Supreme Court rules in bankruptcy tax exemption, immigration cases

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Supreme Court rules in bankruptcy tax exemption, immigration cases

June 16, 2008 10:03:00 am

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] handed down two decisions Monday, including Florida Dept. of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias [Duke Law backgrounder; JURIST report], in which the Court ruled that a federal bankruptcy code provision [11 USC §1146(a) text] exempting certain court-confirmed transfers from state and local transfer taxes applies only after the plan has been approved by a bankruptcy court. The Court found:

The most natural reading of §1146(a)'s text, the provision's
placement within the Code, and applicable substantive canons all lead to the same conclusion: Section 1146(a) affords a stamp-tax exemption only to transfers made pursuant to a Chapter 11 plan that has been confirmed. Because Piccadilly transferred its assets before its Chapter 11 plan was confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court, it may not rely on §1146(a) to avoid Florida’s stamp taxes.

The ruling overturns an April 2007 Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision [opinion, PDF] and also helps resolve a split among the Eleventh, Third, and Fourth Circuits' interpretations. Read the Court's opinion per Justice Thomas, and a dissent [texts] filed by Justice Breyer and joined by Justice Stevens. AP has more.

The Court also ruled in Dada v. Mukasey [Duke Law backgrounder], in which it found that an illegal alien who had agreed to leave the US could withdraw from that agreement to make a case against deportation. Dada, a Nigerian living illegally in the US, had agreed to leave the country willingly, but later sought to stay in the US and reopen his case. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied [ruling, PDF] Dada's petition, finding that the Board of Immigration Appeals [official backgrounder] had reasonably denied his request. The Court reversed and remanded that decision, holding:

[T]o safeguard the right to pursue a motion to reopen for voluntary departure recipients, the alien must be permitted to withdraw, unilaterally, a voluntary departure request before expiration of the departure period, without regard to the underlying merits of the motion to reopen. As a result, the alien has the option either to abide by the terms, and receive the agreed-upon benefits, of voluntary departure; or, alternatively, to forgo those benefits and remain in the United States to pursue an administrative motion.

Read the Court's opinion per Justice Kennedy, and a dissent [texts] by Justice Scalia joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas. Read a separate dissent [text] filed by Justice Alito. AP has more.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.