Mesa et al. v. California (489 U.S. 121)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 21, 1989 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 489 U.S. 121 · 109 S. Ct. 959
- Decided
- February 21, 1989
- Term
- October Term 1988
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. We decide today whether United States Postal Service employees may, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1442(a)(1), remove to Federal District Court state criminal prosecutions brought against them for traffic violations committed while on duty. I In the summer of 1985 petitioners Kathryn Mesa and Shabbir Ebrahim were employed as mailtruck drivers by the United States Postal Service in Santa Clara County, California. In unrelated incidents, the State of California issued criminal complaints against petitioners, charging Mesa with misdemeanor-manslaughter and driving outside a laned roadway after her mailtruck collided with and killed a bicyclist, and charging Ebrahim with speeding and failure to yield after his mailtruck collided with a police car. Mesa and Ebrahim were arraigned in the San Jose Municipal Court of Santa Clara County on September 16 and October 2, 1985, respectively. The Municipal Court set a pretrial conference in Mesa’s case for November 4, 1985, and set trial for Ebrahim on November 7, 1985. On September 24 and October 4, 1985, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California filed petitions in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for removal to that court of the criminal complaints brought against Ebrahim and Mesa. The petitions alleged that the complaints…
Excerpt of a 36,438-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.