Category: U.S. Supreme Court

Attempted Robbery Is Not Violent?

by · Jun 21, 2022 9:02 am

The U.S. Supreme Court continued its chip-by-chip undermining of federal sentence enhancements for violent crimes, making one more narrowing of the definition of “violent felony.” In United States v. Taylor, No. 20-1459, it’s attempted robbery under the Hobbs Act that bites the dust. This will come as no surprise to those who have watched the steady parade of decisions excluding from the term “violent felony” crimes that common sense would tell us are violent. See, e.g., this post. Continue reading . . .

Go Ahead and Say “Never” on Bivens Extensions

by · Jun 10, 2022 11:32 am

Way back in Reconstruction, Congress created a civil cause of action against state and local officials who violate federal constitutional rights. Today, that statute is 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Congress did not, however, create a parallel right to sue federal agents. In 1971, the Supreme Court made one up anyway in the case of Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents.

The Court extended Bivens to a couple of new contexts in the early years afterward but soon came to realize it had overreached. In Wednesday’s decision in Egbert v. Boule, Justice Thomas notes in the opinion of the Court, “Over the past 42 years, however, we have declined 11 times to imply a similar cause of action for other alleged constitutional violations.” In Egbert, the Court declined to extend Bivens to a claim of allegedly excessive force allegedly used by a Border Patrol agent against an American citizen on U.S. soil. Continue reading . . .

Delay and Failure to Accept Responsibility For It

by · May 24, 2022 1:51 pm

Along with the two Arizona capital cases decided yesterday (see this post), the Supreme Court turned down another, the case of one of the longest-term residents of death row.

Justice Breyer penned another of his opinions lamenting how awful it is for these murderers to have death sentences hanging over their heads so long. And once again he failed to acknowledge how much the Supreme Court itself is at fault for this situation. Continue reading . . .

Taking Statutes Seriously

by · May 23, 2022 11:08 am

Are Acts of Congress the law of the land, to be respected by the courts and implemented as intended, or are they merely inconvenient obstacles to the policies preferred by judges, to be danced around at will? That was the unstated question beneath the case of Shinn v. Ramirez, No. 20-1009, decided by the Supreme Court today.

The case involves the long-standing policy question of when a federal court hearing a habeas corpus petition by a state prisoner can second-guess the judgment of the state courts in a case already fully litigated there. The answer to that question has ebbed and flowed throughout American history, as relative confidence in federal v. state courts has varied. The answer has varied from “never” (1789) to “nearly always” (1963) and various points in between. Congress and the Supreme Court have both had their roles, but on this aspect of habeas corpus the Court has always acknowledged that Congress is boss, at least nominally.

From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, the Supreme Court was gradually tightening up on relitigation, pulling back reins that had been loosened in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1992, the Court decided in Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes that a habeas petitioner who wanted an evidentiary hearing in federal court to present evidence that he could have presented in state court but failed to would not get one unless he showed good cause for his previous failure and resulting prejudice.

This is one of a number of rules that I call “speak now or forever hold your peace” rules. When the system provides a time and forum to make your claim, you have to make it then and there or lose it. Without such rules, Yogi Berra notwithstanding, a case isn’t over even when it’s over. More prosaically, these rules are called “procedural default rules.” Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Takes Up Case On Federal Prisoner “Safety Valve”

by · May 16, 2022 9:20 am

In 1948, Congress decided that using habeas corpus for collateral attacks on federal criminal judgments presented too many practical problems, so it created a new “motion to vacate” procedure in 28 USC § 2255. Congress provided that the new motion would be available on any ground that made the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack. Then it barred use of habeas corpus for this purpose, but added a “safety valve” that resort to habeas corpus could still be had if the motion procedure was “ineffective or inadequate” to test the validity of the prisoner’s detention.

Collateral attacks on criminal judgments (habeas corpus for state prisoners and § 2255 for federal prisoners) grew like weeds for the next five decades until Congress clamped down in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).

Does the “safety valve” effectively negate the reforms for federal prisoners? Can they simply dance around the limits by saying the limits render the § 2255 remedy “ineffective or inadequate” and file a habeas corpus petition? The obvious answer is “no.” Congress does not enact laws with the intent that they be easily evaded. Yet, there is a circuit split, and today the Supreme Court took the question up. Continue reading . . .

