February 20, 2008
Supreme Court Nixes Domestic Spying Suit
The Supreme Court yesterday rejected without comment a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. The decision is the latest setback to legal efforts to force disclosure of details of the warrantless wiretapping that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group and individuals over the wiretapping program. Previously, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored. The government has refused to turn over information about the program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.
AP has details on ACLU vs. NSA. And for more on yesterday's Supreme Court decisions, see CongressDailyPM (subscription).
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February 11, 2008
Another Way To Look At The D.C. Handguns Case
In March, lawyers for the District of Columbia will go before the Supreme Court to argue that the Second Amendment does not trump a municipality's interest in regulating the flow of deadly weapons. It will be the high court's first crack at the contentious "right to bear arms" amendment in more than seven decades.
As is often the case when big cities grapple with an epidemic of gun violence, the winds of sympathy are blowing in the District's favor. Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration is taking a visible lead in this case, seeking to defend the strictest handgun law in the country: a ban on most private gun ownership and requirements on how guns are stored in private homes.
The justices will be asked to interpret a confusing clause in the Second Amendment, which would thereby clarify whether the right to bear arms is collective -- the prevailing interpretation in American jurisprudence -- or individual. But in an amicus brief, a guns rights group is asking the court to take a very narrow look at D.C. v. Heller. At issue: the District's failure to police itself.
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January 15, 2008
SCOTUS Ruling Bad News For Enron Plaintiffs
The Supreme Court today drew a line around securities law, ruling that third-party defendants could not be sued for facilitating or failing to disclose fraud.
The 5-3 ruling in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta [PDF] was authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy. (Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself from this case.) This Supreme Court is not a fan of class-action lawsuits, and today's ruling reflected the justices' desire to cap those suits to a manageable minimum.
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January 09, 2008
Supremes Hear Arguments In Voter ID Case
UPDATED.
Just in time for the 2008 elections, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this morning on whether laws requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote are constitutional (transcript [PDF]).
The main topic at hand is election fraud. We previewed the case back in September when it was granted cert. Surprisingly, the justices seemed eager to steer the arguments away from the political touchiness of the voter ID issue.
The first questions asked of Paul Smith, arguing for petitioners, concerned whether his clients even had standing to sue the Marion County Election Board and Indiana secretary of state over one of the strictest voter ID laws in the land. Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts grilled Smith on this point, and for good reason: the plaintiffs included the Democratic Party of Indiana, which sued on the grounds that the government-issue photo ID required was unfairly prohibitive for elderly and poor voters, who may not own cars or driver's licenses.
The justices were essentially asking Smith to prove that the plaintiffs had actually been harmed by the law. A skeptical Roberts noted the lower-court judge's finding that "there is not a single plaintiff who intends not to vote because of the new law -- that is, who would vote were it not for the law."
"Well, Your Honor, the record in this case was made when an election had not yet happened," Smith replied. "So that comment, while it was certainly made, I don't quite understand its significance. This case was brought to try to prevent an irreparable loss of constitutional rights in advance of the implementation of this law."
Smith added that since the January 2007 Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling [PDF], elections had been held under the law and that a number of people who did not have photo IDs were not allowed to vote.
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January 03, 2008
Will Personnel Shuffle Harm D.C. Gun Ban Case?
The lawyer who took the lead role in preparing the District's appeal on its handgun ban was fired just one week before the brief he helped prepare is due to be filed to the Supreme Court.
The Washington Post reported on its Web site yesterday that city lawyer Alan Morrison had been fired for, he suggested to the paper, political reasons. The Supreme Court is set to hear the case as early as March, and its interpretation of whether the Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess handguns could have ripple effects in crime-ridden cities across the country.
In this morning's edition, at-large D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson complained to the Post that the mid-stream firing was "like committing hari-kari." Mendelson also said he had only heard positive things about Morrison's work.
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December 10, 2007
Garden State Close To Death Penalty Ban
New Jersey is poised to become the first state to abolish the death penalty in 40 years. The Democratic-majority Senate has just approved legislation repealing the death sentence, which the state Assembly is set to approve on Thursday. Gov. Jon Corzine (D) has indicated he will sign it into law within the month.
Today's vote may portend a wider, mostly blue-state trend (but increasingly red-state, too) of re-examining capital punishment. Progress in DNA technology [PDF] and recent revelations that some deeply held tenets of criminal forensics are seriously flawed are leading legislatures to embark on cost-benefit analyses of the death penalty. More state government leaders are coming around to the view that having capital punishment on the books as a law enforcement tool is not worth the risk of executing the wrongly convicted.
Closer to the Beltway, Maryland seems best positioned to follow New Jersey's example in the near future. Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has called on lawmakers to enact a repeal, and the state has had a de facto moratorium in effect since a state Supreme Court decision one year ago.
