), beyond the facts underlying that case, I believe that § 314(c) comports with due process under the analysis of our later decision in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749 (1975). Because I also believe that the statute does not otherwise violate the Fifth Amendment, and that the District Court erred in its alternative holding that substantial compliance satisfies the filing requirements of § 314 and corresponding regulations, I agree that the judgment below must be reversed. Nonetheless, I share many of the concerns expressed in the dissenting opinions of JUSTICE POWELL and JUSTICE STEVENS. If the facts are as alleged by appellees, allowing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to extinguish active mining claims that appellees have owned and worked for more than 20 years would seem both unfair and inconsistent with the purposes underlying FLPMA.

The Government has not disputed that appellees sought in good faith to comply with the statutory deadline. Appellees contend that, in order to meet the requirements of § 314, they contacted the BLM and were informed by agency personnel that they could file the required materials on December 31, 1980. Appellees apparently relied

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, Criminal Procedure, Majority, William Rehnquist

United States v. Kozminski

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, Criminal Procedure, Majority, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the scope of two criminal statutes enacted by Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment. Title 18 U.S.C. § 241 prohibits conspiracy to interfere with an individual’s Thirteenth Amendment right to be free from “involuntary servitude.” Title 18 U.S.C. § 1584 makes it a crime knowingly and willfully to hold another person “to involuntary servitude.” We must determine the meaning of “involuntary servitude” under these two statutes.

I

In 1983, two mentally retarded men were found laboring on a Chelsea, Michigan, dairy farm in poor health, in squalid conditions, and in relative isolation from the rest of society. The operators of the farm -Ike Kozminski, his wife Margarethe, and their son John -were charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 241 by conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” the two men in the free exercise and enjoyment of their federal right to be free from involuntary servitude. The Kozminskis were also charged with knowingly holding, or aiding and abetting in the holding of, the two men to involuntary servitude in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1584 and § 2. [ Footnote 1 ] The case was tried before a jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The Government’s evidence is summarized below.

The victims, Robert Fulmer and Louis Molitoris, have intelligence quotients of 67 and 60 respectively. Though chronologically in their 60’s during the period in question,

Antonin Scalia, Byron White, First Amendment, Majority, William Rehnquist

United States v. Kokinda

Antonin Scalia, Byron White, First Amendment, Majority, William Rehnquist / By

Justice O’CONNOR announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice WHITE, and Justice SCALIA join.

We are called upon in this case to determine whether a United States Postal Service regulation that prohibits “[s]oliciting alms and contributions” on postal premises violates the First Amendment. We hold the regulation valid as applied.

I

The respondents in this case, Marsha B. Kokinda and Kevin E. Pearl, were volunteers for the National Democratic Policy Committee, who set up a table on the sidewalk near the entrance of the Bowie, Maryland, post office to solicit contributions, sell books and subscriptions to the organization’s newspaper, and distribute literature addressing a variety of political issues. The postal sidewalk provides the sole means by which customers of the post office may travel from the parking lot to the post office building, and lies entirely on Postal Service property. The District Court for the District of Maryland described the layout of the post office as follows:

[T]he Bowie post office is a freestanding building, with its own sidewalk and parking lot. It is located on a major highway, Route 197. A sidewalk runs along the edge of the highway, separating the post office property from the street. To enter the post office, cars enter a driveway that traverses the public sidewalk and enter a parking lot that surrounds the post office building. Another sidewalk runs adjacent to the building itself, separating

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure, William Rehnquist

United States v. Karo

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE REHNQUIST joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join Parts I, II, and IV of the Court’s opinion, and agree with substantial portions of Part III as well.

I agree with the Court that the installation of a beeper in a container with the consent of the container s present owner implicates no Fourth Amendment concerns. The subsequent transfer of the container, with the unactivated beeper, to one who is unaware of the beeper’s presence is also unobjectionable. It is when the beeper is activated to track the movements of the container that privacy interests are implicated.

