Article Summary:

This is a case that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The court was displeased with the process of the prior judges that previously ruled in this case of, United States vs. Sineneng-Smith. The case is about an immigration consultant that made a few million from her, mostly Philippine immigrants. She did this by filing applications for lawful permanent residence when she knew they were not legally entitled to that status. The potential victims were the immigrants paying for something they would never get or if the government approved illegal applications.

Sineneng-Smith argued that her First Amendment under the Petition and Free Speech clause, had given her the right to file a phony application. After the case was appealed the appeal went to the Ninth Circuit to be heard and there, the judges made up their own argument that the federal statute against encourag[ing] or induc[ing] an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law is itself overbroad and should be thrown out in its entirety

Ultimately, the Conclusion of the Court, Reversed the part that criminalizes a great deal of protected expression as it relates to the statues limited, valid sweep. So, they held that it is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. The judgment of the district court REVERSED with reverence to the, encourage or induce parts, 2 and 3 of the First Superseding Indictment. Altogether, there were 5 counts for appeal and 3 were AFFIRMED, so because 2 counts were REVERSED the sentence must be removed and set for resentencing for the 3 AFFIRMED counts

I chose this at article, because it relates to what we were reading from our text this week. It is a case that went from original jurisdiction, (the power to hear/try and decide a case) and to appellate (power to hear and override the original court decision) to the US Supreme court (McLaughlin, 2020, p. 35).

This case pertains to the Federal Court System. The federal court system are the trial courts, the U.S. district courts and the trial court of original jurisdiction (Kubasek, 12/2017, p. 46)

Intermediate Appeals Court is the second level in the federal system of US courts of appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court is the final appellate court in the federal system and the last resort (Kubasek, 12/2017, p. 46)

How did this case get to the US Supreme Court? If it was a Federal court case, how did they get jurisdiction? Thru Diversity jurisdiction or something else that we studied?