Roberts Court enters a divisive second year.Last month, the Supreme Court began its new term with a docket full of cases concerning some of society's most divisive issues. In its first year, the Roberts Court produced no major decisions on abortion rights, affirmative action affirmative action, in the United States, programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women. , or the separation of church and state
Punitive damages In Philip Morris USA v. Williams Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 549 U.S. ___ (2007), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment bars punitive damages for harm caused to individuals not involved in the litigation. , the Court will return to the question of when large punitive damages awards violate due process. (1) Mayola Williams's husband died of lung cancer after 40 years of smoking cigarettes made by Philip Morris. The jury agreed with her claim that the company had engaged over several decades in a massive, fraudulent campaign to mislead consumers about the dangers of smoking. The Oregon Court of Appeals The Oregon Court of Appeals is the state intermediate appellate court in the U.S. state of Oregon. Except for death penalty cases, which are reserved to the Oregon Supreme Court, and tax court cases, it has jurisdiction to hear all civil and criminal appeals from circuit courts, upheld the jury's verdict of $821,485.50 in compensatory damages and $79.5 million in punitive damages, and the state supreme court affirmed. In past decisions, specifically BMW v. Gore (2) and State Farm v. Campbell, (3) the Court found that excessive punitive damages do violate due process. In ruling on those cases, the Court articulated three guideposts Guideposts is a Christian-faith based non-profit organization founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale. The Guideposts organization is headquartered in Carmel, New York, with additional offices in New York City, Chesterton, Indiana, and Pawling, to help courts determine when they do so: the reprehensibility of the defendants' conduct, the ratio between the punitive damages and the actual loss the plaintiff suffered, and other punishments that state law provides for the misconduct. In Philip Morris, the Court will consider whether a jury can consider harm to parties other than the plaintiff when awarding punitive damages. In BMW BMW in full Bayerische Motoren Werke AG German automaker. Founded as an aircraft engine manufacturer in 1916, the company assumed the name Bayerische Motoren Werke and became known for its high-speed motorcycles in the 1920s. and State Farm, the Court limited the jury's ability to consider the defendant's conduct in other states or misconduct different from the misconduct that injured the plaintiff. Now, Philip Morris is asking the Court to impose an additional limitation: that juries be required to focus only on the actual harm to the individual plaintiff. This requirement, of course, would completely undermine the traditional rationales for punitive damages: deterrence and retribution. The case also asks the Court to consider whether highly reprehensible conduct warrants punitive damages that are almost 100 times greater than the compensatory damages. The two new justices may be key in this decision. BMW was a 54 ruling with Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26 1930) is an American jurist who served as the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was considered a strict constructionist. in the majority; State Farm was 6-3, again with these two justices in the majority. If the new chief justice, John Roberts, and the new associate justice, Samuel Alito, take the position expressed by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas--that due process does not limit the size of punitive damages awards--there could be a dramatic change in the law. At the very least, the case is likely to clarify crucial aspects of punitive damages law. Abortion rights The Court will hear two abortion cases, Gonzales v. Carhart Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. ___ (2007), is a United States Supreme Court case which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.[1] The case reached the high court after U.S. (4) and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. (5) Both concern the constitutionality of a federal statute prohibiting so-called partial-birth abortions. They will provide a first look at how the two new justices will deal with the abortion issue. Several years ago, in Stenberg v. Carhart Stenberg, Attorney General of Nebraska, et al. v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000), is a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with a Nebraska law which made performing "partial-birth abortion" illegal, without providing exceptions to preserve a mother's , the Court struck down a Nebraska law prohibiting the removal of a living fetus, or a substantial part of one, with the intent of ending the fetus's life. (6) In invalidating the law, the Court stressed that it contained no exception allowing the procedure when it is necessary to protect the woman's health. The Court also said the law was written so broadly that it prohibited many other types of abortion procedures. Despite that decision, Congress adopted the Partial Birth Abortion Abortion, Partial Birth Definition Partial birth abortion is a method of late-term (after 20 weeks) abortion that terminates a pregnancy and results in the death and intact removal of a fetus. Ban of 2003, which is similar to the Nebraska statute in that it has no health exception. (7) Congress determined that this type of abortion procedure was never medically necessary. Also like the Nebraska law, the federal statute is broadly written and prohibits much more than just late-term abortions. Both the Eighth and Ninth circuits struck down the federal ban, based on the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg. However, Stenberg was a 5-4 decision, with Justice Stephen Breyer's majority opinion joined by Justices John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Court in 1975 and is the oldest and longest serving incumbent member of the Court. , O'Connor, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (born March 15 1933, Brooklyn, New York) is an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Having spent 13 years as a federal judge, but not being a career jurist, she is unique as a Supreme Court justice, having spent the majority of her career as an . Now that O'Connor has been replaced by Alito, questions surface about the Court's current makeup and the role of precedent. What weight will the Court give to Stenberg, which it decided just six years ago? At the new justices' confirmation hearings, there was much discussion of precedent and "super precedent," as then-nominee Roberts put it. Will Roberts and Alito follow precedent, even if they disagree with it? Will they join Scalia and Thomas in seeking to overrule The refusal by a judge to sustain an objection set forth by an attorney during a trial, such as an objection to a particular question posed to a witness. To make void, annul, supersede, or reject through a subsequent decision or action. Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade, case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. ? (8) And will Justice Anthony Kennedy follow precedent, even though he wrote a vehement dissent in Stenber? These are some of the questions that will be answered in the Court's new term. Race and school admissions Two cases will address the issue of whether school systems may use race in assigning students to elementary and secondary schools to achieve desegregation desegregation: see integration. . In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, the Court will consider a Seattle plan that allows students entering the ninth grade to choose among high schools. (9) If a school becomes racially imbalanced, the school district can use race in deciding which students to admit. In Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education is a case heard before the United States Supreme Court in December 2006 regarding racial quotas and explicit racial desegregation in public education. The U.S. , the Court will look at magnet schools created in Louisville, Kentucky, to achieve desegregation. (10) In the Kentucky system, student assignments are based on several factors, including race, geographic boundaries, and student choices. A few years ago, in Grutter v. Bollinger Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. The 5-4 decision was announced on June 23, 2003. , the Court held that colleges and universities have a compelling interest in ensuring a diverse student body and may use race as one factor in their admissions decisions. (11) Grutter was decided 5-4, with O'Connor writing for the majority, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Opponents of affirmative action are hoping that the two newcomers will join Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas and overrule Grutter. Defenders of the Seattle and Louisville programs argue that these cases are not about using race to decide who is admitted to an institution but about assigning students within a school district. These cases, they say, are about school desegregation, not affirmative action. They are not situations where assessments of individual merit are ever made, but rather where group characteristics are used in assigning students to schools. These cases will be enormously important in determining what steps school systems may take toward desegregation. They may also have a larger significance, showing what the Roberts Court is likely to do on affirmative action. Criminal procedure As always, some of the most significant cases on the docket in hand; in the plan; under consideration; in process of execution or performance. See also: Docket concern criminal procedure. Two deal with the retroactive application of blockbuster decisions from recent years. In Whorton v. Bockting, (12) the Court will consider whether criminal defendants convicted before its 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United (13) may invoke Crawford in habeas corpus petitions. In Crawford, the Court dramatically changed the law concerning when criminal defendants may use out-of-court statements by a declarant declarant n. the person making a statement, usually written and signed by that person, under "penalty of perjury" pursuant to the laws of the state in which the statement, called a declaration, is made. who is not available to testify at trial. Previously, the Court had ruled that such statements were admissible as long as they were reliable. (14) But in Crawford, the Court held that if the statements are "testimonial" in nature they cannot be used against a defendant. Last June, the Court attempted to clarify what "testimonial" means. In Davis v. Washington Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. (2006), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the usage of 911 phone calls as testimony. Facts of the Case , it held that statements made during emergencies to law enforcement personnel that describe ongoing events are not testimonial. But those made when there is no emergency and that describe past occurrences are testimonial and cannot be used. (15) The issue in Bockting is whether Crawford applies only prospectively. If the Court holds that it applies retroactively, thousands of prisoners will seek relief on those grounds. In Burton v. Waddington, (16) the Court will consider whether its 2004 decision in Blakely v. Washington Blakely v. Washington, , held that, in the context of mandatory state sentencing guidelines, the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences based on facts other than (17) applies retroactively to 2000, when Apprendi v. New Jersey Apprendi v. New Jersey , , was a United States Supreme Court decision. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited was decided. In Apprendi, the Court held that any factor other than a prior conviction that leads to a sentence greater than the statutory maximum must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. (18) In Blakely, the Court extended this requirement, saying that any factor other than a prior conviction that leads to a sentence greater than what could be based on the jury's verdict or the defendant's admissions must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The issue is whether Blakely is a new rule of constitutional law or just an application of Apprendi. If the latter, then those convicted in the four years between the decisions would be able to bring challenges based on Blakely. Again, this could mean large numbers of defendants requesting relief. Another case of note is Carey v. Musladin Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. ___ (2006) is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the standard for when a federal court can grant habeas corpus , which asks whether a murder defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial The Right to a fair trial is an essential right in all countries respecting the rule of law. It is explicitly proclaimed in Article Ten of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution, and Article Six of the European Convention of Human was violated when three members of the victim's family wore memorial buttons in the courtroom, in clear view of the jurors. (19) The case lays out a fascinating tension between freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial. Based on these cases alone, it is clear that the October 2006 term has the potential to be a milestone year in the Court's history. As Alito's first full term on the bench and Roberts's second as chief justice, it is likely to signal the direction of constitutional law for many years to come. Notes (1.) 127 P.3d 1165 (Or. 2006), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2329 (2006). (2.) 517 U.S. 559 (1996). (3.) 538 U.S. 408 (2003). (4.) 413 F.3d 791 (8th Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct.1314 (2006). (5.) 435 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2006), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2901 (2006). (6.) 530 U.S. 914 (2000). (7.) 18 U.S.C.A. [section] 1531 (West 2003). (8.) 410 U.S. 959 (1973). (9.) 426 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2351 (2006). (10.) 416 F.3d 513 (6th Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2351 (2006). (11.) 539 U.S. 306 (2003). (12.) 399 F.3d 1010 (9th Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2017 (2006). (13.) 541 U.S. 36 (2004). (14.) Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980). (15.) 126 S. Ct. 2266 (2006). (16.) 142 Fed. Appx. 297 (9th Cir. 2005) (unpublished), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 2352 (2006). (17.) 542 U.S. 961 (2004). (18.) 530 U.S. 466 (2000). (19.) 427 F.3d 653 (9th Cir. 2005), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 1769 (2006). ERWIN CHEMERINSKY is the Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University. The author wishes to thank Tadhg Dooley and Lauren Gindes for their excellent research assistance. |
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