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U.S. Supreme Court Rundown - Divided Court Making WavesFriday, June 27, 2008
The United States Supreme Court has been issuing opinions of great impact this term, with a flurry of decisions out this week. Nearly all decisions are very closely split, with the "conservative" four justices (Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) concurring in nearly every respect, and the "liberal" four (Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer) grouped together on the other side.
Justice Kennedy is the ninth Justice and the swing vote, siding with the groups on one side or the other and thereby clarifying (and at times changing) the law of the land.
In a few decisions, such as the well-publicized June 12, 2008 decision in the Guantanamo detainee Habeas case BOUMEDIENE et al. v. BUSH, Justice Kennedy aligned himself with the liberal four. The 5/4 decision of the court, authored by Justice Kennedy, reaffirmed the great writ of Habeas Corpus and stated its applicability to alien detainees held in U.S.-controlled military territories outside the United States, like Guantanamo Bay, even if they are classified as "enemy combatant" by the Government. Thus, suspected terrorists held by the United States have the legal right to a court hearing to challenge their detention and/or their "enemy combatant" classification.
However, in a great many decisions released this week, Justice Kennedy sided with the "conservative" four justices, and controversial decisions on a host of issues are going to have an impact on U.S. law and policy for a long time to come. Some of these decisions have been well publicized, some have largely escaped notice. Here's a quick summary of many of this week's published decisions:
- In DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER, Justice Scalia wrote the 5/4 decision stating that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a pre-existing individual right to keep firearms including handguns for self-defense purposes and for protection at home. The decision overturned a 30-years-old Washington D.C. ordinance which had banned handgun possession in homes within the district, and which required other firearms in homes to be dissembled or locked with trigger locks. While the decision states that the Second Amendment right is not absolute and is subject to reasonable restrictions and exceptions, challenges are already underway to other longstanding local gun-control measures in Chicago and elsewhere. The decision is being hailed as a big win for gun-owning rights groups, while gun-control groups are spinning the decision as a moderate decision which still might allow common-sense gun-control laws to survive.
- In DAVIS v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Justice Alito wrote the decision of the court, backed by the "conservative" bloc and Justice Kennedy. The decision overturns a campaign-finance law known as the “Millionaire’s Amendment.” Under the Millionaire’s Amendment, a person running for office -- against a candidate who spends huge sums of her or his own money on her or his own behalf -- is allowed looser restrictions in how much money the non-millionaire may raise from individual donors. The idea was to allow a poorer candidate to compete with a richer candidate who otherwise could buy themselves an election. The law also required the millionaire candidate to make disclosures of how much of her or his own money was being spent, so that it could be determined if the looser restrictions were to apply to the non-millionaire candidate. The decision here was rested on freedom of speech and equal protection grounds, essentially claiming that the law was an unlawful burden on millionaires' freedom to spend their money on their campaigns, and that by loosening the restrictions for the non-millionaire candidate only the law was unfair to the millionaire. These conservative justices are very adept at protecting rights, at least the rights of the ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful...
- In EXXON SHIPPING CO. et al. v. BAKER et al., in a 5/3 opinion (with Justice Souter joining Kennedy with the conservative bloc, and with Justice Alito taking no part in the matter), the Court reduced the punitive damages award against the Exxon Corporation, in civil suits brought after the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, from $2.5 Billion to just over $500 Million. The court held that maritime law required an upper limit punitive damages ratio of 1:1, meaning that the amount of punitive damages awarded in excess of the actual or compensatory damages is unfair and unlawful. While the jury in this matter initially awarded punitive damages of $5 Billion, (which was then reduced on appeal to $2.5 Billion), the actual compensatory damages awarded on the case was about $500 Million, and the supreme court held that punitive damages therefore could not be awarded in excess of that amount. A huge relief for the huge oil company.
- Joining the "liberal" bloc, Justice Kennedy wrote the 5/4 decision in KENNEDY v. LOUISIANA, holding that there could be no death penalty for persons convicted of raping a child if the victim was not killed and was not intended to be killed. Such a punishment was held to be disproportionate to the crime and thus violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual punishment."
- In a rare instance of judicial unity, the Court held in ROTHGERY v. GILLESPIE COUNTY, TEXAS that a criminal defendant's right to counsel attaches at the "initial appearance before a magistrate judge, where he learns the charge against him and his liberty is subject to restriction." The decision was 8/1, with only Justice Thomas dissenting. In Justice Thomas's lone opinion, the procedure of Gillespie County was proper, whereby it denied the accused counsel until a later court appearance which specifically involved a public prosecutor. Justice Thomas would so hold even given the facts of this case, where a wrongfully accused man (due to a database error misidentifying him as a felon) was jailed twice and forced to raise substantial bail, all before he was ever granted an attorney. Once he had an attorney it was a simple matter of having the attorney file a bit of paperwork to clear the database error and have the man released. The nearly unanimous opinion of the Court upholds the substance and intent of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Justice Kennedy is the ninth Justice and the swing vote, siding with the groups on one side or the other and thereby clarifying (and at times changing) the law of the land.
