Today in Supreme Court History: June 30, 2014

6/30/2014: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores is decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, 573 U.S. 682 (decided June 30, 2014): for-profit corporation is a "person" who can refuse on religious grounds to follow federal regulation (Affordable Care Act's requirement to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives)

New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (decided June 30, 1971): First Amendment allowed printing of "The Pentagon Papers" (McNamara's secret history of the Vietnam War) despite Espionage Act banning disclosure of national defense material "to the injury of the United States (it came out in paperback shortly afterwards and I read it -- an eye opener!)

NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (decided June 30, 1958): Due Process violated by Alabama's order for NAACP to produce membership list

Cox v. Larios, 542 U.S. 947 (decided June 30, 2004): one-person, one-vote rule can be violated even when differential between districts is less than 10% (here, Georgia's plan as a whole favored urban, Democratic districts at the expense of rural, Republican)

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (decided June 30, 1986): upheld Georgia law criminalizing sodomy (defined as putting genitals of one into mouth or anus of another) (of course, it was a gay man who was prosecuted, as if women never gave blow jobs) (overturned by Lawrence v. Kansas, 2003)

United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891 (decided June 30, 1975): can't search cars at fixed border checkpoints unless "probable cause" (Ortiz's car here turned out to have three illegal aliens in the trunk; evidence suppressed and conviction for transporting illegals vacated)

United States v. Brignoni-Price, 422 U.S. 873 (decided June 30, 1975): roving border patrol can't stop car just because driver "looks Mexican" (this was in southern California, which at that point had been part of Mexico longer than it was part of the United States)

Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (decided June 30, 1994): First Amendment not violated by noise restriction and 30-foot buffer zone between abortion protesters and clinic, but 36-foot buffer on private property side and forbidding "images visible" from the clinic was overbroad

[John F. Carr]

I was in a car within sight of the Mexican border south of San Diego. A border patrol agent stopped his vehicle to warn us about something I forget because it was obviously a pretext to check us out. We turned out to be upper middle class white American Americans and he drove off.

A New Hampshire judge threw out evidence collected at an immigration checkpoint near Franconia Notch. It was really a drug interdiction checkpoint, set up during a marijuana festival and manned (canined?) with drug-sniffing dogs. The evidence would be legal in federal court but not in his court. Next year local police were not so keen to join the checkpoint because they couldn't make drug busts.

[Frank Drackman]

You are aware there are White Upper Middle Class Amuricans who are Mexican Citizens?
May-he-Co was in Amurica last time I checked.

Frank

[Cal Cetín]

"First Amendment allowed printing of "The Pentagon Papers""

I thought they ruled out prior restraint.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Prior restraint is a First Amendment exception (Near v. Minnesota, 1931). The Court held it didn't apply.

[Mr. Bumble]

What's your point; that Paxton is a pandering politician (aren't they all)?
What are the chances of Texas passing such a law?

[F.D. Wolf]

BREAKING: State Attorney General declares he will defend state law if its constitutionality is affirmed by Supreme Court.

What a monster. We should want government officials who take an oath to enforce the laws to pick and choose which laws they will actually enforce. Like Biden and Garland.

[Mr. Bumble]

Do you live in Texas?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I lived in Texas for a year. It was full of bigots, half-educated throwbacks, religious yahoos, and more bigots.

Do you contend that has changed?

[Mr. Bumble]

So you don't live in Texas. Good for them.

Have a nice July 4th.

[Frank Drackman]

Well, "Reverend", to be fair, Tay-Hoss was the only place that had a "Special Custody" cell available when you ran into that little problem at https://www.mass.gov/locations/mci-cedar-junction
Of course calling your fellow Chilie-Moes bigots, half-educated throwbacks, religious yahoos, went over about as well as you'd expect with a bunch of bitter klinging Chilie-Moes,
Sure things are better at https://www.cor.pa.gov/Facilities/StatePrisons/Pages/Greene.aspx
Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

I don't " contend " anything. Unlike you I don't pretend to br omniscient.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You didn't need to be omniscient, or spend more than a day or two in Texas, to recognize that Texas was full of drawling, half-educated, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, obsolete, belligerently ignorant losers.

Outside Austin, Texas is like a trip back to the worst part of the 1950s.

Beyond fewer than a half-dozen cities, much of Texas is a complete write-off.

[Aemon McGarret]

Native lifelong Texan here. We recently moved from a suburb of Austin into rural central Texas. There is a little of everything here socially. There are lots of "good ol' boys" & hippies (honestly, real hippies) and tons people from everywhere else. The government here remains incredibly old fashioned. And horribly crooked. Ken Paxton is a thug & a crook. And the Attorney General. But like everywhere else it is a big ugly mix. But ya'll are very welcome to stay away.

[F.D. Wolf]

In 1980, President Carter's Attorney General was asked by a congressional subcommittee if the Attorney General had a duty to defend constitutionally suspect acts of Congress. He said:

The Attorney General has a duty to defend and enforce both the Acts of Congress and the Constitution; when there is a conflict between the requirements of the one and the requirements of the other, it is almost always the case that he can best discharge the responsibilities of his office by defending and enforcing the Act of Congress.

Obviously, it can be a complicated issue, but generally, an Attorney General should not simply substitute his judgment of a law's constitutionality for that of the Legislature. His job is to enforce the law, not make it.

This seems much ado about nothing. I don't think the report accurately summarizes that 30-second video clip in which a convoluted question, in which the interviewer lumps the issues of sodomy, contraception, and gay marriage together, and Paxton answers briefly that he would enforce the law.

[F.D. Wolf]

That was Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti I was quoting from July 30, 1980.

https://www.justice.gov/file/22296/download

[Mr. Bumble]

Crickets?

[not guilty]

"What are the chances of Texas passing such a law?"

It is unnecessary for the legislature to do anything. The statute invalidated in Lawrence v. Texas is still on the books. All it would take for prosecution is a rogue district attorney who wants to challenge Lawrence.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Painting the half-educated racists, superstitious gay-bashers, old-timely misogynists, backwater immigration-haters, economically inadequate dumbasses, and other conservatives into increasingly limited corners of our nation seems a reasonable way to go until most of our vestigial clingers are replaced. So enjoy your time with the depleted human residue in Can’t KeepUp, Texas as you await replacement.