[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] granted certiorari [order list, PDF] Monday in three cases. In Bloate v. United States [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the Court will consider whether time granted to prepare pretrial motions is excludable under 18 USC § 3161(h)(1) [text], which lists exceptions to the requirement that a criminal defendant be tried within 70 days of indictment or his first appearance in court. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld [opinion, PDF] Bloate's conviction, ruling that time granted to file pretrial motions is not excludable. Other circuits are split on the issue.

In United States v. Stevens [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the Court will consider whether 18 USC § 48 [text], which bans depictions of animal cruelty, violates the First Amendment. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that the law illegally restricts speech.

In Pottawattamie County v. McGhee [docket; cert. petition, PDF] the Court will consider:

Whether a prosecutor may be subjected to a civil trial and potential damages for a wrongful conviction and incarceration where the prosecutor allegedly (1) violated a criminal defendant’s "substantive due process" rights by procuring false testimony during the criminal investigation, and then (2) introduced that same testimony against the criminal defendant at trial.