In a few decisions, such as the well-publicized June 12, 2008 decision in the Guantanamo detainee Habeas case BOUMEDIENE et al. v. BUSH, Justice Kennedy aligned himself with the liberal four. The 5/4 decision of the court, authored by Justice Kennedy, reaffirmed the great writ of Habeas Corpus and stated its applicability to alien detainees held in U.S.-controlled military territories outside the United States, like Guantanamo Bay, even if they are classified as "enemy combatant" by the Government. Thus, suspected terrorists held by the United States have the legal right to a court hearing to challenge their detention and/or their "enemy combatant" classification.
However, in a great many decisions released this week, Justice Kennedy sided with the "conservative" four justices, and controversial decisions on a host of issues are going to have an impact on U.S. law and policy for a long time to come. Some of these decisions have been well publicized, some have largely escaped notice. Here's a quick summary of many of this week's published decisions:
- In DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER, Justice Scalia wrote the 5/4 decision stating that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a pre-existing individual right to keep firearms including handguns for self-defense purposes and for protection at home. The decision overturned a 30-years-old Washington D.C. ordinance which had banned handgun possession in homes within the district, and which required other firearms in homes to be dissembled or locked with trigger locks. While the decision states that the Second Amendment right is not absolute and is subject to reasonable restrictions and exceptions, challenges are already underway to other longstanding local gun-control measures in Chicago and elsewhere. The decision is being hailed as a big win for gun-owning rights groups, while gun-control groups are spinning the decision as a moderate decision which still might allow common-sense gun-control laws to survive.
- In DAVIS v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Justice Alito wrote the decision of the court, backed by the "conservative" bloc and Justice Kennedy. The decision overturns a campaign-finance law known as the “Millionaire’s Amendment.” Under the Millionaire’s Amendment, a person running for office -- against a candidate who spends huge sums of her or his own money on her or his own behalf -- is allowed looser restrictions in how much money the non-millionaire may raise from individual donors. The idea was to allow a poorer candidate to compete with a richer candidate who otherwise could buy themselves an election. The law also required the millionaire candidate to make disclosures of how much of her or his own money was being spent, so that it could be determined if the looser restrictions were to apply to the non-millionaire candidate. The decision here was rested on freedom of speech and equal protection grounds, essentially claiming that the law was an unlawful burden on millionaires' freedom to spend their money on their campaigns, and that by loosening the restrictions for the non-millionaire candidate only the law was unfair to the millionaire. These conservative justices are very adept at protecting rights, at least the rights of the ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful...
- In EXXON SHIPPING CO. et al. v. BAKER et al., in a 5/3 opinion (with Justice Souter joining Kennedy with the conservative bloc, and with Justice Alito taking no part in the matter), the Court reduced the punitive damages award against the Exxon Corporation, in civil suits brought after the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, from $2.5 Billion to just over $500 Million. The court held that maritime law required an upper limit punitive damages ratio of 1:1, meaning that the amount of punitive damages awarded in excess of the actual or compensatory damages is unfair and unlawful. While the jury in this matter initially awarded punitive damages of $5 Billion, (which was then reduced on appeal to $2.5 Billion), the actual compensatory damages awarded on the case was about $500 Million, and the supreme court held that punitive damages therefore could not be awarded in excess of that amount. A huge relief for the huge oil company.
- Joining the "liberal" bloc, Justice Kennedy wrote the 5/4 decision in KENNEDY v. LOUISIANA, holding that there could be no death penalty for persons convicted of raping a child if the victim was not killed and was not intended to be killed. Such a punishment was held to be disproportionate to the crime and thus violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual punishment."
- In a rare instance of judicial unity, the Court held in ROTHGERY v. GILLESPIE COUNTY, TEXAS that a criminal defendant's right to counsel attaches at the "initial appearance before a magistrate judge, where he learns the charge against him and his liberty is subject to restriction." The decision was 8/1, with only Justice Thomas dissenting. In Justice Thomas's lone opinion, the procedure of Gillespie County was proper, whereby it denied the accused counsel until a later court appearance which specifically involved a public prosecutor. Justice Thomas would so hold even given the facts of this case, where a wrongfully accused man (due to a database error misidentifying him as a felon) was jailed twice and forced to raise substantial bail, all before he was ever granted an attorney. Once he had an attorney it was a simple matter of having the attorney file a bit of paperwork to clear the database error and have the man released. The nearly unanimous opinion of the Court upholds the substance and intent of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
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