Executions are in a sort of holding pattern across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court in September agreed to take up the constitutionality of lethal injections on Eighth Amendment grounds. That case, as with most cases that come before the court these days, is expected to be a nail-biter, with Justice Anthony Kennedy making the final call.
-JANE ROH
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Judges Get More Flexibility On Crack Sentencing
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes were nonbinding, giving judges some breathing room on sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine. Writing for the majority [PDF], Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg drew on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recommendations that the 100-to-1 cocaine-crack possession ratio established by Congress be revised.
In 1986, Congress set much harsher penalties for crack cocaine offenders out of fear that use of the drug was fast becoming an epidemic in urban areas. The disparity in penalties can be seen in U.S. prisons, where blacks are disproportionately represented while powder cocaine offenders, who are mostly white, get off relatively easily.
Some activists have called the lopsided U.S. drug policy blatantly racist, but that was not really a calculation in today's decision. "A district judge must include the Guidelines range in the array of factors warranting consideration, but the judge may determine that, in the particular case, a within-Guidelines sentence is 'greater than necessary' to serve the objectives of sentencing," Ginsburg wrote. "In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the Guidelines' treatment of crack and powder offenses."
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December 05, 2007
SCOTUS & Gitmo, Round 3
The Supreme Court Web site has a transcript [PDF] of this morning's oral arguments; C-SPAN has audio (its Web site does not isolate audio links, sorry) (try this link).
On first blush, it looks like this decision comes down to Anthony Kennedy (must be Wednesday). See analysis from Lyle Denniston, Marty Lederman and Orin Kerr for more.
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November 20, 2007
SCOTUS To Review D.C. Gun Ban
The Supreme Court has agreed to interpret for the first time whether the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to possess handguns.
The amendment states only that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The court has never made the distinction between militias and individuals on gun ownership, nor has it delineated the authority of states and localities on the matter.
At issue is Washington, D.C.'s 31-year-old ban on handguns, one of the strictest gun-control laws in the nation. In March, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 that the District's law was unconstitutional. "I am personally deeply disappointed and frankly outraged by this decision," said Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) at the time. "It flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence in the District of Columbia."
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October 31, 2007
SCOTUS Stays Another Execution
The Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution for a convicted murderer in Mississippi last night, the third execution by lethal injection the justices blocked since they agreed to consider the constitutionality of such punishments. SCOTUSblog reports that the stay was issued about 15 minutes before Earl Wesley Berry, who kidnapped and murdered Mary Bounds in 1987, was scheduled to die.
The high court is reviewing Berry's petition to the appeal on the basis of the argument that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. If the petition is denied, the execution will go on as planned, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports. But if the justices agree to take it up, the stay will remain in place until a final ruling is made.
The New York Times this morning calls the stay "a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring." Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito were the two dissenters, and none of the justices gave reasons for their decisions.
The Washington Post has more on this story, and the Clarion-Ledger has reports on reactions from the victim's family and death penalty opponents.
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October 09, 2007
SCOTUS Won't Hear Rendition Case
The Supreme Court today refused to take up the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German national who is trying to sue the U.S. government for allegedly kidnapping and torturing him in an Afghanistan prison for months beginning in late 2003. In what the New York Times describes as the "most extensively documented case of the C.I.A.'s controversial practice of 'extraordinary rendition,'" el-Masri claims he was eventually released with no explanation for his detainment, although he suspects it was a case of mistaken identity.
The justices rejected the case without giving a reason, but the move is being interpreted as a de facto agreement with the Bush administration's contention that hearing the case could compromise national security.
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October 01, 2007
Happy SCOTUS Day: Gitmo, Death Penalty, Drug Sentencing & More
It's the first Monday in October, and that means the Nine return to work today to face a full docket that showcases some of the nation's most divisive and meaty subjects.
The justices are convening under more scrutiny than usual, due in part to the big guns they pulled out during the last session on abortion, school desegregation and campaign finance. And as the New York Times points out, the close decisions in those cases bring the "deep ideological divisions" among the justices, as well as the court's lean to the right led by new Chief Justice John Roberts, into sharp relief.
Get a rundown of some upcoming cases after the jump.
Continue reading "Happy SCOTUS Day: Gitmo, Death Penalty, Drug Sentencing & More"
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September 25, 2007
Voter ID Case To Be Decided Before Election '08
Among the cases granted cert [PDF] by the Supreme Court today is a highly anticipated appeal concerning one of the strictest voter ID laws in the land.
Petitioners in the consolidated case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, are appealing the decisions of two lower courts to uphold the 2005 law, which requires would-be voters to present government-issued photo identification. The court will be asked to decide, probably in oral arguments early next year, whether the law infringes on Indianans' right to vote.
