Two lower federal courts dismissed the plaintiff's lawsuit for retaliatory termination, accepting the federal government's argument that the case could not proceed without revealing state secrets. Under the so-called state secrets privilege, recognized by the Supreme Court 50 years ago, a lawsuit must be dismissed when there is no alternative to protect national security.
In her appeal, the translator, Sibel Edmonds, who was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the lower courts misapplied the privilege in dismissing her lawsuit before discovery and without making a sufficient effort to consider evidence that was not privileged.
Ms. Edmonds also challenged the exclusion of the public and the press from the courtroom in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard her appeal in April.
The appeals court ordered the courtroom closed even though the government informed the judges the previous week that it was "prepared to argue this case publicly, in an open courtroom." A transcript of the argument was released later.
Ms. Edmonds, who was hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, translated material in Turkish, Persian and Azerbaijani. After a few months on the job, she complained repeatedly that important terrorism-related intelligence was being inadequately translated and raised accusations of espionage against a fellow linguist.
Earlier this year, a report by the Justice Department's inspector general found that evidence supported many of Ms. Edmonds's accusations, that the bureau failed to take them seriously enough and that her accusations were "the most significant factor in the F.B.I.'s decision to terminate her services" in 2002. The report reached no conclusion on whether espionage had taken place.
Ms. Edmonds's Supreme Court appeal, Edmonds v. Department of Justice, No. 05-190, was supported by "friend of the court" briefs from several news media organizations, including The New York Times.
These were among the day's other developments as the justices returned from a two-week recess.
Sex Offender Restriction
The court refused to hear a challenge to an Iowa law that prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools or child-care centers, including homes that provide day care.
The plaintiffs, three anonymous offenders who filed their case as a class action, said the law had the effect of excluding them from all but industrial areas of cities and rural areas without schools. The Iowa Sex Offender Residency Restriction imposed "a modern form of banishment," they said.
The Federal District Court in Des Moines ruled last year that the law violated several constitutional guarantees, including the due process right of individuals to live with their families. That decision was overturned in April by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis. Five of the 11 members of the full Eighth Circuit, one short of the necessary majority, then voted to reconsider the case.
According to Iowa's brief opposing the appeal, John Doe v. Miller, No. 05-428, 17 states have similar laws. Thomas J. Miller, Iowa's attorney general, said that "while reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of the law, its constitutionality is not seriously in doubt."
Supervised Release
The justices also rejected an appeal of a sentence that a federal district judge in San Francisco issued to a man convicted of stealing from mailboxes. The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, ordered the man, Shawn Gementera, to stand in front of a Post Office building wearing a sandwich board with the inscription "I stole mail. This is my punishment."
The sentence, which Judge Walker said had "humiliation" as its purpose, followed a two-month jail sentence. Mr. Gementera was to stand for 100 hours, but Judge Walker reduced the sentence to 8 hours.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, upheld the sentence in a 2-to-1 decision, rejecting Mr. Gementera's argument that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The sentence was a permissible condition of "supervised release" under federal sentencing law, the appeals court majority held.
The Justice Department, in its brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the case, Gementera v. United States, No. 05-227, said the sentence was "well within" the district court's discretion.
State vs. State The justices authorized New Jersey to bring a case against Delaware directly in the Supreme Court, in an exercise of the court's "original jurisdiction" to hear suits by one state against another.
The case is not a typical border dispute, but rather an effort by New Jersey to win approval for a liquefied natural gas processing terminal that a private company, BP, wants to construct on the state's Delaware River shoreline. Part of the unloading and transfer system for the project, known as Crown Landing, would extend into Delaware's coastal zone, and the state has refused to permit it.
New Jersey argues that the entire project falls within its jurisdiction rather than Delaware's. It urged the justices to reopen an old boundary dispute between the two states that the court settled in 1935.
Instead, the justices authorized New Jersey to file an entirely new case under the title of New Jersey v. Delaware, No. 134 Original, and gave Delaware 30 days to respond. The court usually appoints a special master to take evidence and make recommendations in original cases.