• CIVIL

US SUPREME COURT

GREENLAW v. UNITED STATES

Whether Appellate Court in the absence of government appeal, on its own initiative, order an increase in petitioner's sentence?

District court wrongly imposed a 10-year sentence on a charge that carried a 25-year mandatory minimum term. Appellate Court acknowledged that the Government, while it had objected to the trial court's error at sentencing, had elected not to seek alteration of petitioner's sentence on appeal. Nonetheless, relying on the "plain-error rule" stated in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), the Court of Appeals ordered the District Court to enlarge petitioner's sentence by 15 years.

Held: In the absence of a Government appeal or cross-appeal, the Appellate Court could not, on its own initiative, order an increase in petitioner's sentence. Even if it would be proper for an appeals court to initiate plain-error review in some cases, sentencing errors that the Government has refrained from pursuing would not fit the bill.

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA et al. v. BROWN, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA, et al.

Whether States can put restriction on employers receiving state grants in state program funds per year from using such funds "to assist, promote, or deter union organizing?

Organizations whose members do business with State of California filed suit to enjoin enforcement of "Assembly Bill 1889" (AB 1889), which prohibits employers that receive state grants or more than $10,000 in state program funds per year from using the funds "to assist, promote, or deter union organizing." Cal. Govt. Code Ann. §§16645.2(a), 16645.7(a). District Court granted the plaintiffs partial summary judgment, holding that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) pre-empts §§16645.2 and 16645.7 because they regulate employer speech about union organizing under circumstances in which Congress intended free debate. However, Appellate Court reversed.

Held: Sections 16645.2 and 16645.7 are pre-empted by the NLRA. The NLRA contains no express pre-emption provision, but pre-emption is necessary to implement federal labor policy where, inter alia, Congress intended particular conduct to "be unregulated to be controlled by the free play of economic forces.' " Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 427 U. S. 132, 140.

Congress' express protection of free debate forcefully buttresses the pre-emption analysis in this case. California's policy judgment that partisan employer speech necessarily interferes with an employee's choice about union representation is the same policy judgment that Congress renounced when it amended the NLRA to preclude regulation of noncoercive speech as an unfair labor practice.