Posts tagged United States Supreme Court

Supreme Court Watch: Salinas v. Texas

59
1 month ago
by dcpetterson in

When do you have this right?

The Supreme Court will today heart oral argu­ments in Sali­nas v. Texas. This case will address an enor­mous out­stand­ing ques­tion on Fifth Amend­ment rights. We all know that some­one accused of a crime in Amer­i­can is allowed to remain silent both dur­ing ques­tion­ing after being arrested, and at trial. The ques­tion is, do the same rights against self-​​incrimination apply before an arrest and an accu­sa­tion is made? As was asked in a 1980 deci­sion, the Court has not yet ruled on “whether or under what cir­cum­stances pre-​​arrest silence” while being ques­tioned by law enforce­ment is enti­tled to protection.

The ques­tion before the Court is pretty straight­for­ward:

Whether or under what cir­cum­stances the Fifth Amend­ment’s Self-​​Incrimination Clause pro­tects a defendant’s refusal to answer law enforce­ment ques­tion­ing before he has been arrested or read his Miranda rights.

(more…)

Supreme Court Watch: United States v. Windsor

103
1 month ago
by Logarchism.com in
Doma about

Doma about (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, the Supreme Court hears oral argu­ments con­cern­ing the Defense of Mar­riage Act (DOMA).

In a typ­i­cal exam­ple of Orwellian mis­la­bel­ing, the Act does noth­ing to “defend” mar­riage, and the case before the court — United States v. Wind­sor — is not being advanced by the United States. The Act was about deny­ing mar­riage to same-​​sex cou­ples, not about “defend­ing” mar­riage from any sort of attack or decline. The suit before the Court is being brought by a hand­ful of Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors in an effort to deny sur­vivor ben­e­fits to the deceased spouse of a New York woman, in con­tra­dic­tion to usual Repub­li­can dis­like of estate taxes (another vic­tim of Orwellian renam­ing — such taxes are com­monly termed “death taxes,” except in this par­tic­u­lar case). (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Hollingsworth v. Perry

46
1 month ago
by Michael Weiss in

Tomor­row, the United States Supreme Court will hear argu­ments chal­leng­ing the Defense of Mar­riage Act (DOMA). Today, the Supreme Court hears argu­ments on Hollingsworth v. Perry, a big case which has been antic­i­pated for some time. Unlike most cases, the tran­script and audio will be made avail­able before noon on the west coast.

This case is the Lov­ing v. Vir­ginia of same-​​sex mar­riage. Or, at least, it might be. But things are not always as they seem at first blush.

Before we get into the rea­sons for this, let’s revisit the his­tory of this case. What a long, strange trip it’s been.  (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Shelby County v. Holder

21
2 months ago
by Monotreme in
A protest to secure the right to vote.

A protest to secure the right to vote.

Yes­ter­day, the Supreme Court of the United States heard the case of Shelby County v. Holder. The peti­tioner is sub­ject to a pro­vi­sion in the Vot­ing Rights Act of 1965 which requires pre­clear­ance for local elec­tion procedures.

It was, at one time, prob­a­bly the most pow­er­ful tool in the tool­box used by Con­gress to push the South towards racial equality.

At that time, county clerks and other pub­lic offi­cials would actively block Negroes from voting:

When I first went up to try to reg­is­ter to vote, it was only three of us but we was met by some of the deputies. This kinds put a lit­tle fear in your mind. Old Man Sims, who was prac­ti­cally blind, was in front, and the dogs was just charg­ing at his legs, but he couldn’t see. We still had the courage to pro­ceed into the cour­t­house. When we go in the cour­t­house we had to go in the cir­cuit clerk’s office — that’s where we went to try to get the forms and try to fill ‘em out to reg­is­ter to vote. We pro­ceeded fill­ing out the forms. It was what grade you were, how old, were you a cit­i­zen and a whole lotta ques­tions. Some I thought was just pathetic — how many bub­bles in a bar of soap? That was under Henry B. McClel­lan. We stayed in there so long till I was lean­ing on the counter, and he asked me did I want to go to jail. And I said, ‘No, the only thing we came up here for was to try to reg­is­ter to vote.’

— Mr. TC John­son, Holmes County, Mis­sis­sippi (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Millbrook v. United States

12
3 months ago
by dcpetterson in

Imag­ine a prison guard at a fed­eral prison rapes an inmate. Can the United States be held respon­si­ble for that guard’s actions?

That is the ques­tion before the Supreme Court today. There are sit­u­a­tion in which the gov­ern­ment can be sued when a prison guard, act­ing within the scope of his or her employ­ment, com­mits an “inten­tional tort” — that is, know­ingly and pur­posely vio­lates the civil rights of an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen. When not on duty, a prison guard can be sued like any­one else for harm­ing another per­son (for instance, by rap­ing some­one), and the gov­ern­ment is not liable then. Is the gov­ern­ment ever liable when an employee is on duty and doing an assigned job, but some­how abuses the power entrusted to that employee?

The answer is: usu­ally not. The gov­ern­ment nor­mally can’t be sued due to the actions of a gov­ern­ment employee who is doing his or her job, even if that per­son does some­thing which would nor­mally be ille­gal. This is called “sov­er­eign immunity”.

But when on duty, and when exer­cis­ing the author­ity granted by being a prison guard, the gov­ern­ment some­times, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, is con­sid­ered liable for the actions of that guard. This is called “a waiver of sov­er­eign immunity.”

The ques­tion here is whether the gov­ern­ment can be held liable for sex­ual assault when the guard is not specif­i­cally exer­cis­ing author­ity to “exe­cute searches, to seize evi­dence, or to make arrests for vio­la­tions of Fed­eral law.” (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Levin v. United States

5
4 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

Are our mil­i­tary hos­pi­tals man­u­fac­tur­ing battery?

Today’s case is one of those with a sur­pris­ingly large dis­con­nect between the facts that led to trial and the deci­sion being addressed by the Supreme Court. The facts that led to the trial have to do with informed con­sent in a med­ical pro­ce­dure. But the Supreme Court is exam­in­ing a ques­tion of juris­dic­tion and immunity.

The juris­dic­tion and immu­nity ques­tions aren’t new to our Supreme Court Watch series. We’ve cov­ered cases with that topic three times before. The immu­nity dis­cus­sions keep aris­ing because those bound­aries are far from clear. Today is another instance where the bound­ary may be unde­fined.  (more…)

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