Intimidating Justices and Their Children at Home Is Illegal as Well as Disgusting

by · May 11, 2022 3:45 pm

After the unprecedented leak of a draft of a possible SCOTUS decision on the case overruling Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion activists have decided it would be a good idea to flock en masse outside the neighborhood homes of the Justices to make sure they know that, if the “wrong” decision were handed come late June, they would, in Chuck Schmer’s words, “pay the price.”

Gathering in menacing mobs at the homes of Justices has been defended by exactly those people who, for four years, were loudly aghast at the “breaking of norms.”  But as it turns out, the mob activity is not merely disgusting but illegal  —  or at least such is the view of that right-wing rag, the Washington Post.  Its article is quoted in part below.

Continue reading . . .

The Abortion Case and Criminal Law

by · May 11, 2022 9:33 am

The big news in law is, as we all know by now, the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion (per Alito, J.) overruling Roe and Casey.  The central holding of the draft is that the Constitution simply has nothing to say about abortion, and therefore that whether and in what ways it should be regulated are matters left to the political process.

CJLF takes no position on abortion, and neither for present purposes do I (a mere guest contributor here in any event).  But there is potentially very important news for criminal law in the draft opinion.

Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Declines Case of Missouri Murderer

by · May 2, 2022 2:32 pm

Update (5/4): The execution was carried out on the evening of May 3, CBS/AP report.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to review, again, the capital sentence of Missouri murderer Carman Deck, whose long-overdue execution is scheduled for tomorrow.

Deck and an accomplice planned to burglarize the home of an elderly couple, James and Zelma Long. They knocked on the door and pretended to need directions. After the Longs admitted them into their home, Deck pulled a gun and demanded their valuables. Even though they complied with his demands, he shot and killed both of them.

Deck had to be sentenced three times. The first sentencing was marred by an error of his own attorney, failing to object to the fact that a portion of the jury instructions was missing. The second sentencing was conducted in accordance with all the rules in effect at the time, which severely limited the shackling of defendants in the guilt phase of the trial. The rationale of that precedent was that shackling impaired the presumption of innocence, making it obviously inapplicable to the penalty trial. The U.S. Supreme Court took his case up and extended its precedent into the penalty phase, moving the goalposts after the trial. Continue reading . . .

Habeas Corpus, Relitigation, and Taking Statutes Seriously

by · Apr 22, 2022 5:10 pm

“When Congress supplies a constitutionally valid rule of decision, federal courts must follow it.” You wouldn’t think it would be necessary for the Supreme Court of the United States to say that. Everybody knows that. Don’t they? But the Court did find it necessary to say that yesterday in the case of Brown v. Davenport, No. 20-826.

Ervine Davenport was convicted of strangling Annette White to death. His case was thoroughly reviewed by the Michigan appellate courts who ultimately decided that although an error had occurred it had no effect on the outcome. As the Supreme Court has long recognized, ” ‘a defendant is entitled to a fair trial but not a perfect one,’ for there are no perfect trials.” This is the “harmless error” rule.

The general rule in our judicial system is that once a judgment has been reviewed up the appellate chain and affirmed the case is over. With limited exceptions, you can’t go running to another court, especially one that does not have appellate jurisdiction over the court that entered the judgment, and attack the judgment by claiming that the first set of courts got it wrong.

Congress sharply narrowed one of the exceptions in 1996, blocking the lower federal courts from overturning reasonable decisions of state courts merely because they disagree with them. Is there something about the harmless error rule that makes it different so that this statute need not be applied?

The obvious answer is “of course not.” So why did this question even have to come to the Supreme Court? Continue reading . . .

The Correct Outcome in Vega v. Tekoh

by · Apr 21, 2022 8:06 am

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard argument in Vega v. Tekoh.  That case presents the question whether a plaintiff has a civil remedy against a police officer under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for obtaining a statement in violation of the Constitution, when the statement was later admitted at his trial.  In Vega, the statement was obtained from a suspect in custody without having first given him his Miranda warnings.  In other words, one pivotal question is whether or not Miranda warnings are required by the Constitution, in particular the Fifth Amendment.

An earlier case, Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000) seems to suggest that they are.  In fact they aren’t, and for that reason the police officer should win this case.

Continue reading . . .