Earlier this week, we took a look at the Monsanto case, which had major implications for patent law and our nation’s farming industry. We also hinted at the outcome of the Court’s two other unanimous decisions for this week, one dealing with bankruptcy and defalcation, and the other dealing with a shady tow truck lot and the limits of federal law preemption.

Defalcation Defined

It is undisputed that Randy Bullock was not acting in bad faith when he violated his fiduciary duty as trustee to family life insurance trust. On three occasions, he borrowed funds from the trust, and each time, he paid the trust back — with interest. Nonetheless, his brothers sued and won a judgment against him. He sought to discharge that debt in bankruptcy. The code, however, prevents discharge of debts resulting from defalcation.

Our nation's greatest court, with nary a hint of dispute, dissention, or differing reason, released three unanimous opinions today. And while some (the tow yard) will likely have little-to-no impact in the real world, another (Monsanto's soybean patent case) may have a far greater impact, especially in the areas of genetically modified crops, vaccines, and any other self-replicating products.

Monsanto Roundup-Ready Soybeans

In many ways, Monsanto giveth, and Monsanto taketh away. They invented an herbicide that kills pests -- and plants. They also invented a plant that resists that herbicide -- the Roundup-Ready soybean. And while they'll give you the genetically altered soybeans to plant (for a fee, of course), they take away the right to replant those beans in subsequent years through patent enforcement and licensing agreements.

There’s something uniquely appealing about statistics. Maybe it’s because analyzing numbers and making correlation and causation arguments is conceptually similar to analyzing legal issues (gather evidence, make predictions with set levels of certainty, such as by a preponderance). Lawyers are analytical. Statistics are a useful tool to satisfy that tendency.

And while baseball has sabermetrics to help predict the performance of players and teams, the Supreme Court has Kedar Bhatia’s SCOTUSblog stat pack — which breaks down everything from the pace of judicial opinions released to the amount of times the Ninth Circuit has been reversed this term.

It’s a law geeks paradise, and from that data, one might be able to make some predictions:

Comcast. Dukes. Concepcion. Heck, Citizens United. The big-name pro-business rulings have come aplenty in this present incarnation of the Supreme Court. Is this a case of big names triggering the availability heuristic -- the principle that noteworthy events figure more prominently in our minds? (Planes are safer than automobiles, even though a plane crash makes the news.)

Or, do the stats back popular perceptions?

We Missourians live by one credo: show me, don't tell me. A study published by the Minnesota Law Review, and conducted by Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, and the grand Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit did exactly that, and found that the numbers match the rumors.

Habeas corpus. It seemed so important in law school — those halcyon days when you thought you would spend your career fighting for civil liberties — but years of bankruptcy/M&A/insurance defense/family law hearings make habeas irrelevant to most lawyers. For many of us, habeas corpus remains a lofty principle rather than a part of practice.

(Because the U.S. government doesn’t just lock an American up for months without due process, right?)

After 9/11, lawyers and policy makers began debating whether the standard rights of the accused, including habeas, should apply to suspected terrorists. An increasingly vocal segment of the population championed the idea that national security trumped civil liberties. Anthony Gregory, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, was troubled by post 9/11 detention policy — particularly the 2006 Military Commissions Act and activity at Guantanamo — so he set out to write a policy paper on habeas corpus.

The Supreme Court isn't in a hurry to fill its docket for the 2013 Term. So far, the Court has only granted cert in 19 merit-based cases.

While there are already some stand outs in the next term -- like Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action --some of the recent rejects have drawn as much attention as the cases that have been granted.

This week alone, the Court denied certiorari in three cases that would have made for interesting arguments.

The Supreme Court disposed of two more matters on its to-do list this morning, but it only issued one opinion.

Today, we have a unanimous opinion in McBurney v. Young and a DIG in Boyer v. Louisiana.

Let’s discuss what happened.

As spring actually starts to feel like spring, we're experiencing the same of end-of-school emotions that consume most high school kids this time of year: excitement and relief.

Exam season for SCOTUS litigators concluded on Wednesday as the Court heard its final pair of arguments for the 2012 Term: Metrish v. Lancaster and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar. Now the wait for grades and graduation the remaining opinions of the term begins.

If you spent Monday perusing the latest Supreme Court orders, then you may have noticed that the government is contesting Beer. (Ugh, Mondays.) For those of you following along with the federal judges’ cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) battle, U.S. v. Beer should ring a bell. That’s the case challenging a government decision to withhold COLAs guaranteed under the Ethics Reform Act of 1989.

The Act amended compensation and ethics rules for all three branches of the government. For judges, it limited the outside income they could earn and the honoraria they could accept, but provided for automatic COLAs — like other federal employees receive — to ensure that judges’ salaries would keep up with inflation.

Adrian Moncrieffe, a Jamaican citizen, came to the U.S. legally in 1984, when he was three. During a 2007 traffic stop, police found 1.3 grams of marijuana in his car. That’s about two or three joints. Moncrieffe pleaded guilty in Georgia to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Under a state statute providing more lenient treatment to first-time offenders, the trial court withheld entering a judgment of conviction or imposing any term of imprisonment, and instead required that Moncrieffe complete five years of probation, after which his charge will be expunged altogether.

The federal government, however, was not so generous, and tried to have Moncrieffe deported.