This case will settle a patchwork of conflicting laws popping up in the states, a welcome relief as the very act of voting becomes ever more complicated in certain places. But voting rights advocates opposing ID requirements could well find themselves wishing the case hadn't been brought just yet.
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SCOTUS To Take Up Lethal Injections
The Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of executions performed by lethal injection, in a challenge stemming from two death row cases in Kentucky. Lawyers for convicted murderers Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling claim that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment prohibited in the Bill of Rights.
Baze's execution was originally scheduled for tonight. Earlier this month, however, the Kentucky Supreme Court stepped in and halted it for reasons unrelated to the constitutionality of lethal injections. Baze was convicted of murdering a sheriff and his deputy in 1992, and Bowling was convicted of shooting and killing a couple after a car crash in 1990.
Both men sued the state of Kentucky in 2004. Neither one is challenging his sentence before the court.
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September 19, 2007
Bring Us The Body... Of Case Law
A bloc of 42 Republicans -- and Joe Lieberman -- have rejected a vote on an amendment that would restore habeas corpus rights to terrorism suspects. (See reports on how the vote went down here, here and here.)
The Senate rejection leaves the question of constitutionality to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to weigh this matter in the coming term anyway. Several of the justices -- quite possibly a majority -- are disturbed that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 strips terror suspects of the right to appeal their detention.
This most fundamental of rights may only be suspended during invasion or insurrection, per the U.S. Constitution, no matter if the accused is a foreigner or a citizen. The further we get away from the 9/11 attacks -- the very reason for this shadowy system of justice -- the more uncomfortable the justices seem about the entire military detention process. Several have struggled with the squishy boundaries of what the "war on terror" even means. This may explain the court's unprecedented June reversal of its own decision not to hear the petitions of two prisoners challenging their detentions.
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August 10, 2007
NYT Supreme Court Correspondent Tangles With Media
The normally staid Supreme Court press corps is getting some catty coverage of late.
The latest example: New York Times SCOTUS correspondent Linda Greenhouse is at the center of a small media brouhaha yet again. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that "Hurricane Linda" threw a fit yesterday when she learned that the panel discussion she was to partake in was being televised by C-SPAN. Forced to choose between kicking out the cameras or proceeding with the panel without the venerated journalist, the event's organizers chose the former.
Witnesses said "Greenhouse walked in, took one look at the lights and the camera equipment, and, 'became infuriated,'" according to CJR's account.
Reporter Gal Beckerman speculates Greenhouse's fit may have something to do with lingering fallout following a speech in which she appeared to disclose her liberal political leanings.
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July 31, 2007
Chief Justice Roberts Released From Hospital
UPDATED.
Chief Justice John Roberts waved to reporters as he walked out of a Maine hospital shortly after 11 a.m. EDT. He had been kept overnight following a seizure yesterday that caused him to stumble on a dock.
Roberts received a full spectrum of neurological examinations at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the tests "revealed no cause for concern."
The chief justice did not stop to make a statement upon his release. He smiled and walked briskly to an SUV, where a driver awaited.
Roberts, 52, will probably undergo further testing at a more renowned facility at some point. Doctors at the Maine hospital were unable to pinpoint a cause; the same was true when Roberts suffered a seizure while golfing in 1993. The chance of a repeat seizure increases substantially with each subsequent seizure.
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July 27, 2007
After Hazleton Ruling, What Would SCOTUS Do?
Federal inaction has spurred states and municipalities to forge ahead on matters like global warming and immigration. In April, the Supreme Court seemed to boost efforts by states like California to exceed federal regulations on greenhouse gases. But it's not clear whether the justices would do the same for U.S. towns leading the charge on illegal immigration.
Yesterday's decision [PDF] by a U.S. District Court judge declaring Hazleton, Pa.'s housing and employment ordinance on illegal immigrants unconstitutional will be appealed, the town's mayor promised. The decision will affect the dozens of U.S. cities and counties weighing similar measures to crack down on illegals.
Hazleton's first-in-the-nation ordinance required landlords to register with the town and all prospective rentees to submit to background checks on their residency status. Businesses found to be employing illegal immigrants were to lose their license for five years. The ordinance also declared English to be the official language of the town, which refuses to print any information in Spanish.
Judge James Munley invoked the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, ruling that only the federal government had jurisdiction over immigration law. That act stipulates: "The provisions of this section preempt any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens."
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July 06, 2007
Supreme Court: European Vacation
After a spate of contentious split decisions earlier this year, the Supreme Court justices are retreating for some fun in the European sun.
