Posts tagged Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court Watch: FOIA Edition

4
1 week ago
by Michael Weiss in

Supreme Court argu­ments ended in April, and we’ve already begun to hear deci­sions from this ses­sion. Some of the biggest cases remain to be decided, but this week the Court issued a deci­sion on McBur­ney v. Young. I posted an arti­cle on the argu­ments back in Feb­ru­ary when the Court heard the case, but here’s a quick recap.

Mark McBur­ney made a freedom-​​of-​​information request of the Com­mon­wealth of Vir­ginia. Because McBur­ney had moved to Rhode Island, and because Vir­ginia law pro­hibits hon­or­ing such requests from non­res­i­dents, his request was denied. He sued on the grounds that the Priv­i­leges and Immu­ni­ties and Com­merce Clauses of the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibit such restrictions.

The Com­mon­wealth argued that the pur­pose of the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOIA) is to allow cit­i­zens of a gov­ern­ment to be aware of the activ­i­ties of that gov­ern­ment, and that Cal­i­for­ni­ans, who aren’t Vir­gini­ans, are there­fore not enti­tled to the information.

The Supreme Court unan­i­mously agreed with the Com­mon­wealth. Jus­tice Samuel Alito issued the deci­sion, with Jus­tice Clarence Thomas issu­ing a con­cur­ring opin­ion. There is some inter­est­ing meat in the deci­sion, which I dis­cuss after the cut.  (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar

7
2 weeks ago
by dcpetterson in

The Supreme Court is today hear­ing a chal­lenge to another pro­vi­sion of the land­mark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Title VII pro­tects an employee who has “made a charge, tes­ti­fied, assisted or par­tic­i­pated in” reveal­ing an employer’s unlaw­ful dis­crim­i­na­tion as described by other parts of the Act. Under Title VII, the employer may not retal­i­ate against the employee. The Act, how­ever, does not spell out pre­cisely what con­sti­tutes “retal­i­a­tion,” nor how you can tell some kind of adverse action was done for legit­i­mate rea­sons or as pay­back for hav­ing charged the employer with break­ing the law.

What if an employer both has a “legit­i­mate rea­son” and appears to be retal­i­at­ing? Does the exis­tence of a good rea­son mean it’s okay to fire some­one, even if a desire for pay­back is also present? Putting all that aside, does an employer have the right to hire, fire, pro­mote, or not-​​promote whomever the employer thinks will be best for busi­ness? If an employee accuses an employer of engag­ing in dis­crim­i­na­tion, wouldn’t some other pos­si­ble hire be bet­ter for the com­pany? Isn’t that in itself a legit­i­mate rea­son to fire some­one? (more…)

Cruzin’ for a Bruzin’

21
3 weeks ago
by dcpetterson in , ,
English: Ted Cruz at the Republican Leadership...

Orwell in Overdrive

There have been a num­ber of cases when Repub­li­cans opposed timely dis­as­ter relief when the cat­a­stro­phe hap­pened to other states, but demanded it when some­thing bad hap­pened in their own back yard. A per­fect exam­ple is Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz (R-​​TX), who voted against Hur­ri­cane Sandy relief in Jan­u­ary, but is now try­ing to get fed­eral money to help with the explo­sion of a fer­til­izer plant in West, Texas. I was prepar­ing to write an arti­cle about this ten­dency, con­cen­trat­ing on Cruz, when I stum­bled upon this arti­cle over at Fox News (yes, I do fre­quently read their site), describ­ing one of the Senator’s com­plaints about Pres­i­dent Obama. As I read, I sat in awe at the Senator’s dis­hon­esty and Orwellian mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and at the eager gulli­bil­ity and almost breath­less hero-​​worship of Fox News reportage.

Ear­lier this month, Sen­a­tor Cruz released a “report” titled, “The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts To Expand Fed­eral Power.” This paper describes six Supreme Court cases in which the Court unan­i­mously ruled against the lit­i­gant sup­ported by the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion. While it may be a sur­prise to many to see the Roberts Court to be united in a given rul­ing, it is hardly unusual for the Supreme Court to issue unan­i­mous rul­ings, and every pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion sees its share of loses before the Court.

