BANKRUPTCY--EXECUTORY CONTRACTS. A real property lease, which provided for an exchange of monthly rent payments and use of the property, and an addendum to the lease, which provided for reimbursement of improvement expenses upon sale or disposal of the property, constituted a single, executory agreement that terminated upon rejection of the lease. B709a

CIVIL RIGHTS--SPEECH. Section 1983 does not provide a private right of action for an employer's violation of the whistleblower provision of the Clean Water Act. C1789a

BANKRUPTCY--CLAIMS--RES JUDICATA. A creditor was bound by an order confirming a Chapter 13 plan which provided that certain property would be surrendered to the creditor in full satisfaction of the creditor's claim, despite fact the that the confirmation hearing was held prior to expiration of the period for filing claims, where the creditor received proper notice of the proposed plan and the claim was appropriately addressed as a contested matter in the confirmation process. B696a

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. 18 U.S.C. section 1028(a)(1), which forbids "[a]ggravated identity theft" and imposes a two-year mandatory consecutive prison term upon individuals convicted of certain crimes if, during or in relation to the commission of those other crimes, the offender "knowingly transfers, processes, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person" requires the government to show that the defendant knew that the "means of identification" he or she unlawfully transferred, possessed, or used, in fact belonged to "another person." S831a

APPEALS--FEDERAL. The federal court of appeal had jurisdiction to review a district court's order remanding a case to the state court after declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims under 28 U.S.C. section 1367(c). Such order an order is not a remand for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction for which appellate review is barred by sections 1447(c) and (d). S837a

ARBITRATION--FEDERAL ARBITRATION ACT--STAY PENDING ARBITRATION. The Court held that appellate courts have jurisdiction to review denials of stays requested pursuant to 9 U.S.C. section 3 by litigants who were not parties to the relevant arbitration agreement; and a litigant who was not a party to relevant arbitration agreement may invoke section 3 if relevant state contract law allows him to enforce the agreement. S834a

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. The FCC's new policy that expletive use of certain words can be actionably indecent, even when the word is used only once, and its order finding that live television broadcasts which contained isolated utterances of these words actionably indecent were neither arbitrary nor capricious. S808a

CRIMINAL LAW--SEARCH AND SEIZURE--COMPUTER HARD DRIVE. Delay of twenty-one days in obtaining a warrant for the search of a defendant's computer hard drive after the hard drive had been lawfully seized from the defendant's residence was unreasonable. C1763a

ALIENS--REMOVAL--STAY PENDING JUDICIAL REVIEW. Traditional stay factors, rather than the more restrictive standard set forth in 8 U.S.C. section 1252(f)(2), govern a court of appeals' authority to stay an alien's removal pending judicial review. S788a

CRIMINAL LAW--SENTENCING--REDUCTION OF SENTENCE--COUNSEL--APPOINTED. There is no statutory or constitutional right to counsel for a Section 3582(c)(2) motion or hearing to reduce sentence. C1724a

ALIENS--ASYLUM--SUCCESSIVE APPLICATION. An alien who has been ordered removed cannot file a successive asylum application, "except as part of a timely and properly filed motion to reopen or one that claims that the late motion is excused because of changed country conditions." C1720a

BANKRUPTCY--CHAPTER 13--MEANS TEST--ALLOWABLE EXPENSES. Chapter 13 debtors who were above the median income of the state based upon the number of individuals in their household were entitled to take a standard expense deduction for vehicle ownership costs, even though their vehicle was unencumbered by a lien. B657a

BANKRUPTCY--CHAPTER 7--MEANS TEST--ALLOWABLE EXPENSES. Debtors may include a secured debt deduction in the means test calculation where debtors intend to surrender the collateral. B647a

ARBITRATION. Claims brought pursuant to the Credit Repair Organizations Act are subject to arbitration. (Issue of first impression.) C1701a

LABOR RELATIONS--ARBIRATION. A provision in a collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate claimsarising under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act is enforceable. S738a

CRIMINAL LAW--JURORS--PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES. If all seated jurors are qualified and unbiased, the Due Process Clause does not require automatic reversal of a defendant's conviction because a state trial court erroneously denied the defendant's peremptory challenge to the seating of a juror. S725a

ATTORNEY'S FEES--EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY ACT. A plaintiff who agreed to stay litigation brought pursuant to ERISA and participate in a voluntary claim reassessment process with the insurer was not entitled to recover attorney's fees for work done in that process. C1668a

ALIENS--WAIVER OF DEPORTATION. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act's repeal of the Immigration and Nationality Act's section 212(c) waiver provision does not have an impermissible retroactive effect on aliens who were convicted by a jury of deportable criminal offenses before the IIRIRA's effective date. First impression. C1670a

CRIMINAL LAW--INTERSTATE AGREEMENT ON DETAINERS--SPEEDY TRIAL. A violation of speedy trial clause of IAD can be harmless when the United States is the receiving state. C1654a

CRIMINAL LAW--FORFEITURE. The thirty-day period in which a third party asserting a legal interest in property subject to forfeiture must file a petition for an ancillary hearing can be triggered by a notice of preliminary order of forfeiture entered before sentencing. C1651a

ALIENS--TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS. District courts have subject matter jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedures Act to review an alien's claim that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unlawfully denied his request to renew his Temporary Protected Status. C1636a

FEDERAL JURISDICTION--REMOVAL OF STATE COURT ACTION TO FEDERAL COURT. The failure to allege facts sufficient to establish subject matter jurisdiction in a notice of removal is a defect in the removal procedure. A district court cannot sua sponte remand to state court on jurisdictional grounds when faced solely with procedural defect in the removal process. C1635a

CRIMINAL LAW--SPEEDY TRIAL. Delays caused by defense counsel are properly attributed to defendant, even where counsel is assigned, and "any inquiry into a speedy trial claim necessitates a functional analysis of the right in the particular context of the case." S702a

FEDERAL ARBITRATION ACT. A federal court may "look through" a petition to compel arbitration filed under section 4 of the FAA to determine whether it is predicated on a controversy that "arises under" federal law, but may not entertain a section 4 petition based on the contents of a counterclaim when the whole controversy between the parties does not qualify for federal-court adjudication. S693a

EXPERT WITNESS FEES. The U.S. Supreme Court held that "the expert witness attendance fees that are available in cases brought under our original jurisdiction shall be the same as the expert witness attendance fees that would be available in a district court under §1821(b)." S700a

ELECTIONS--VOTE DILUTION. Section 2 of Voting Rights Act cannot be invoked to require state officials to draw election-district lines to allow a racial minority to join with other voters to elect the minority's candidate of choice where the racial minority is less than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the district to be drawn. S705a

TORTS--PRODUCT LIABILITY--PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS--INADEQUATE WARNINGS. Federal law does not preempt a state-law claim that the manufacturer of the drug Phenergan failed to provide adequate warning of the risk of catastrophic consequences of injecting the drug into a patient's vein. S675a

ALIENS--ASYLUM--WITHHOLDING OF REMOVAL--"PERSECUTOR BAR." A determination that the "persecutor-bar" to seeking asylum or withholding of removal applied in circumstances in which an alien's assistance in persecution was coerced or otherwise the product of duress was based on a misapplication of Fedorenko v. United States, which addressed a different statute enacted for a different purpose. S659a