by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 26, 2021 8:27 am
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an orders list from last Friday’s conference today. No new criminal cases were taken up for full briefing and argument.
Two civil cases of interest were taken up. United States v. Zubaydah, No. 20-827 involves the state secrets privilege and a discovery demand by a terrorist detained in Guantanamo Bay. New York State Rifle v. Corlett, No. 20-843 is a Second Amendment case involving concealed carry licenses. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 23, 2021 2:25 pm
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Quite a lot is in a name, as “Juliet and her Romeo” tragically found out in the end. More on point, George Orwell demonstrated the pernicious exploitation of language for propaganda purposes in his famous dystopian novel 1984.
Some years back, advocates for lenient treatment of adolescents who commit horrible crimes of violence began exploiting an ambiguity in the word “children” as a propaganda tool. In 2012, the United States Supreme Court jumped on this Orwellian bandwagon. Yesterday it jumped off, at least for the time being. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 23, 2021 9:41 am
Not a lot of media coverage of the Jones v. Mississippi decision. A lot of other events were happening yesterday. Jessica Gresko has this story for Associated Press:
In a statement, Kymberlee Stapleton of the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation called the decision a “victory for the families of victims murdered by juveniles.”
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 22, 2021 7:47 am
Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi, No. 18-1259, a case of teenager who murdered his grandfather. The high court pruned back expansive language in its 2016 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana. The decision confirms that the 2012 case of Miller v. Alabama requires only that the sentencer have discretion to choose between life without parole and a lesser sentence in the case of a juvenile murderer. There is no requirement imposed by the federal constitution that the judge find that the juvenile is “permanently incorrigible,” a finding that cannot be made with any degree of reliability. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 19, 2021 8:00 am
The U.S. Supreme Court today took up a New York case presenting the question of when a defendant “opens the door” to evidence that would otherwise violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 1, 2021 7:52 am
Today was decision day at the U.S. Supreme Court. No criminal cases were decided. Facebook v. Duguid is an exercise in statutory interpretation regarding a law on autodialers. Justice Alito has an interesting concurring opinion warning of loose canons of interpretation. (That’s my pun, not his.)
If a statute refers to “A, B, or C with X” does the modifier “with X” apply to all three or just C? Continue reading . . .
by Amber Westbrook · Mar 30, 2021 10:59 am
by Kent Scheidegger · Mar 29, 2021 7:49 am
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning once again reversed a federal court of appeals, this time the Sixth Circuit, for exceeding the limits placed on its authority in Congress’s landmark 1996 reform of federal habeas corpus. Mays v. Hines, 20-507, involves a Tennessee murder case where the defendant was convicted on overwhelming evidence of stabbing to death an employee in a motel and stealing the motel cash, along with the employee’s car.
In state collateral review, the witness who discovered the body finally admitted that he had lied about the reason he was at the motel. He was there for an illicit rendezvous. But this had very little to do with the strength of the evidence that Hines was the murderer, and so the state courts left the judgment intact. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Mar 25, 2021 12:51 pm
James Hohmann has this piece in the Washington Post making the argument against televising the high court’s arguments.
I disagree with Hohmann on one point. He concedes away the argument that some attorneys presenting argument might play to the cameras. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · 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 . . .
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