Five of the nine justices are planning summer stints in Europe before returning to the bench in early October. But while they are sure to get some rest and relaxation on their sojourns -- and perhaps some much-needed respite from angry pols & pundits -- it won't all be fun and games. Most of the justices are taking part in international conferences and teaching in various summer programs.
AP reports that Justice Samuel Alito, whose addition to the court last year marked a conservative shift, started the trend when he flew to Latvia this week for a conference on judicial reform. Later this month, he will be joined on the continent by fellow newcomer to the bench, Chief Justice John Roberts, who will teach a course in Vienna and attend a conference in Paris. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg will also be teaching at European summer programs sponsored by U.S. universities in the coming months.
Meanwhile, the justices' more controversial rulings from this year will continue to reverberate stateside, both in Washington and on the campaign trail.
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June 29, 2007
Supreme Court Reverses Course On Gitmo Cases
In a remarkable turnabout, at least two justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have changed their minds about a petition and have agreed to hear the case. More significant: the case is actually two petitions from foreign terror suspects challenging the Bush administration's power to hold them in Guantanamo.
Back in April, only three justices agreed to hear the detainees' arguments -- one short of the number needed to grant a review of the case. Two others, Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy disagreed, instructing the petitioners to exhaust the lower-court options, including the newly established military tribunal system, first.
In order to grant a hearing after initially denying one, the votes of five justices are needed. It's a safe bet that Stevens and Kennedy were the justices who changed their minds, and not Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia or Chief Justice John Roberts.
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June 28, 2007
Supreme Court Rules Against School Desegregation Policies
UPDATED.
The modern-day Supreme Court has a tendency to save its touchiest cases for the end of the term, and that was certainly true today. In what was surely a coincidence on the justices' part, this morning's 5-4 decision [PDF] against two school districts' desegregation programs was handed down hours before PBS hosts the first 2008 presidential candidate forum that will focus on race-related issues.
Luckily for the Republican hopefuls, they will be spared having to defend the "right-wing judicial activists" who "turned Brown v. Board of Education on its head" during tonight's event at Howard University. Those criticisms of today's ruling are from Democratic candidate John Edwards, who was joined in the race to release a statement condemning the decision by first-tier rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
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June 25, 2007
SCOTUS Strikes Issue Ads Provision
Is this the death knell for McCain-Feingold?
In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today that issue ads financed by corporate and labor interests will be allowed to mention names of candidates. McCain-Feingold had originally outlawed them, but the court decided that was an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.
In question was whether Wisconsin Right to Life broke the law in airing an ad within two months of Election Day 2004 that pressed Sen. Russell Feingold (D), who was running for re-election, not to obstruct President Bush's judicial nominees. Because it dealt with an issue rather than something like a direct endorsement or attack on a candidate, the majority ruled it acceptable.
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April 30, 2007
SCOTUS Sides With Police On Car Chase
The U.S. Supreme Court has a message for fleeing suspects everywhere: If you run from the cops, don't come crying if you get hurt.
In an 8-to-1 decision [PDF], the justices reversed a lower court ruling that found Georgia sheriff Timothy Scott used excessive force when he bumped Victor Harris off the road during a high-speed car chase. Scott tried to pull Harris over for speeding, but the then-19-year-old driver took off, prompting a chase in which the vehicles reached speeds of more than 85 miles per hour.
Scott decided to hit Harris from behind in order to drive him off the road and end the dangerous, six-minute-long chase. But instead of coming to a stop, Harris' car went over an embankment and crashed. As a result, Harris became a quadriplegic. He filed suit against Scott, and the case made its way up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in Harris' favor.
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SCOTUS Sides With Microsoft
In a ruling that could save Microsoft billions of dollars, the Supreme Court today found that the Redmond, Wash.-based software goliath is not liable in a patent dispute with AT&T.
The two companies were battling over computers running Windows software, with AT&T alleging that Microsoft infringed on speech-coding technology. Implications of the case extended to all copies of Windows manufactured abroad; AT&T had staked a claim on all foreign computers using the digital speech system.
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April 18, 2007
SCOTUS Upholds Late-Term Abortion Ban
The absence of retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was felt in a very real way today, when the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld a federal law banning so-called partial birth abortions.
The 5-4 decision [PDF], written by swing voter Anthony Kennedy, held that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act did not violate a woman's right to an abortion. The act prohibits doctors from performing a dilation and extraction procedure, also known as D&E, which is a common method of aborting more developed fetuses. Opponents say it is a gruesome procedure in which fetuses that might otherwise live are killed and then pulled from the uterus.
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April 02, 2007
SCOTUS Rejects Gitmo Appeal
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 this morning to reject two appeals from Guantanamo Bay detainees who had hoped to challenge a lower court's ruling on the validity of their detention by the U.S. government.
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