Notable and ignoble Supreme Court cases

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Granny says, "Dat's right - only Jesus can save us from the lefty lib'rals runnin' dis gubamint...

Supreme Court: It’s OK to Say ‘Jesus’ in Prayers at Town Meetings
May 5, 2014 -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Town of Greece, New York did not violate the First Amendment mandate that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” when it allowed clergy to invoke the name of “Jesus” and use other Christian language when giving opening prayers at meetings of the town’s board.

Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens had sued the town after Galloway told a meeting of the board that its opening prayers were “offensive.” “They alleged that the town violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by preferring Christians over other prayer givers and by sponsoring sectarian prayers, such as those given ‘in Jesus’ name,’” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court in its 5-4 decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway. “They did not seek an end to the prayer practice, but rather requested an injunction that would limit the town to ‘inclusive and ecumenical’ prayers that referred only to a ‘generic God’ and would not associate the government with any one faith or belief,” wrote Kennedy. In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito explained that the town had not intended to favor any particular religion, but had randomly asked local clergy whose congregations were listed in a local directory to say the opening prayer.

After Galloway and Stephens complained about the Christian nature of some of the prayers, the board made an effort to reach out to representatives of non-Christian denominations to say the prayer. “The town decided to emulate a practice long established in Congress and state legislatures by having a brief prayer before sessions of the town board,” said Alito. “The task of lining up clergy members willing to provide such a prayer was given to the town’s office of constituent services. For the first four years of the practice, a clerical employee in the office would randomly call religious organizations listed in the Greece ‘Community Guide,’ a local directory published by the Greece Chamber of Commerce, until she was able to find somebody willing to give the invocation. “This employee eventually began keeping a list of individuals who had agreed to give the invocation, and when a second clerical employee took over the task of finding prayer-givers, the first employee gave that list to the second,” Alito explained. “The second employee then randomly called organizations on that list—and possibly others in the Community Guide—until she found someone who agreed to provide the prayer.

“Apparently, all the houses of worship listed in the local Community Guide were Christian churches,” said Alito. “As a result of this procedure, for some time all the prayers at the beginning of town board meetings were offered by Christian clergy, and many of these prayers were distinctively Christian,” he wrote. “But respondents do not claim that the list was attributable to religious bias or favoritism, and the Court of Appeals acknowledged that the town had ‘no religious animus.’ “For some time, the town’s practice does not appear to have elicited any criticism, but when complaints were received, the town made it clear that it would permit any interested residents, including nonbelievers, to provide an invocation, and the town has never refused a request to offer an invocation,” Alito said in his concurring opinion. “The most recent list in the record of persons available to provide an invocation includes representatives of many non-Christian faiths.”

In his opinion for the court, Justice Kennedy noted: “A Wiccan priestess who had read press reports about the prayer controversy requested, and was granted, an opportunity to give the invocation.” Justice Kennedy argued that if the court accepted the argument made by Galloway and Stephens that only generic prayer could be offered in a public institution that America would be just a few steps away from telling chaplains what they could and could not say. “Our Government is prohibited from prescribing prayers to be recited in our public institutions in order to promote a preferred system of belief or code of moral behavior,” wrote Kennedy. “It would be but a few steps removed from that prohibition for legislatures to require chaplains to redact the religious content from their message in order to make it acceptable for the public sphere. Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy.”

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When do threats cross the line of free speech?...

Free speech or illegal threats? Justices could say
Jun 7,`14 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Messages posted on Facebook and Twitter or sent in emails can be tasteless, vulgar and even disturbing. But just when do they cross the line from free speech to threats that can be punished as a crime?

As the Internet and social networks allow people to vent their frustrations with the click of a mouse, the Supreme Court is being asked to clarify the First Amendment rights of people who use violent or threatening language on electronic media where the speaker's intent is not always clear. The justices could decide as early as Monday whether to hear appeals in two cases where defendants were convicted and sent to jail for making illegal threats, despite their claims that they never meant any harm. In one case, a Pennsylvania man ranted on Facebook in the form of rap lyrics about killing his estranged wife, blowing up an amusement park, slitting the throat of an FBI agent and committing "the most heinous school shooting ever imagined."

The other case involves a Florida woman who emailed a conservative radio talk show host about "second amendment gun rights" and said she was planning "something big" at a Broward County government building or school. "I'm going to walk in and teach all the government hacks working there what the 2nd Amendment is all about," the email said. Her comments triggered a lockdown affecting more than a quarter-million students. In both cases, the defendants were prosecuted under a federal statute that makes it crime to transmit a "threat to injure the person of another." Those laws apply only to "true threats" that are not protected by the First Amendment under a doctrine established by the Supreme Court in 1969. The high court has said laws prohibiting threats must not infringe on constitutionally protected speech that includes "political hyperbole" or "vehement," "caustic," or "unpleasantly sharp attacks" that fall shy of true threats.

Most lower courts say determining a true threat depends on how an objective person would understand the message. But lawyers for the defendants, along with some free-speech groups, say it should depend on the speaker's state of mind. They say the rise of new forms of social media and the freedom of political discourse can lead people to misinterpret comments that are colorful political tirades or coarse rap lyrics not meant to threaten harm. Those who support a subjective standard say the threat law should be governed by the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in Virginia v. Black. In that case, the court invalidated Virginia's law against cross-burning because it did not include a crucial component: whether the Ku Klux Klan intended to intimidate someone by burning the cross. The Obama administration says the cross-burning case does not require a specific intent to threaten. In its brief to the court, Justice Department attorneys say requiring proof of a subjective threat would undermine the law's purpose.

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Court rules on Camp Lejeune groundwater pollution, Texas death penalty...

Supreme Court ruling muddies water in Camp Lejeune pollution case
June 10, 2014 ~ The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a blow to North Carolina families trying to sue over groundwater contamination at a big Marine Corps base.

In a technical decision with real-world consequences, the court upheld North Carolina’s limits on how long people have to bring certain pollution-related lawsuits. By upholding the state’s 10-year limit, called a statute of repose, the court effectively undercut lawsuits centering on Camp Lejeune. “Time is the controlling factor,” Justice Anthony Kennedy declared. The immediate case decided Monday involved the CTS Corp., and not the Camp Lejeune groundwater contamination. The separate Camp Lejeune cases, though, will be affected by the ruling in the CTS case.