In my view, however, these privacy interests are unusually narrow -narrower than is suggested by the Court in 468 U. S. If the container is moved on the public highways, or in other places where the container’s owner has no reasonable expectation that its movements will not be tracked without his consent, activation of the beeper infringes on no reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276 (1983). In this situation, the location of the container defeats any expectation that its movements will not be tracked.

In addition, one who lacks ownership of the container itself or the power to move the container at will can have no reasonable expectation that the movements of the container will not be tracked by a beeper within the container, regardless of where the container is moved. In this situation, the absence of an appropriate

Byron White, Criminal Procedure, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Lewis Powell, Majority, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist

United States v. Johns

Byron White, Criminal Procedure, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Lewis Powell, Majority, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

In United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), the Court held that, if police officers have probable cause to search a lawfully stopped vehicle, they may conduct a warrantless search of any containers found inside that may conceal the object of the search. The issue in the present case is whether Ross authorizes a warrantless search of packages several days after they were removed from vehicles that police officers had probable cause to believe contained contraband. Although the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that under Ross the police officers could have searched the packages when they were first discovered in the vehicles, the court concluded that the delay after the initial seizure made the subsequent warrantless search unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 707 F.2d 1093 (1983). We granted certiorari, 467 U.S. 1250 (1984), and we now reverse.

I

Pursuant to an investigation of a suspected drug smuggling operation, a United States Customs officer went to respondent Duarte’s residence in Tucson, Ariz., where he saw two pickup trucks. The Customs officer observed the trucks drive away, and he contacted other officers who conducted ground and air surveillance of the trucks as they traveled 100 miles to a remote private airstrip near Bowie, Ariz., approximately 50 miles from the Mexican border. Soon after the trucks arrived, a small aircraft landed. Although the Customs officers on the

Due Process, Partial concurrence, partial dissent

United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property

Due Process, Partial concurrence, partial dissent / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Today the Court declares unconstitutional an act of the Executive Branch taken with the prior approval of a Federal Magistrate Judge in full compliance with the laws enacted by Congress. On the facts of this case, however, I am unable to conclude that the seizure of Good’s property did not afford him due process. I agree with the Court’s observation in an analogous case more than a century ago: “If the laws here in question involved any wrong or unnecessary harshness, it was for Congress, or the people who make congresses, to see that the evil was corrected. The remedy does not lie with the judicial branch of the government.” Springer v. United States, 102 U. S. 586, 594 (1881).

I

With respect to whether 19 U. S. C. §§ 1602-1604 impose a timeliness requirement over and above the statute of limitations, I agree with the dissenting judge below that the Ninth Circuit improperly “converted a set of housekeeping rules for the government into statutory protection for the property of malefactors.” 971 F.2d 1376, 1384 (1992). I therefore join Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion.

I cannot agree, however, that under the circumstances of this case-where the property owner was previously convicted of a drug offense involving the property, the Government obtained a warrant before seizing it, and the residents were not dispossessed-there was a due process violation simply because Good did not receive pre seizure notice and

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, William Rehnquist

United States v. Gonzales

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. We are asked to decide whether a federal court may direct that a prison sentence under 18 U. S. C. § 924(c) run concurrently with a state-imposed sentence, even though § 924(c)

* Leah J. Prewitt, Jeffrey J. Pokorak, Placido G. Gomez, and Barbara Bergman filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae urging affirmance. provides that a sentence imposed under that statute “shall [not]… run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment.” We hold that it may not.

I

Respondents were arrested in a drug sting operation during which two of them pulled guns on undercover police officers. All three were convicted in New Mexico courts on charges arising from the holdup. The state courts sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 13 to 17 years. After they began to serve their state sentences, respondents were convicted in federal court of committing various drug offenses connected to the sting operation, and conspiring to do so, in violation of 21 U. s. C. §§ 841 and 846. They were also convicted of using firearms during and in relation to those drug trafficking crimes, in violation of 18 U. s. C. § 924(c). Respondents received sentences ranging from 120 to 147 months in prison, of which 60 months reflected the mandatory sentence required for their firearms convictions. Pursuant to § 924(c), the District Court ordered that the portion of respondents’ federal sentences attributable to the