Category: U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court Holds Shooting a Fleeing Suspect is a “Seizure”

by · Mar 25, 2021 8:31 am

The U.S. Supreme Court held today that a police officer “seizes” a fleeing suspect, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, by shooting her, even if the officer never gains actual control and the suspect escapes.

The Court split 5-3* in the case of Torres v. Madrid, No. 19-292.

The opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Roberts applied the common law definition of when a person has been “arrested” to the Fourth Amendment question of when the protection against unreasonable seizures comes into play when the claimed seizure is of the person. The status of arrest had a variety of legal consequences, including liability of the officer for escape or a tort suit for false imprisonment. Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Adds Fourth Amendment Case

by · Mar 8, 2021 8:36 am

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning took up a search-and-seizure case for full briefing and argument. The case involves procedural questions regarding (1) the termination of the criminal case before the seized person can sue for damages and (2) the burden of proof on the existence of exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless entry. [See update below.] Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS: Nominal Damages Are Enough to Avoid Mootness

by · Mar 8, 2021 8:13 am

A recurring problem in civil rights litigation is that a party with standing to have an allegedly illegal practice enjoined may not have standing by the time the litigation reaches completion. Students may graduate. Employees may change jobs. If an injunction is the only relief sought, the case may be declared moot and dismissed. In addition to the mootness problem, injunctive relief might not be available from the beginning. A person subjected to a questioned police practice may be highly unlikely to ever face it again.

A party whose rights are violated but who suffers no real damage may sue for “nominal damages,” a token award of, say, one dollar. The Supreme Court held today that such damages are sufficient to prevent mootness and allow the suit to reach conclusion. Continue reading . . .

Defining “Occasion”

by · Feb 22, 2021 7:27 am

The federal “three strikes” law provides enhanced penalties for felons who possess firearms after three convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses “committed on occasions different from one another.” What exactly is an “occasion”?

Wooden v. United States, No. 20-5279, taken up by the Supreme Court today, is one of the rare cases where a defendant writing his own certiorari petition actually got the Court to take the case up for full briefing and argument. Continue reading . . .

Clergy in the Execution Chamber Whack-a-Mole Continues

by · Feb 12, 2021 11:00 am

The game of “whack-a-mole” with clergy being in the execution chamber when a murderer finally gets his just deserts has popped up again.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to lift a stay of execution imposed by the Eleventh Circuit on the ground that Alabama will not allow non-employees, including clergy, in the actual execution room. Four of the Justices concurring in this order purport to instruct the States how they can easily comply with the requirements and proceed with long-overdue justice. We’ve been there, done that. That’s how we got here. Continue reading . . .

Appellate Judges on Remote Arguments

by · Feb 4, 2021 10:30 am

Marcia Coyle has this article in the National Law Journal (free registration required), titled Appellate Judges, Including Justice Breyer, Reflect on Remote Arguments in Virus Era.

In the pandemic era of remote oral arguments, audio is good, but audio-visual is better, although both come with a significant cost of reduced or eliminated eye contact, federal and state appellate judges said in a recent survey.

Twelve jurists, including Justice Stephen Breyer, responded to questions about their experiences with remote arguments in an article in the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process: “Remote Oral Arguments in the Age of Coronavirus: A Blip on the Screen or a Permanent Fixture?” In addition to the U.S. Supreme Court, the judges who participated in the survey sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the Supreme Judicial Courts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Orders Friday and Today

by · Jan 11, 2021 2:32 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court held a conference Friday, resulting in a short orders list the same day and a longer one today. Some criminal cases were taken up, but no blockbuster ones.

Among cases we are following, the Marathon Bomber Case was relisted for this coming Friday, as expected. A grant on the second listing is a good possibility for this high-profile case.

In Poole v. Florida, the Court turned down a request to say that it didn’t really mean what it said in McKinney v. Arizona (see this post), i.e., that the Sixth Amendment has nothing to say about whether the weighing of the aggravating versus mitigating circumstances in capital cases, and hence the sentencing decision, must be done by a jury or a judge. Yes, it really did mean that. Continue reading . . .

An Easy Retroactivity Case Made Difficult — Part III, Teague‘s Phantom Exception

by · Jan 7, 2021 4:34 pm

This post concludes the series on the U.S. Supreme Court case of Edwards v. Vannoy, No. 19-5807, argued December 2. The question presented is whether the Court’s decision last term in Ramos v. Louisiana is retroactive to overturn judgments that were already final on direct appeal when the decision came down. On the well-established body of law under Teague v. Lane, the answer is very clearly no, yet the Court seemed to have a surprising amount of difficulty with it during the argument.

The previous two posts (see index at the end) demonstrated that the conditions for the Teague rule to come into play were met. Ramos is certainly a “new rule” within the meaning of the Teague cases. It is a rule of procedure and not substantive law. The remaining question is whether it qualifies for an exception that no new rule in the three decades since Teague has qualified for. The answer, again, is clearly no. Continue reading . . .