In last week’s post, we covered the cases that already have argument dates scheduled for October and November.  In this week’s post, we cover cases which the Supreme Court accepted this past Spring.   As of today, the Supreme Court has not yet released its December argument schedule.  Thus, we do not know which of these cases will be heard in December and which might be held over for January.

The Supreme Court tends to schedule cases in the order in which they were accepted for review.  However, all of the cases that might be scheduled for December or January were accepted for review in the last three weeks of the old term (June 17, June 24, and July 2).   So this post will go in order by the date on which review was granted.

From June 17, only one case remains to be set for argument.  (The other cases will be heard in November.)  Kousisis vs. United States is a criminal case, but it implicates two issues of political significance.  The first is that this case is a fraud case involving government benefits.  The harm to the government is that the false statements allowed defendants to get a government contract over a potential alternative bidder.  But there is no indication that the defendants failed to properly fulfill the core of the contract.  In recent years, the Supreme Court has been pushing back against broad reading of fraud statutes and have not been inclined to allow charges based on noneconomic harm.  The second is that the fraud related to minority participation in the contract.  The business in its bid claimed to meet the goals for minority participation but, on closer analysis, the proposed minority participation was a mere shell to create the illusion of minority participation.  Again, the Supreme Court has been pushing back on such affirmative action programs in recent years.  This case presents another opportunity to minimize the role of attempts to assure minority businesses have the chance to participate in federal contracts. Continue Reading...