That’s because the North Carolina law starts a 10-year clock running from the last culpable act of the defendant — for instance, from when a company stops polluting or sells its property. After the clock runs out, lawsuits alleging injury from the contamination are banned. The state’s 10-year statute of repose is a stricter standard, and potentially friendlier to polluters, than a federal law that starts a two-year lawsuit clock running only after people discover they have been harmed. Often, Kennedy acknowledged, “a person who is exposed to a toxic contaminant may not develop or show signs of resulting injury for many years.”

But though it was not closely divided, the court’s 7-2 majority decision also drew a sharp retort from dissenting justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. “Instead of encouraging prompt identification and remediation before it can kill, the court’s decision gives contaminators an incentive to conceal the hazards they have created until the repose period has run its full course,” Ginsburg wrote. CTS owned an electronics manufacturing facility in Asheville, N.C., until 1987. The land was subsequently sold and developed as a residential subdivision. Long after CTS sold the land, residents began learning in 2009 that their well water contained carcinogenic chemicals, including trichloroethylene.

Trichloroethylene was also one of the chemicals also found in Camp Lejeune water. The residents’ lawsuit over the former CTS Corp. land was filed in 2011, 24 years after the company sold the property. An appellate court said the suit could nonetheless proceed, on the grounds that the federal statute of limitations pegged to discovery of injury pre-empted the state’s statute of repose pegged to the sale of the land. The excruciating question facing the Supreme Court was whether North Carolina’s statute of repose was different than the statute of limitations established in the 1980 federal Superfund law. The court’s majority decided it was, and so was not pre-empted by the federal limit. “Each has a distinct purpose,” Kennedy reasoned, adding that “a statute of repose can be said to provide a fresh start or freedom from liability.”

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Texas execution appeal rejected by US supreme court
Tuesday 10 June 2014 ~ Justices opt not to review intellectual disability claim of Robert Campbell, who was sentenced to death for 1991 rape and murder

The US supreme court on Monday declined to review the intellectual-disability claim of a Texas inmate who is also seeking to force the state to disclose information about the drugs it plans to use to kill him. Robert Campbell was to become the first prisoner put to death in the US since the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in April, but a federal appeals court issued a stay only around three hours before he was due to be injected with a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital. Campbell was sentenced to die for the 1991 rape and murder of Alexandra Rendon, a 20-year-old Houston bank teller.

The federal court decided that Campbell’s claim that he is intellectually disabled – and so not eligible to be executed –deserves more examination after earlier evidence about his IQ test scores appeared to have been incorrect, incomplete or withheld by officials. His lawyers also argued his trial counsel had been inadequate. On Monday, the US supreme court opted not to review this aspect of the case, a decision that Rob Owen, Campbell’s lawyer, said was “entirely expected and unsurprising” due to ongoing litigation elsewhere. An earlier wire report inaccurately said the ruling was related to Texas’s refusal to disclose information about its execution drugs. However, that appeal is still pending, and a decision could be announced within a week – though the supreme court is yet to halt an execution based on a state’s secrecy over its drug supply.

Last month, in a ruling that was a blow to campaigners seeking transparency in the lethal injection process, Texas attorney general Greg Abbott decided that prison officials do not have to publicly reveal details about the state’s supplier of execution drugs. The ruling issued by Abbott’s office means that the Texas department of criminal justice can continue to withhold information about where it obtained its latest stock of pentobarbital. The decision – which is also being appealed – reversed previous instructions from Abbott in 2012 that state officials could not redact fundamental details about their supply and suppliers from documents requested by the public under Texas’ open-records laws.

Earlier this year the TDCJ began doing precisely that, arguing that facts and circumstances have changed and releasing the information –even privately to lawyers for death row inmates – would put its suppliers at risk of harassment or threats from anti-death penalty groups and jeopardise its ability to source more drugs in the future. In common with other states, Texas has changed its protocol and resorted to increasingly furtive measures since a Europe-led boycott cut off supplies of its previous drugs of choice. It currently uses a single-drug protocol of pentobarbital bought from a compounding pharmacy in the state.

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SCOTUS To Issue More Decisions...

Supreme Court decisions could have broad impact
June 19, 2014: WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court will issue more decisions today as it races toward the end of its term -- and many of its most controversial cases are up for grabs.

Fourteen of the court's 70 argued cases remain to be decided on topics ranging from abortion and contraception to Internet streaming and cellphone privacy. Here are six of the top cases to watch in the waning days of the term, in order of when they were argued:

Presidential powers: The justices are in the middle of a power struggle between the other two branches of government in a case brought by a Pepsi bottler from Yakima, Wash. The company is challenging decisions made by a federal labor board that included members President Obama appointed without Senate confirmation. He claimed lawmakers were in recess, though they met every three days in pro-forma sessions. The ruling won't have much immediate impact, because Democrats changed Senate rules to stop Republicans from blocking votes on Obama's nominees. But it could have a far broader impact when the White House and Senate are in opposite hands.

Abortion clinics: A Massachusetts law creating 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics to keep protesters away from patients faces a potential First Amendment roadblock. The court upheld an 8-foot buffer zone in Colorado 14 years ago, but that was a close call. During oral arguments this winter, even liberal justices openly wondered if the Bay State had gone too far.

Greenhouse gases: In another case testing the limits of federal powers, the justices must decide whether the government can require permits for industries that spew the primary pollutant causing climate change. At issue is whether the Environmental Protection Agency went too far by changing the threshold for greenhouse gas emissions in the Clean Air Act. At stake: billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Even if the administration loses, however, it likely would retain other powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources such as power plants, as it already does from cars and trucks.

Religious freedom:

 

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Supreme Court To Decide If Jerusalem Is In Israel...

US Supreme Court to Decide Status of Jerusalem
October 6, 2014 ~ The US Supreme Court will decide the fate on whether to recognize Jerusalem as being a part of Israel as part of several new cases to be taken up during its new term, which opens on Monday.

The nine judges on the high court will hear the case of an American born in Jerusalem who wishes to list his birthplace as Israel on his passport. The case, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, highlights a major dispute between US congress and the president with complex Middle Eastern politics serving as a background. The case, which is before the Supreme Court for a second time, will call into question the issue of checks and balances – Can the president be the sole authority of US foreign policy or can Congress pass laws overriding the president’s policies?

