The following opinions were released by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 16, 2008:

• Dada v. Mukasey. Opinion for the Court by Kennedy, J., joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, JJ.; dissenting opinion by Scalia, J., joined by Roberts, C.J., Thomas, J.; dissenting opinion by Alito, J.. The petitioner was a citizen of Nigeria who overstayed a temporary nonimmigrant visa in 1998; in 1999, he claims, he married a U.S. citizen, who filed an I-130 petition for Alien Relative on his behalf. In 2003, the I-130 petition was denied on the basis of inadequate documentation. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security charged the petitioner with overstaying his visa and commenced removal proceedings; the petitioner’s wife filed a second I-130 petition. The IJ denied the petitioner’s request for a continuance of his removal proceedings pending resolution of the second I-130 petition, found the petitioner to be removable, but granted petitioner’s request for voluntary removal, ordering the petitioner to leave the country within thirty days. Two days prior to the expiration of the thirty-day period, the petitioner moved to withdraw his request for voluntary departure and filed a motion with the BIA to reopen his removal proceedings. Two months later, the BIA denied the motion to reopen the removal proceedings on the basis that the petitioner had overstayed his voluntary removal period; the BIA did not rule on his motion to withdraw his request for voluntary removal. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision of the BIA. (After oral argument to the Supreme Court, the petitioner’s second I-130 petition was denied on the basis that the marriage was found to be a sham.) The Supreme Court found that, “[r]eading the Act as a whole, and considering the statutory scheme governing voluntary departure alongside the statutory right granted to the alien by 8 U. S. C. §1229a(c)(7)(A) to pursue ‘one motion to reopen proceedings,’ the Government’s position that the alien is not entitled to pursue a motion to reopen if the alien agrees to voluntarily depart is unsustainable.” Slip op. at 13. The Court recognized that, for an alien who has elected voluntary departure but who subsequently newly discovers evidence that may be cognizable in a motion to reopen, the choice is “between Scylla and Charybdis”: whether to forego urging the grounds for reopening, or to pursue those grounds while allowing the voluntary departure time to expire, thus subjecting him to loss of status adjustment rights, the very rights he seeks to enforce. Slip op. at 15. The Court, therefore, found it necessary to read the statute so as to preserve the alien’s right to seek reopening while maintaining the government’s interest in the quid pro quo of the voluntary removal regime. Accordingly, the Court held that the alien must be allowed to unilaterally withdraw the request for voluntary departure prior to the expiration of the voluntary departure period in order to move for reopening of removal proceedings. Dissenting, Justice Scalia found that the choice faced by petitioner did not present an untenable situation that created the necessity perceived by the majority for formulation of a unilateral withdrawal remedy: “Litigants are put to similar voluntary choices between the rock and the whirlpool all the time, without cries for a judicial rewrite of the law.” Scalia dissent slip op. at 3. Justice Alito based his dissent on the fact that neither the BIA nor the Fifth Circuit ruled on the petitioner’s motion to withdraw his request for voluntary removal, and that he would remand to the BIA to make a determination on that motion.
• Florida Department of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc.. Opinion of the Court by Thomas, J., joined by Roberts, C.J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Alito, JJ.; dissenting opinion by Breyer, J., joined by Stevens, J.. Reversing the Eleventh Circuit on the issue of whether bankruptcy code § 1146(a)’s stamp tax exemption applies to transfers made before a plan is confirmed under Chapter 11. The Court found that “the more natural reading of §1146(a) is that the exemption applies only to postconfirmation transfers,” slip op. at 7, but held that, even if the provision were facially ambiguous, the ambiguity must be resolved in favor of the taxing authority. The Court held “that the federalism canon articulated in Sierra Summit and elsewhere obliges us to construe §1146(a)’s exemption narrowly.” Slip op. at 16. Justice Breyer dissented on the basis that the bankruptcy code does not instill meaning in the timing of when the bankruptcy judge confirms the plan vis a vis the stamp tax exemption.