What is far more inter­est­ing, bor­der­ing on the breath­tak­ing in its dis­hon­esty, is the way Cruz mis­rep­re­sented the issues in these six cases, and the moti­va­tions behind the posi­tion the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion held in each case.
(more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.

21
4 weeks ago
by Monotreme in
DNA_Strand_corset_32_piercings_by_mizuzinkaholik

DNA: Chang­ing lives for 3 bil­lion years.

While we have been focused on Supreme Court deci­sions on the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act and same-​​sex mar­riage, a case has been wend­ing its way through the courts that may have an even greater impact on human affairs.

The Court will hear argu­ments today in one of the most crit­i­cal cases for human health and dis­ease in the his­tory of the Repub­lic. Whether they use the oppor­tu­nity to make a paradigm-​​shifting deci­sion, or merely decide based on a nar­row appli­ca­tion of the law, is anyone’s guess.

The impor­tance of this case is evinced by the 56 amici curiæ briefs filed in this case, from par­ties as var­ied as the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Retired Per­sons and Nobel lau­re­ate James Wat­son.

The ques­tion, on its face, is sim­ple: are human genes patentable?

(more…)

Supreme Court Watch: McQuiggin v. Perkins

7
2 months ago
by dcpetterson in

409px-L&H_Habeas_Corpus_1929These three guys leave a party…

It sounds like the start of a joke. It led to a mur­der, and is end­ing with a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The con­sti­tu­tional ques­tion before the Court deals with the Great Writ of Habeas Cor­pus, “which right the Amer­i­can Founders con­sid­ered most basic, that is, indis­pens­able to secur­ing all the oth­ers.” The most impor­tant and fun­da­men­tal right we have as Amer­i­cans is not the right to bear arms, nor the right to assem­ble, nor free­dom of the press or of reli­gion or even of speech. It is “the Great Writ, which in 1969 the Supreme Court called ‘the fun­da­men­tal instru­ment for safe­guard­ing indi­vid­ual free­dom against arbi­trary and law­less state action’.”

Rights of habeas cor­pus have been rec­og­nized at least as far back as the four­teenth cen­tury. Habeas cor­pus is a Latin term which, freely trans­lated, means, “Who has the body?” In this case, the “body” in ques­tion is not, as one might sup­pose, the body of a vic­tim of a crime. No, the “body” here is the accused person.

The Great Writ of Habeus Cor­pus is a legal doc­trine which says, in essence, that the gov­ern­ment is not allowed to keep some­one in cus­tody with­out being able to show just cause. In other words, a per­son can­not sim­ply be held with­out charges, with­out due process, or in vio­la­tion of rea­son­able rights. If you’re held by a law-​​enforcement agency, they have to prove they have good rea­son to hold you.

The issue before the Supreme Court today deals with this most basic of human rights. Can the gov­ern­ment hold an inno­cent man — or even pre­vent some­one from being able to present his argu­ment for inno­cence — sim­ply because he waited too long to ask per­mis­sion to prove he’s inno­cent? Would hold­ing a per­son under such con­di­tions vio­late the right of habeas cor­pus?

The Court will decide in the case of McQuig­gin v. Perkins whether a con­victed mur­derer may be denied the right to chal­lenge that con­vic­tion because he didn’t mount his chal­lenge within a pre­de­fined time frame, even when he claims to be able to show his actual inno­cence. (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Butt v. Utah

13
2 months ago
by Monotreme in
Paleolithic Porn.

Pale­olithic Porn.

On Feb­ru­ary 22, the Supreme Court of the United States will meet in its reg­u­lar weekly con­fer­ence. On the agenda: whether to grant a writ of cer­tio­rari to Eric Leon Butt, Jr., who has been con­victed on two charges of show­ing pornog­ra­phy to a minor.

Why do we care about a con­victed sex offender, and why should this case even be con­sid­ered by the Supreme Court?

It all began with cave paint­ings, but I’m get­ting ahead of myself…

(more…)

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