The first challenge to the passport rule was brought to US courts by parents of an American boy, Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem right after the law was passed. Had he been born in Tel Aviv, the State Department would issue a passport listing Israel as place of birth. The US does not recognize Jerusalem as belonging under any nation’s sovereignty, saying that the status of Jerusalem should be determined via peace agreements. In 2002, Congress passed a law that says American’s born in Jerusalem should be able to list Israel as their birthplace.

The Obama administration maintains that the law would be viewed as a US endorsement of Israeli control over Jerusalem. The executive branch says that the Congressional law interferes with the president’s right to recognize a foreign country. Among some of the other cases that will come before the Supreme Court this term are those revolving around housing discrimination, religious discrimination, Facebook threats, and prison beards.

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/2...-decide-status-jerusalem/#EIO4Of47azq66ZSR.97

 

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Supreme Court Divided Over Jerusalem Status...

Supreme Court divided over Jerusalem native's passport
November 3, 2014 WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court appeared as divided over a 12-year-old Jerusalem native's passport Monday as Israel and the Palestinian Authority are on the broader issues dividing the Middle East.

Roughly half the justices defended Congress' right to declare, as it did in 2002, that Americans born in Jerusalem should be able to have "Israel" listed as the place of birth on their passports. The other half vehemently defended the State Department's right to set foreign policy, including which countries have sovereignty over territory. Calling Jerusalem part of Israel when the matter is in dispute, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, would be "asking the government to lie." The argument over young Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky's passport has dragged on virtually since he was born, and it now falls to the Supreme Court to end it -- a task many of the justices clearly did not relish.

Menachem's parents, Ari and Naomi, want to have his passport changed to reflect Israel, not Jerusalem, as his birthplace. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, says that would reflect much more: a change in U.S. foreign policy capable of raising tensions in the Middle East. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said if the court sides with Congress and the Zivotofskys, it would undermine the president's authority to set policy for "the most vexing and volatile and difficult diplomatic issue that this country has faced for decades." The Zivotofskys' attorney, Alyza Lewin, called that argument "grossly exaggerated."

Menachem Zivotofsky stands outside the Supreme Court Monday with his father, Ari.

The court's four liberal members -- including its only three Jews -- clearly sided with the administration. Justice Elena Kagan belittled what Congress passed as "a very selective vanity-plate law," intimating it would not do the same if Palestinians born in Jerusalem wanted their passports to say "Palestine." "Right now, Jerusalem is a tinderbox," Kagan said, referring to daily strife between Palestinians and Israelis over the sanctity of the Temple Mount. "History suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem." But Justice Antonin Scalia, who along with Chief Justice John Roberts and other conservatives appeared to side with Congress in the dispute, chided the State Department for wanting to "make nice with the Palestinians."

In the middle, as he is most often, was Justice Anthony Kennedy. On the one hand, he said the administration's argument that changing the boy's passport confers recognition by Israel over Jerusalem "trumps" the contention that Congress did not intend to usurp the president's recognition power. But on the other hand, Kennedy proffered a potential compromise: a statement written on such passports that designating "Israel" as the birthplace does not signify a change in U.S. foreign policy. Ever since Israel was recognized in 1948, the official U.S. policy has been that Jerusalem is a city unto itself. "For a person born in Jerusalem, write JERUSALEM as the place of birth in the passport," the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual clearly states. "Do not write Israel, Jordan or West Bank for a person born within the current municipal borders of Jerusalem."

The tug of war between the White House and Congress over Menachem's passport also raises a conundrum that has never been resolved in the nation's 238-year history: Which branch of government gets to recognize foreign countries? Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed a massive foreign relations law in 2002 that included a section stating that for Americans born in Jerusalem, "the Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen's legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel." But Bush included a "signing statement" opposing that provision as unconstitutional, and the Obama administration agrees. If the Zivotofskys win their case, it could lead to a long line of other Jerusalem natives seeking to change their passports; some 50,000 U.S. citizens were born there.

Supreme Court divided over Jerusalem native s passport

 

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Supreme Court rejects case calling Senate filibusters unconstitutional...

Court rejects appeal over Senate filibuster rules
November 3, 2014 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a public interest group and four members of Congress who challenged the Senate filibuster as unconstitutional.

The justices let stand a lower court ruling that said Common Cause and the lawmakers did not have legal standing to pursue the case. The plaintiffs argued that Senate rules requiring at least 60 votes to bring legislation to a vote violates the constitutional principle of majority rule. A federal appeals court said the lawsuit was filed against the wrong parties.

The case was brought against Vice President Joe Biden in his role as president of the Senate, and against the Senate's secretary, parliamentarian and sergeant at arms. Common Cause says it can't sue the Senate directly because that is barred under the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause.

Last year, the Senate voted to end use of the filibuster rule from blocking most presidential nominees. Democrats said they ended the rule out of frustration that Republicans were routinely using the tactic to block President Barack Obama's nominees for pivotal judgeships and other top jobs. But 60 votes are still required to end filibusters against legislation.

Court rejects appeal over Senate filibuster rules CNS News

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High court won't hear crisis pregnancy center case
November 3, 2014 - WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a portion of a New York City law aimed at regulating crisis pregnancy centers that are run by anti-abortion organizations.

The court rejected a free-speech appeal Monday in which the centers argued that the law's requirement that they disclose whether a licensed medical provider works at the facilities is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

City officials said the 2011 law protects consumers and demands truth in advertising.

Courts have blocked other parts of the law, including a requirement that centers disclose whether they provide referrals for abortion, emergency contraception or prenatal care.

High court won t hear crisis pregnancy center case CNS News

 

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SCOTUS to take up abortion case...

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Texas abortion challenge
Nov. 13, 2015 -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a new Texas law that has dwindled the number of abortion clinics in the Lone Star State -- in what will be the high court's first major abortion case in eight years.

