Category: U.S. Supreme Court

New SCOTUS Criminal Cases

by · Dec 18, 2023 10:12 am

The U.S. Supreme Court accepted seven cases for full briefing and argument last Wednesday. Four of them are criminal, habeas corpus, or law-enforcement-related civil cases.

Thornell v. Jones, No. 22-982, is a capital habeas case in which the murderer’s claims of ineffective assistance were rejected by the state trial court, the state supreme court, and the federal district court, but a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit decided that all the prior courts were wrong, despite the deference due to state courts’ resolution of claims on the merits and trial courts’ decisions on question of fact. Continue reading . . .

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

by · Dec 3, 2023 1:48 am

Viet Dinh has this op-ed in the WSJ on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who died Friday at the age of 93. Also in WSJ is this editorial, remembering her as a champion of federalism. And indeed she was. Her opinion for the court in Coleman v. Thompson begins, “This is a case about federalism.” As one of the few state court judges elevated to the high court, she had a major role in reining in the excesses of lower federal courts. Those courts often effectively negated the considered decisions of the highest state courts merely because they disagreed with them on debatable points, even though Congress has never given any federal court but the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over state courts. When the Supreme Court did get around to resolving the disagreement, it was not unusual for it to decide the state courts had been right and the lower federal courts wrong, especially in the Ninth Circuit.

When Congress went a big step further in that direction than the Supreme Court had done, and farther than Justice O’Connor thought was within the judicial power, she wrote the critical part of the opinion of the court in Williams v. Taylor, enforcing the most important reform as it was written and intended and upholding it as constitutional. Continue reading . . .

Major Effort to Overturn 9th Circuit Ruling Allowing Homeless Camps

by · Oct 3, 2023 4:08 pm

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined the city of Grants Pass, Oregon to seek a Supreme Court review of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ extension of its 2019 ruling in Martin v. City of Boise. That decision announced, in effect, that the homeless had an Eighth Amendment right to camp on public property in any city where the number of homeless exceeded the number of beds in shelters. The ruling covers the nine western states in the Ninth Circuit which includes Alaska, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, California, Arizona and Hawaii. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a petition by the City of Boise, supported by a brief by CJLF, to review and overturn that ruling.

Continue reading . . .

First Monday in October

by · Oct 2, 2023 8:08 am

The U.S. Supreme Court began its new session this morning. The Court issued an orders list from the Long Conference. As expected, no new cases were taken up.

Only one case is on the docket for argument today. The Court grapples with Congress’s sloppy drafting in the case of Pulsifer v. United States, No. 22-340. Two civil cases are on the docket for tomorrow and Wednesday. Continue reading . . .

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Two Criminal Cases for the New Term

by · Sep 29, 2023 8:11 am

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list taking up twelve cases, two of them criminal, for briefing and argument in the new term. The term begins Monday. Glossip v. Oklahoma, No. 22-7466, in which CJLF co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of the victim’s family and the Oklahoma DA’s Association, is not on the list.

The list is part 1 of the results of the “long conference” last Tuesday. If the Court follows its usual pattern, part 2 will be a long list of denials on Monday. Not all of the cases considered at the conference will be on either list, though. Some will be “relisted” for a second look at a later conference.

Here are the criminal cases taken up: Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court’s ruling on online harassment outrages victims, advocates

by · Jun 29, 2023 3:34 pm

On Tuesday, I noted the danger that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Counterman v. Colorado might be interpreted to require that speech must be classifiable as  a “true threat” in all stalking cases before a prosecution can go forward. Taylor Lorenz has this article in the WaPo with the above title reporting that the effects are being felt already. See below.

I can understand how the Court went forward with the threats analysis in light of the fact that that was how the decision being reviewed justified the prosecution, and that was how both parties presented it. The Court does not normally rule on issues raised only by amici curiae, although it does occasionally.

But there is no excuse for not stating explicitly that the Court was not holding or implying that all stalking cases based solely on communications must pass muster as “true threats” rather than the “time, place, or manner” doctrine. That question should have been expressly left for another day. Continue reading . . .

A Mixed Bag in the Stalking/Threats Case

by · Jun 27, 2023 4:05 pm

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court decided the stalking/threats case of Counterman v. Colorado, No. 22-138. The decision is a mixed bag for the ability of government to protect people from threats and for its ability to protect people from stalking. To punish speech on the basis that it is a threat, the Court held that, at a minimum, “The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. The State need not prove any more demanding form of subjective intent to threaten another.”

As to stalking by speech (or other communication) the need to invoke the “true threats” doctrine under the First Amendment at all is unclear. Continue reading . . .