Vallejos v Commissioner of Registration
The hearing on Vallejos' case began on 22 August 2011, and stretched out until the 24th. David Pannick represented the respondent, the Commissioner of Registration. During the hearing, the courtroom was packed to overflowing with lawyers, journalists, and other members of the public, who took up not just the seats in the public gallery, but also those for defendants and jury members (the latter being unoccupied as the case at hand was not a jury trial but a judicial review). Another hundred people watched the proceedings on a large-screen television in the lobby, while protestors both supporting and opposing Vallejos' case faced off outside the building without incident.
San Miguel del Vado Land Grant
The case was heard by the Supreme Court during its October term in 1896, under Chief Justice Fuller with associate justices Field, Harlan, Gray, Brewer, Brown, Shiras, White, and Peckham. The petition was filed in the Court of Private Land Claims by Julian Sandoval and others from eight villages (La Cuesta, San Miguel, Las Mulas, El Pueblo, Puerticita, San José, El Gusano, and Bernal) within the 315,000 acres bounded within the grant requested for confirmation. The land was alleged to have been granted by Governor Fernando Chacón on November 25, 1794 to Lorenzo Marguez in the name of fifty-one men accompanying him. Copies of the governor's decree on that date, and of reports by the officiating alcalde Oritiz dated November 26, 1794 and by the more recent alcalde Pino, in 1893. Also submitted were a report made to Congress on November 13, 1879, and a survey made of the tract, July 26, 1880, with a statement that no action has been taken by Congress either to confirmation of rejection of the grant.