The challenge takes on a Texas law passed in 2013 that has reduced the number of abortion providers in Texas from about 40 to about 10. The Texas law that has caused so many clinics to shut down mandates that abortion providers have the same standards as "ambulatory surgical centers," with certain requirements for equipment, staff and infrastructure. The challengers to the law say it will "delay or prevent thousands of women from obtaining abortions and lead some to resort to unsafe or illegal methods of ending an unwanted pregnancy." "There would be no licensed abortion facilities west of San Antonio," the challengers' brief said.

Anti-abortion protesters spar with abortion rights supporters during the March for Life on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., last year. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that has reduced the number of abortion providers in that state, largely due to new legal restrictions and requirements imposed on clinics that perform abortions.​

Opponents to the Texas law say the regulations are unnecessary and expensive, and some say they are designed to weed out abortion clinics. "Women's access to high-quality, evidence-based abortion care should not be limited by laws enacted under the guise of patient safety but that, in fact, harm women's health," the brief, Whole Woman's Health v. Cole, says. "Today the Supreme Court took an important step toward restoring the constitutional rights of millions of women, which Texas politicians have spent years dismantling through deceptive laws and regulatory red tape," said Center for Reproductive Rights official Nancy Northup. Proponents of the law say the provisions are necessary to ensure women's health and safety.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fervent supporter of the 2013 law, believes the Supreme Court should not hear the case because the high court, he said, is not qualified to become a "ex officio medical board" that determines national medical standards. The Supreme Court's ruling in the case is expected to have far-reaching implications on the issue of abortion nationwide. The Supreme Court's willingness to hear the challenge comes at a time when abortion is receiving renewed attention -- partially due to the controversy over supposed "undercover" videos that depict Planned Parenthood personnel discussing the sale of fetal tissue. Lawmakers have been investigating the videos, and some have attempted to strip the organization of its federal funding. Some Democrats and Planned Parenthood's president, though, maintain that the videos are edited and not an accurate representation of the organization's operational principles.

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Texas abortion challenge

 

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Supremes throw out Florida's death penalty...

High Court Throws Out Florida's Death Penalty
Jan 14, 2016 | WASHINGTON -- By a vote of 8-1 the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Florida's death penalty statute unconstitutional, concluding that it gave judges too much power.

Juries -- not judges -- should make the final decision in whether a defendant should be executed, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Under Florida's current system, a judge makes the final decision after a 12-member jury has listened to evidence and made a recommendation. However, that recommendation need not be unanimous, something often criticized by death-penalty opponents. The high court released its opinion mid-morning. Legislative leaders in Tallahassee were expected to weigh in on what to do -- revise the current statute or abandon the death penalty altogether -- later in the day.

There are currently 390 inmates on Florida's death row. The Department of Corrections had no immediate response to the ruling. Neither did Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. The case that up-ended Florida's death penalty statute involved Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of murdering his boss at a Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola in 1998. The jury voted 7-5 in favor of death, and a judge imposed the death sentence. Under Florida law, the judge -- not the jury --must enumerate each specific reason that a defendant deserves to be executed. The statute includes a list of them. They're called "aggravators." One example is witness elimination, i.e. a defendant killed someone specifically to make sure there'd be no witness.

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But Sotomayor wrote that is an assignment that should fall on the jury. "The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant's right to an impartial jury," Sotomayor wrote. "This right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst's death sentence on a jury's verdict, not a judge's factfinding." The only justice opposed the ruling was Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote a dissent, saying that under Florida's sentencing scheme, a trial judge merely formalizes a decision already made by the jury. The high court ordered the case back to the Florida Supreme Court, which had earlier rejected Hurst's appeal 4-3, and instructed it to revise its ruling. Florida is one of only three states that does not require a unanimous jury verdict when sentencing someone to death. The others are Alabama and Delaware.

In Tallahassee, Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, is sponsoring a bill which would require a unanimous jury vote in death penalty cases. "For decades we've known that there are problems with our capital sentencing scheme," Rodriguez said. Today's decision "means we can fix our death penalty if the political will is there." Even though the Hurst case was pending before the high court, Florida carried out two executions: Jerry Correll on Oct. 29 and Oscar Ray Bolin on Jan. 7. Correll's attorneys had asked the Florida Supreme Court to stay his execution until the high court ruled on Hurst, but it denied the request on Oct. 19. A jury recommended death for Correll by a vote of 9-3 in 1985, court records show.

Supreme Court Throws Out Florida's Death Penalty | Officer.com

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Fate of Florida death row inmates in limbo after U.S. Supreme Court ruling
Thu Jan 14, 2016 -- The fate of the 390 inmates on Florida's death row was uncertain after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the state's capital punishment sentencing process.

Two upcoming executions, scheduled for February and March, could be affected as the Florida Supreme Court agreed to consider arguments on whether the ruling by the U.S. high court applied retroactively. The American Bar Association said Florida should hold off on pending executions until the courts and lawmakers have addressed the fallout from the ruling. Florida has the second-largest number of people on death row of any state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. "The current death penalty scheme in Florida is in limbo," said Sarah Turberville, director of justice programs for the Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal rights advocacy group.

In an 8-1 decision on Tuesday, U.S. justices found that Florida unconstitutionally gives judges powers that juries should wield. The ruling invalidated a system that has allowed judges, rather than juries, to specify the aggravating factors that determine a defendant's eligibility for execution. While experts say the impact on other states is limited, changes in Florida could dramatically shift the U.S. landscape for capital punishment. Florida's death row is second in size only to California, which has not carried out an execution in a decade, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.

Some experts argued that scores of death sentences in Florida could be seen as flawed. "I don’t think it's possible to find a case that is not affected," said Karen Gottlieb, co-director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation, based at Florida International University in Miami, noting retroactivity questions. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said state laws must be rewritten but did not indicate how broadly. "The impact of the court’s ruling on existing death sentences will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

Just how much the Republican-controlled legislature is willing to reform the state's death penalty sentencing process remains to be seen. "There is no appetite to repeal the death penalty," said Representative Carlos Trujillo, chairman of the criminal justice subcommittee in the Florida House of Representatives. He added he expected to introduce a bill addressing only the issues raised in the decision. In the case reviewed by the high court, a jury voted 7-5 to recommend a death sentence for Timothy Hurst in the 1998 murder of a fried-chicken restaurant manager, without specifying what aggravating factors applied.

Fate of Florida death row inmates in limbo after U.S. Supreme Court ruling

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Granny says, "Dat's right - sue the schlitz outta `em...

