dicis causa

In November 1999, fourteen-year-old Kuntrell Jackson and two other boys decided to rob a video store in Arkansas. En route, Jackson learned that one of the boys carried a sawed-off shotgun. Jackson initially stayed outside the store but later entered while the robbery was underway. When the clerk, Laurie Troup, refused to hand over money and threatened to call the police, one of Jackson's co-defendants shot and killed her. The three boys fled without taking any money. Arkansas prosecutors exercised their discretion to charge Jackson as an adult with capital felony murder and aggravated robbery. A jury convicted him of both offenses. The trial court imposed the statutorily mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Jackson did not challenge the sentence on direct appeal, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. In 2003, fourteen-year-old Evan Miller and a friend, Colby Smith, spent an evening drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with Miller's neighbor, Cole Cannon, at Cannon's trailer in Alabama. After Cannon passed out, Miller stole his wallet. Cannon awoke and grabbed Miller by the throat. Smith struck Cannon with a baseball bat, and Miller then repeatedly hit Cannon with the bat. The boys set two fires in the trailer before leaving. Cannon died from his injuries and smoke inhalation. Miller had previously been in and out of foster care, regularly used drugs and alcohol, and had attempted suicide four times. Alabama law initially required that Miller be charged as a juvenile, but the district attorney sought and obtained removal of the case to adult court. A jury convicted Miller of murder in the course of arson. The trial court imposed the statutorily mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence. Following this Court's decisions in Roper v. Simmons and Graham v. Florida, Jackson filed a state habeas petition arguing that his mandatory life-without-parole sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. The circuit court dismissed the petition, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. Miller's direct appeal was likewise unsuccessful. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases.

In August 1972, the Janaf Branch of the United Virginia Bank/Seaboard National in Norfolk, Virginia, was robbed. Witnesses saw two men wearing masks and carrying guns enter the bank while a third man waited in the car. About an hour after the robbery, the getaway car was discovered. Inside was found a rent receipt signed by one "Allen R. Norris" and a lease, also signed by Norris, for a house in Norfolk. Two men subsequently convicted of participating in the robbery were arrested at the rented house with the proceeds of the robbery and the guns and masks used by the gunmen. Government agents traced the rent receipt to respondent Billy Gale Henry. On the basis of this information, Henry was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 1972. Two weeks later he was indicted for armed robbery under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) and (d). He was held pending trial in the Norfolk city jail. Counsel was appointed on November 27, 1972. On November 21, 1972, shortly after Henry was incarcerated, government agents contacted Nichols, an inmate at the Norfolk city jail who had been engaged to provide confidential information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a paid informant. Nichols informed the agent that he was housed in the same cellblock with Henry. The agent told Nichols to be alert to any statements made by the federal prisoners but not to initiate any conversation with or question Henry regarding the bank robbery. In early December, after Nichols had been released from jail, the agent again contacted Nichols, who reported that he and Henry had engaged in conversation and that Henry had told him about the robbery of the Janaf bank. Nichols was paid for furnishing the information. When Henry was tried in March 1973, Nichols testified that he had an opportunity to have some conversations with Mr. Henry while he was in the jail. Henry told him about going to the Janaf Branch to see which employees opened the vault and described the details of the robbery. The jury was not informed that Nichols was a paid Government informant. On the basis of this testimony, Henry was convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 25 years. His conviction was affirmed on appeal, and his petition to this Court for a writ of certiorari was denied. On August 28, 1975, Henry moved to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He alleged that he had just learned that Nichols was a paid Government informant and that the introduction of Nichols' testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. The District Court denied the motion without a hearing. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for an evidentiary inquiry. On remand, the District Court again denied the motion after reviewing affidavits from the government agents. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the actions of the Government impaired Henry's Sixth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether respondent's Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel was violated by the admission at trial of incriminating statements made by respondent to his cellmate, an undisclosed Government informant, after indictment and while in custody.

Vashti McCollum, a resident, taxpayer, and parent of a child enrolled in the Champaign public schools, commenced this mandamus action in the Circuit Court of Champaign County, Illinois, against the local Board of Education. Illinois law at the time imposed compulsory education on children aged seven to sixteen, requiring attendance at tax-supported public schools during regular hours unless the child attended a qualifying private or parochial school; violation was a misdemeanor. In 1940, members of Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant faiths formed the voluntary Champaign Council on Religious Education. The Council obtained Board permission to offer weekly religious instruction to pupils in grades four through nine. Parents signed printed request cards distributed through school channels; participating pupils were released from secular classes for thirty minutes in lower grades and forty-five minutes in higher grades. The Council employed and paid the instructors—Protestant teachers, Catholic priests, and a Jewish rabbi—subject to the superintendent's approval and supervision, at no cost to the school district. Classes convened in regular public-school classrooms. Pupils not electing religious instruction left their rooms for other secular work elsewhere in the building, while those released for religious classes were required to attend and had their presence or absence reported to their regular teachers on standard school forms. No Jewish classes operated in later years. The program operated continuously from 1940 onward. McCollum's petition alleged that the arrangement violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments and sought an order barring all religious teaching in district school buildings during school hours. The Board answered that the program was voluntary and constitutional. After denial of a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, evidence was taken and findings entered. The trial court denied mandamus; the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed. McCollum appealed under 28 U.S.C. § 344(a), and the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. Undisputed record facts established that tax-supported property was used for sectarian instruction, that school authorities cooperated closely with the Council in scheduling and enrollment, and that the state's compulsory-attendance machinery supplied pupils to the religious classes while releasing them from their legal duty to attend secular instruction.

Between June 3, 1999, and December 7, 2001, Halliburton Company and one of its executives made a series of public statements about the company's potential liability in asbestos litigation, its expected revenue from construction contracts, and the anticipated benefits of a merger with another company. Respondent Erica P. John Fund, Inc., serving as lead plaintiff, alleged that these statements were materially false and misleading and were made to inflate the price of Halliburton's common stock. Halliburton later issued corrective disclosures that EPJ Fund contends caused the stock price to drop and produced losses for investors who had purchased shares during the class period. EPJ Fund moved in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas to certify a class of all investors who purchased Halliburton common stock during the class period. The district court determined that the proposed class satisfied the four threshold requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a). It nevertheless denied certification under Rule 23(b)(3) because Fifth Circuit precedent at the time required securities fraud plaintiffs to prove loss causation at the class certification stage to rely on the presumption from Basic Inc. v. Levinson. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of class certification on the same ground. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment of the Fifth Circuit in Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U.S. 804 (2011), and remanded the case. On remand, Halliburton presented evidence that none of its alleged misrepresentations had actually affected the company's stock price and argued that this evidence rebutted the Basic presumption, so that individual issues of reliance would predominate. The district court declined to consider the price impact evidence at the certification stage and certified the class under Rule 23(b)(3). The Fifth Circuit affirmed the certification order. It acknowledged that Halliburton's price impact evidence could be used at trial on the merits but held that such evidence could not be considered at the class certification stage to rebut the presumption of reliance. The Supreme Court granted certiorari a second time to address whether Basic's presumption should be overruled or modified and whether defendants may present evidence of no price impact before class certification.