2006 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States

Court membership

Chief Justice: John Roberts

Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito

Purcell v. Gonzalez

549 U.S. 1
Decided October 20, 2006.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded.

Stevens filed a concurring opinion.

Burton v. Stewart

549 U.S. 147
Decided January 9, 2007.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded.

Lance v. Coffman

549 U.S. 437
Decided March 5, 2007.
District Court for the District of Colorado vacated in part and remanded, affirmed in part.

Roper v. Weaver

550 U.S. 598
Decided May 21, 2007.
Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Dismissed.

The Court dismissed certiorari as improvidently granted, writing that it was "now aware of circumstances that persuade us that dismissal of the writ is the appropriate manner in which to dispose of this case." The Court had granted review to decide whether the Court of Appeals had correctly applied the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) in setting aside Weaver's capital sentence that he challenged by a petition of habeas corpus. Upon review, the Court discovered that Weaver only filed the current habeas petition after the enactment of AEDPA because the District Court had erroneously dismissed Weaver's first petition. As two other petitioners were "virtually identically situated" to Weaver yet not governed by AEDPA's stricter standards, the Court dismissed so a different legal standard would not apply to Weaver's case simply because the District Court had committed an error.

Roberts filed an opinion concurring in the dismissal, stating that he did not agree with all of the reasons given in the Court's per curiam opinion, but that he agreed with the disposition. Scalia filed a dissent, which Thomas and Alito joined.

Los Angeles County v. Rettele

550 U.S. 609
Decided May 21, 2007.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

The Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures was not violated when officers execute a valid warrant and act in a reasonable manner, even though the individual in the home they searched was engaging in private, non-criminal activity.

The District Court had granted summary judgment in favor of the County of Los Angeles. The Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that the deputies violated the Fourth Amendment and were not entitled to qualified immunity, because a reasonable deputy would have stopped the search upon discovering that the respondents were of a different race than the suspects and because a reasonable deputy would not have ordered respondents, who were unclothed, from their bed.

The Court reversed, stating that because the Fourth Amendment allows warrants to issue based on probable cause, "a standard well short of absolute certainty. Valid warrants will issue to search the innocent, and people like Rettele and Sadler unfortunately bear the cost. Officers executing search warrants on occasion enter a house when residents are engaged in private activity; and the resulting frustration, embarrassment, and humiliation may be real, as was true here. When officers execute a valid warrant and act in a reasonable manner to protect themselves from harm, however, the Fourth Amendment is not violated."

Justice Stevens filed a concurring opinion, which Justice Ginsburg joined. Justice Souter would have denied certiorari.

Erickson v. Pardus

551 U.S. 89
Decided June 4, 2007.
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded.

Scalia noted, without separate opinion, that he would deny certiorari. Thomas filed a dissent.