US High Court Considers Iranian Payments for Terror Victims
January 13, 2016 - The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up the sensitive question of whether Iran has to pay nearly $2 billion in compensation to the families of victims of what the U.S. sees as Iranian-backed terrorist attacks.

Among the families are the relatives of the 241 U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines killed in an October 1983 suicide attack on the military barracks in Beirut. The U.S. determined that the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah was responsible. Lawyers from both sides presented their arguments before the court Wednesday.

The Iranian central bank, which would have to pay out the funds, petitioned the high court to take up the case. The U.S. Congress passed a law in 2014 specifying that frozen Iranian assets in the U.S - including funds handled by second parties that do business in the U.S. - be turned over to the terror victims suing Iran. Central bank lawyers argue that Congress violated the constitutional separation of the three branches of the U.S. government - judicial, legislative and executive - by directly intervening in a legal case.

Lawyers for the victims' families say Congress was within its constitutional limits. Lower courts have upheld the families' right to compensation. It is unclear when the high court will decide the case. It comes at an extremely touchy time in U.S.-Iranian relations with the nuclear agreement about to come into force.

US High Court Considers Iranian Payments for Terror Victims

 

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Supreme Court gonna decide on Obama immigration plan...

U.S. top court takes up case on Obama immigration plan
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear President Barack Obama's bid to resurrect his plan to shield more than 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation, a unilateral executive action he took in 2014 to bypass the Republican-led Congress.

Obama's action was blocked by lower courts after Texas and 25 other Republican-governed states sued to stop it, contending he exceeded his presidential powers under the U.S. Constitution. The case will be argued before the high court in the coming months, with a ruling due by the end of June. The case is not the first time Obama has asked the Supreme Court to rescue a major initiative. The court in 2012 and 2015 rejected conservative challenges to his signature healthcare law. The White House expressed confidence the court would now deem as lawful Obama's immigration action, which was crafted to let millions of illegal immigrants whose children are American citizens or lawful permanent residents to get into a program that protects them from deportation and supplies work permits.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said courts have long recognized the limits to presidential authority. "The court should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he cannot unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people's representatives," Paxton said. The nine justices will review a November ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a February 2015 decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, to halt Obama's action.

With some of his major legislative initiatives suffocated by Republican lawmakers, the Democratic president has resorted to executive action to get around Congress on issues including immigration, gun control and the Obamacare healthcare law. The most recent executive action came this month when he acted unilaterally to expand background checks for certain gun purchases. His executive actions have antagonized Republicans who accuse him of unlawfully taking actions by executive fiat that only Congress can perform. Those eligible for Obama's program would be able to work legally and receive some federal benefits. States were not required to provide any benefits. His order expanded on a 2012 program that provided similar relief for people who became illegal immigrants as children.

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"Supreme Court rules in favor of former Iowa drug addict"...

The Important Supreme Court Decision You Didn't Hear About Last Week
6 Mar.`11 - If you think Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church made out well last week before the U.S. Supreme Court consider the case of Jason Pepper. The confessed former methamphetamine dealer won his own case last week at the high court -- and may not have to go back to prison for his old crime (he was released pending the appeal).

The reason you probably haven't heard much about Pepper is because the decision in his case, Pepper v. United States, came out last Wednesday just a few minutes before the justices released their opinion in the high-profile case of Snyder v. Phelps, in which the court upheld the free speech rights of anti-gay funeral protesters. Virtually all of the coverage of the day's Supreme Court news, and the next day's for that matter, focused on the Phelps' First Amendment case, leaving Pepper's sentencing decision under reported, if not completely under appreciated. "Supreme Court rules in favor of former Iowa drug addict" is how the Des Moines Register put it.

The court, in a 6-2 vote (Justice Elena Kagan recused), held that Pepper's rights had been violated when a judge who was re-sentencing him refused to consider the significant "rehabilitation" Pepper had accomplished since first being sentenced years earlier. In so doing, the justices moved to finally end an eight-year-long case (a case far longer, by the way, than either of the sentences meted out to Pepper) and generated another round of judicial debate over the roles of the courts and the Congress when it comes to crime and punishment.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion. She offered yet another interpretation of the vagaries of the sentencing guidelines, the congressionally sanctioned and judicially administered rules that help determine which convicted criminal gets which prison sentence and why. For the third time in six years, the court weighed the policies contained in those guidelines and rejected them. So that sound you heard late last week was the sound of federal prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys scrambling over their sentencing tactics in pending federal cases. Like its immediate predecessors, Pepper v. United States is required reading.

About those predecessors. In 2005, the Court in Booker v. United States stunned many people when it declared the guidelines "advisory" and not "mandatory" to give back some sentencing discretion to the federal judges who are asked to impose a sentence. In 2007, the court in Kimbrough v. United States, furthered refined the scope of the guidelines, again saying that they must yield to constitutional protections. And now Pepper, which is particularly relevant at a time when federal prisons in some jurisdictions (like California) are terribly overcrowded. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented (separately) and Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a concurring opinion.

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I agree with this completely.

Prevents investigators from watching someone because they want to , or clients of Private Investigators abusing the system .

If it's worth investigating, it's worth documenting - Affidavit & Warrant.

Yes , I agree with this also.


Shadow 355

 

[waltky]

Congress is supposed to set immigration policy...

'Great Day in America'; SCOTUS Can Allow 4M Illegal Aliens to Stay
January 20, 2016 | "It's a great day in America," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) on Tuesday, after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to President Obama's executive amnesty plan.

The question for the court: Does Obama have the constitutional authority to unilaterally grant work permits and Social Security numbers to as many as 5 million illegal aliens, thus shielding them from deportation by executive action? "I'm proud of the fact that the Supreme Court has taken on the case. And I'm very joyful today," Gutierrez told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Gutierrez said if the Supreme Court had not agreed to hear the case, "it was dead." "It was never going to be going anywhere in the 7th Circuit (Court of Appeals). It was over." The congressman said President Obama wouldn't even be president by the time the case was resolved in the lower courts, and he said he believes the Supreme Court knew that and wanted to make it an issue. "And it's great that it should become an issue in July of this year, as everybody's having their conventions and we're looking forward to a presidential campaign with the nominees of each party." The Supreme Court usually issues its major opinions at the end of its term, in June or July.

Blitzer reminded Gutierrez that the case is not a "slam dunk for your side." The Constitution of the United States gives Congress, not the Executive Branch, authority over immigration. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says: “Congress shall have power…to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Obama himself on several occasions has said that he can't just change immigration law unilaterally. "What we can do it prioritize enforcement," he said in 2011.

In November 2014, the White House announced that President Obama -- "acting within his legal authority" -- would allow millions of illegal aliens who had lived in the Unite States for more than five years and are the parents of U.S.-born children to register with the government, allowing them a temporary reprieve from deportation. They would "come out of the shadows," Obama promised, getting Social Security numbers and work permits and paying their "fair share" of taxes.

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[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - hang `em high...

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal to outlaw death penalty
WASHINGTON — Monday, Jan. 25, 2016 | The U.S. Supreme Court is rejecting a Pennsylvania inmate’s appeal to consider banning the death penalty across the United States.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning away a challenge from death row inmate Shonda Walter.

Walter’s appeal plays off Justice Stephen Breyer’s call in an impassioned dissent in June to re-evaluate the death penalty in light of problems involving its imposition and use.

Breyer renewed his plea last week when he was the lone justice willing to give a last-minute reprieve to an Alabama death row inmate who was later put to death.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal to outlaw death penalty

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "If dey do an adult crime - den dey ought do adult time...

US Supreme Court: Juveniles Sentenced to Life Can Seek Parole
January 25, 2016 - Hundreds of inmates in U.S. prisons who were sentenced as juveniles to life without parole can now challenge those punishments, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court extended a 2012 decision prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from being sentenced to life without parole by making it retroactive for all such offenders who were given life sentences in the past. Monday's case was brought by Henry Montgomery, who in 1963 shot and killed a sheriff's deputy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the age of 17. His lawyers said Montgomery fired in panic when the officer confronted him while playing hooky from school.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday extended a 2012 decision banning life sentences without parole to offenders under the age of 18 so that it would be applied retroactively.​

But the court in his trial was barred by law from considering arguments that his age should matter. Montgomery is now 69 and says his rehabilitation in prison should make him eligible for parole. The Louisiana Supreme Court disagreed, and his challenge made it to the nation's highest judicial body. "Prisoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

'Disproportionate sentence'

More than 2,300 prisoners across the U.S. are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes some of them committed decades ago when they were teenagers, according to a report by the nonprofit law firm, Phillips Black. Such mandatory sentences are now banned for juveniles, but this is the first time the prohibition will be applied retroactively. "No one should have to serve an unconstitutional life sentence," said University of California Irvine Law Professor Edwin Chemerinsky. "[The ruling] is exactly as it should be." Just five U.S. jurisdictions are responsible for a quarter of all the juvenile life-without-parole sentences nationwide, the report said.

The leader is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with nine percent of all juvenile lifers. Others are Los Angeles, California; Orleans Parish, Louisiana (which includes the city of New Orleans); Cook County, Illinois (which includes Chicago); and St. Louis, Missouri. Michigan also has a very large population of juvenile lifers. "Allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity — and who have since matured — will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment," Kennedy wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's liberal bloc. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to decide the case. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito also dissented. Monday's decision reverses the Louisiana Supreme Court's ruling and sends the case back to the lower courts.

US Supreme Court: Juveniles Sentenced to Life Can Seek Parole

 

[waltky]

Court halts Obama's key climate plan...

Obama climate initiative: Supreme Court calls halt
Wed, 10 Feb 2016 - President Obama's plans to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide from US power plants are stalled by the Supreme Court.

The court ruled that the president's Clean Power Plan could not go forward until all legal challenges were heard. Designed to cut US emissions by 32% by 2030, the scheme put huge emphasis on a shift to renewable energy. It formed the key element of the US pledge at UN climate negotiations held in Paris in December last year. Introduced by the president last August, the plan set carbon reduction goals for each state and it was up to the states themselves to come up with proposals to meet those goals. A group of 27 states, utilities and coal miners sought to block the proposal in the courts. They argued that the plan was an infringement on states' rights. An initial attempt to halt the implementation of the plan until legal challenges were heard was thrown out by a US appeals court in Washington in January. However the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to suspend the plan pending the outcome of the litigation.

US power stations are the country's largest source of greenhouse gases​

White House 'disagrees' with ruling

White House spokesman Josh Earnest put out a statement following the decision: "We disagree with the Supreme Court's decision to stay the Clean Power Plan while litigation proceeds. "The Clean Power Plan is based on a strong legal and technical foundation, gives states the time and flexibility they need to develop tailored, cost-effective plans to reduce their emissions, and will deliver better air quality, improved public health, clean energy investment and jobs across the country, and major progress in our efforts to confront the risks posed by climate change. "We remain confident that we will prevail on the merits." The ruling could have significant implications for the president's attempt to cut down on carbon.

Under the Clean Power Plan, individual states were due to submit their proposals on how to meet the CO2 restrictions by September this year. That date will be missed. It is unlikely that all the legal questions over the future of the Clean Power Plan will be resolved before President Obama leaves office next January. West Virginia's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey called the high court's action a "great victory". "We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule's immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues," he said in a statement. Supporters of the Clean Power Plan were confident that the courts would ultimately upheld its legality. "The electricity sector has embarked on an unstoppable shift from its high-pollution, dirty-fuelled past to a safer, cleaner-powered future, and the stay cannot reverse that trend," said David Doniger, from the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Nor can it dampen the overwhelming public support for action on climate change and clean energy."

The ruling will be seen as a major embarrassment for President Obama, who helped craft a new global agreement on climate change at UN sponsored talks in Paris in December. What will worry the White House more is the division of the court along ideological lines, with conservative justices all supporting the stay while the liberal justices opposed.[ If these divisions hold, the Clean Power Plan may suffer further setbacks in the Supreme Court which may ultimately render it useless. If that was to happen, the ability of the US to live up to its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement would be in serious doubt.

Obama climate initiative: Supreme Court calls halt - BBC News

See also:

Intelligence Director: Climate Change Could Lead to Larger Refugee Crisis
February 9, 2016 – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned Tuesday that the effects of climate change could lead to mass migrations in the years ahead that will strain the western world on a much larger scale than the Syrian refugee crisis, adding that worldwide resources to support a growing population are “somewhat of a finite resource.”

“What we have in the world by way of resource to feed and support the growing population is somewhat of a finite resource,” said Clapper, adding that there’s only so much water, air and land that can be used to grow crops, so climate change will “foment more pressure for migrants” in addition to “instability of governance.”

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on worldwide threats, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said Tuesday that he was afraid that the Syrian refugee crisis will be a precursor to a larger refugee crisis over the next 10-20 years “based upon predictions of climate change.” “You touch on this Director Clapper in your report. I’m afraid that the Syrian refugee crisis is a precursor of a larger refugee crisis that we could be facing over the next 10 or 20 years, based upon predictions of climate change,” said King. “The band of the world that is going to be subject to drought, famine, crop loss, flooding in some areas, incredible heat in the band around north Africa, central Africa, into southeast Asia. We could see mass migrations that could really strain the western countries. Would you concur in that secretary?” King asked.

“Well I think you’re quite right, and I alluded to that at least briefly in my oral statement about the fact that we have some 60 million people around the globe displaced in one way or another, and I think that—” Clapper responded. “If that increases, it’s going to create—because all those people are going to want to go where things are better, which happens to be the north hemisphere,” King interjected. “Exactly, and so that’s why that …will place ever greater stresses on the remainder of the countries – whether here in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, wherever – and the effects of climate change, of weather aberrations – however you want to describe them – just exacerbate this,” Clapper said. “What we have in the world by way of resource to feed and support the growing population is somewhat of a finite resource. There’s only so much water, only so much arable land, and so the conditions that you mention I believe are going to foment more pressure for migrants – that on top of the instability of governance that I spoke briefly in my oral statement as well I think are going to make for a challenging situation in the future,” he added.

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[waltky]

Justices considering legality of profiling...

Justices Divided Over Giving L.E. More Leeway
Feb 23, 2016 | WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court resumed hearing arguments Monday for the first time since Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death and immediately plunged into a heated dispute over police powers that underscored how the remaining eight justices might find themselves increasingly deadlocked this term.

As they considered whether to give police more leeway to stop and question people in high-crime neighborhoods, the justices appeared split along familiar ideological lines, raising the possibility of what some predict could be several 4-4 votes without Scalia. Before arguments began, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. opened the session with a tribute to Scalia, whose seat was draped with black cloth. The conservative justice was found dead at a Texas resort Feb. 13. “We remember his incisive intellect, his agile wit and his captivating prose,” Roberts said. “But we cannot forget his irrepressible spirit. He was our man for all seasons, and we shall miss him beyond measure.”

Once arguments got underway, the justices — now evenly split between Republican and Democratic appointees — voiced starkly different views on the case. At issue is whether to relax the so-called “exclusionary rule” and permit the use of evidence that was found after an officer had illegally stopped a pedestrian or motorist. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the nation was in danger of “becoming a police state” if officers can stop every person on the corner, ask for identification, check for warrants and then search them if one is found.

But the chief justice said he saw no problem with an officer asking for identification from a man seen leaving a suspected drug house and checking to see if he had an outstanding arrest warrant. While the case heard Monday centered around events in Salt Lake City, much of the argument focused on Ferguson, Mo., which exploded into unrest in 2014 after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man. Subsequent investigations into the practices of the Ferguson Police Department found that more than two-thirds of the city’s residents had outstanding warrants, mostly for unpaid parking tickets and minor fines.

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[waltky]

The Electrical Grid and the Supreme Court...

Trio of Supreme Court Cases Could Electrify US Energy Markets
February 29, 2016 | WASHINGTON — A consequential energy case that cuts to the heart of the delicate balance between state and federal regulation of electricity markets in the United States made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court last week.

This is the third high-profile legal battle within the last year to define the turf of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency empowered to oversee wholesale transactions on the U.S. electricity market. The combined opinions from the three cases are expected to help clarify the boundaries between FERC’s authority and that of the states in a rapidly evolving energy sector where deregulation and a burst of new technologies and business models are revolutionizing the industry.

A NASA composite image from satellite data shows the United States lit up at night. Recent Supreme Court rulings have paved the way for a host of new technologies that are revolutionizing the electricity industry and creating an advanced "Smart Grid."​

But that’s no easy task. "The fact that the court has taken three different cases involving jurisdiction over the electric grid within a year shows how difficult it is to define [that] dividing line," said Joel Eisen, a law professor at the University of Richmond. At issue in Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing and CVP Maryland, LLC v. Talen Energy Marketing is whether a Maryland program that incentivizes new power generation improperly cuts into FERC’s authority. If so, that would violate the Federal Power Act, which effectively limits states to regulating retail rates and sales.

The recent shift to giant regional electricity markets that use complex pricing and supply-calculating mechanisms is a major factor blurring the line between the commission’s arm and that of the states. "Many assume a jurisdictional bright line between FERC and the states, but with a modernizing grid the reality is more likely to be shared authority between the two," Eisen said. "The issue in Hughes is how far a state can go in promoting power plants when its actions might impact the wholesale markets," he said.

Court saves the Smart Grid

 

[waltky]

Supreme Court to take up Obama immigration policy...

Supreme Court takes up Obama immigration policy
April 17, 2016 -- An evenly split Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday challenging the Obama administration's program that allows undocumented immigrants to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

Lawyers for the Republican leadership in Congress and the states will challenge President Barack Obama's actions on the immigration matter, just as they have over healthcare and same-sex marriage. The president's legal team will have to win over at least one of the high court's more conservative justices, the Los AngelesTimes reported. If the vote splits - possible with the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia - it would keep in place a Texas judge's order to block Obama's deportation relief plan from taking effect.

The president, in November 2014, unveiled the centerpiece for his second term: executive actions to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to come out of the legal shadows in this country, WGNO ABC reported. The Texas court put the brakes on the plan, sending it to the Supreme Court. The eight justices will hear from 26 states and the House of Representatives that are challenging the president's action. At issue is whether the president has the power to extend such "temporary relief" from deportation and offer work permits to immigrant parents of U.S. citizens or lawful residents. Immigration experts say about a quarter of those who stand to benefit live in California.

In a written brief, Republicans said Obama's order is a threat to the constitutional system because if he can defy Congress and change the law himself, the nation has abandoned its "bedrock of constitutional principal." States call the executive actions "an extraordinary assertion of executive power." Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, acting as lead lawyer in the case, argues in court papers the administration "has unilaterally crafted an enormous program—one of the largest changes ever to our Nation's approach to immigration" and in doing so, the president dispensed with immigration statutes by declaring unlawful conduct to be lawful."

Supreme Court takes up Obama immigration policy

See also:

Supreme Court Considers Fate of Millions of Undocumented Immigrants
April 17, 2016 | WASHINGTON — The nation’s highest court will consider the fate of as many as 4 million undocumented immigrants Monday, when Supreme Court justices hear opening arguments in a landmark case debating the legality of President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

The justices’ decision will have far-reaching implications on executive actions by future presidential administrations and comes at a time when the nation’s flawed immigration system is a constant focus of election-year debate. The lawsuit in U.S. v. Texas asks the court to consider whether the president’s 2014 executive actions deferring deportations for some undocumented immigrants are within the government’s authority to direct immigration policy, or whether the president exceeded his constitutional authority by making new immigration laws.

Pending lawsuits

A decision in the Texas lawsuit will affect pending lawsuits in 25 other states opposing the president’s immigration actions. Government lawyers are expected to argue that the federal government has the authority to direct immigration policy and can exercise its discretion in deciding priorities for the deportation of undocumented immigrants. “It is exclusively the domain of the federal government to decide who gets to stay and who gets to go,” said Angela Kelley, the executive vice president at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

President Obama’s November 2014 executive actions expanded and created programs deferring deportation for the undocumented parents of legal U.S. citizens and residents, and for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children. The programs open up the opportunity for legal work permits but do not give applicants a path to permanent residency or citizenship.

Kelley said Obama’s executive actions build on decisions from past Democratic and Republican administrations to prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal histories rather than deporting undocumented children and immigrants with ties to the U.S. Opponents say the Obama administration has not made a convincing constitutional argument for its actions.

'Without historical precedent'

 

[waltky]

SCOTUS okay with voter ID law...

Supreme Court refuses to block Texas voter ID law
April 29, 2016 | WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal to stop Texas from enforcing its challenged voter ID law. But the court said it could revisit the issue as the November elections approach.

The law has been in effect for recent elections, even after a trial judge struck it down in 2014 and an appellate panel found last year that the law had a discriminatory effect on minority voters. The challengers in the ongoing lawsuit argue there is no reason to allow the requirement to show picture identification at the polls to remain in place. But justices rejected the plea in a brief order Friday. The full New Orleans-based appeals court will hold a new hearing on the Texas law in May. The high court said that it is aware of "the time constraints the parties confront in light of the scheduled elections." If the full appeals court has not issued a ruling by July 20, the court said, it would entertain a renewed emergency appeal over the voter ID law.

Gerry Hebert, who runs the public interest law firm that represents Texas voters challenging the law, said Friday's order gives his clients a chance to again ask the Supreme Court for help if the appeals court does not rule quickly. "This order gives us the opportunity to protect Texas voters if the 5th Circuit fails to rule in time," said Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the identification requirement a "common-sense law to provide simple protections to the integrity of our elections and the democratic process in our state." He said the state looked forward to defending the law in the appeals court next month.

Friday's order was the second time the justices have refused to block the voter ID law in Texas. In 2014, the court allowed the law to be used in the then-imminent general election. The order two years ago was issued two days before the start of early voter in Texas and without explanation, but appeared to be based on the court's view that changing the rules so close to an election would be confusing. Three justices dissented in 2014: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, said the ID requirement created the potential for "racially discriminatory voter disenfranchisement."

Other Republican-controlled states, including Wisconsin and North Carolina, have passed similar voter ID measures that also are being fought in the courts. But the Texas law is widely viewed as one of the nation's toughest. It requires one of seven forms of approved identification, but unlike other states with voter ID restrictions, Texas doesn't recognize university IDs from college students. It does, however, accept concealed handgun licenses as proof of identity. Free voting IDs are available from the state, but opponents have said getting those cards still puts underlying financial costs on voters, such as paying for birth certificate copies and travel. While there have been anecdotal reports of confusion in the Texas elections held while the law is in force, there haven't been widespread issues with people being unable to cast ballots because they lacked proper identification.

Supreme Court refuses to block Texas voter ID law

 

[waltky]

SCOTUS allows remote search...

Court expands FBI hacking powers
Fri, 29 Apr 2016 - The US Supreme Court approves a rule change that could allow law enforcement to remotely search computers located anywhere in the US, and beyond.

Previously, magistrate judges could order searches only within the jurisdiction of their court, often limited to a few counties. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said the change was necessary to modernise the law for the digital age. But digital rights groups say the move expands the FBI's hacking authority. The DoJ wants judges to be able to issue remote search warrants for computers located anywhere that the United States claims jurisdiction, which could include other countries. A remote search typically involves trying to access a suspect's computer over the internet to explore the data contained on it. It has pushed for a change in the rules since 2013, arguing that criminals can mask their location and identity online making it difficult to determine which jurisdiction a computer is located in.

'Only mechanism available'

"Criminals now have ready access to sophisticated anonymising technologies to conceal their identity while they engage in crime over the internet," said DoJ spokesman Peter Carr. "The use of remote searches is often the only mechanism available to law enforcement to identify and apprehend them. "The amendment makes explicit that it does not change the traditional rules governing probable cause and notice." It said the change would not give law enforcement any new authority not already permitted by law. However, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have warned that the change could expand the FBI's ability to conduct mass hacks on computer networks.

'Thousands of millions of computers'

"Such a monumental change in the law should not be snuck by Congress under the guise of a procedural rule," said Neema Singh Guliani of the ACLU. In 2015, search giant Google also opposed the change, which, it said, "threatens to undermine the privacy rights and computer security of internet users". Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said the change had "significant consequences for Americans' privacy", and said he would seek to reverse the decision.

Snooping on a tablet computer​

"Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime," he said in a statement. Congress can still opt to reject or modify the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure - but if it does not act by 1 December the change will take effect.

US Supreme Court approves expanded hacking powers - BBC News