Today in Supreme Court History: June 12, 1967

6/12/1967: Loving v. Virginia decided.

Comments

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Such an appropriate caption.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (decided June 12, 1967): striking down on Equal Protection and (substantive) Due Process grounds Virginia’s prohibition on interracial marriage (a good decision for me personally) (in the trial court the one-year sentence imposed on the Lovings, who had gone to D.C. to get married and were indicted when they moved back to Virginia, had been suspended on the condition that they move out of state and not return for 25 years, not so coincidentally after Mildred was past childbearing age)

Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U.S. 47 (decided June 12, 2017): striking down requirement that foreign-born non-marital children seeking citizenship needed a U.S. citizen father who had been in the country for at least five years before birth while for a U.S. citizen mother needed only one year (8 U.S.C. §1409)

Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674 (decided June 12, 2008): American citizens held by the post-Iraq-invasion Multi-National Force (allegation was helping al Qaeda, kidnapping) can petition for habeas corpus (the MNF was about to transfer them to a local criminal court for trial), but petition denied here because Iraq had sovereign right to try crimes committed on its soil (our regard for Iraq’s sovereignty is truly touching /s)

​Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, 582 U.S. 79 (decided June 12, 2017): Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies only to those collecting debt “for another”; does not apply to creditor collecting debt for itself, and therefore also doesn’t apply to company which regularly purchases other companies’ debts

​POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co., 573 U.S. 102 (decided June 12, 2014): Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act does not preclude private action for false advertising on a matter the FDA has not set a rule for (Coca-Cola Co. sold “pomegranate-blueberry drink” with only minimal amounts of both) (jury decided for Coca-Cola in March 2016)

Adarand Constr. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200 (decided June 12, 1995): use of race-based presumptions in approving economically disadvantaged subcontractors on federal projects viewed under “strict scrutiny”, not a more lenient standard (at issue was the awarding of federal highway construction contracts)

Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (decided June 12, 1972): right to have counsel provided (Gideon) applies to all criminal prosecutions not just to those to which the right to trial by jury attaches (which is maximum sentence six months or more)

House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518 (decided June 12, 2006): habeas after rape/murder conviction may go forward based on chain of custody problems (not heard by the jury) as to the incriminating blood and possible confession of victim’s husband; no proof of “actual innocence” but enough to show that some jurors might have reasonable doubt

New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (decided June 12, 1984): statement by handcuffed defendant in supermarket as to nearby location of gun admitted into evidence under “public safety” exception to Miranda (rape victim had told police he had run into supermarket and had a gun; police chased him and found him unarmed)

New York et rel. Kennedy v. Becker, 241 U.S. 556 (decided June 12, 1916): Seneca tribe bound by state fish and game laws despite what was promised to them by a 1797 treaty because land in question was not on a reservation

[apedad]

Re: New York v. Quarles

Facts of the case

After receiving the description of Quarles, an alleged assailant, a police officer entered a supermarket, spotted him, and ordered him to stop. Quarles stopped and was frisked by the officer. Upon detecting an empty shoulder holster, the officer asked Quarles where his gun was. Quarles responded. The officer then formally arrested Quarles and read him his Miranda rights.

Question

Should the Court suppress Quarles’s statement about the gun and the gun itself because the officer had failed at the time to read Quarles his Miranda rights?

Conclusion (5 – 4)

No. The Court held that there is a “public safety” exception to the requirement that officers issue Miranda warnings to suspects. Since the police officer’s request for the location of the gun was prompted by an immediate interest in assuring that it did not injure an innocent bystander or fall into the hands of a potential accomplice to Quarles, his failure to read the Miranda warning did not violate the Constitution. (oyez)

Dissent

Justice Marshall, joined by Justices Brennan and Stevens, rejected the idea of a public safety exception:

It would strain credulity to contend that Officer Kraft’s questioning of respondent Quarles was not coercive. In the middle of the night and in the back of an empty supermarket, Quarles was surrounded by four armed police officers. His hands were handcuffed behind his back. The first words out of the mouth of the arresting officer were: “Where is the gun?” […] Officer Kraft’s abrupt and pointed question pressured Quarles in precisely the way that the Miranda Court feared the custodial interrogations would coerce self-incriminating testimony. (wiki)

Although there’s no “public safety” exception in the Constitution (there’s no Miranda requirement either), I could see the exception being valid on a case-by-case basis.

And in this case, I would have NOT granted the exception.

The guy was handcuffed and frisked, so there was immediate danger to the officers or other personnel which means they had time to follow standard police rules (Miranda, search warrant, etc.).

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks as always.

But -- an unattended gun in that empty carton might be picked up by a curious child, running around the cucumber aisle while his mother picks out carrots.

[apedad]

Still not good enough to ignore 4 and 5 A’s - in THIS particular case.

Maybe if it was ticking bomb.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Maybe defendant had a duty to answer this question, for public safety reasons, but the answer should be inadmissible at trial?

That might be the ideal. Perhaps if he refused to answer there could be a "duty to speak" law under which he could be prosecuted separately, with a strict evidentiary wall between the two prosecutions.

[Krychek_2]

Good thing Clarence Thomas wasn't on the Loving court.

[Dan Schiavetta]

In his earlier days, he would have upheld the Virginia law. But after he married a white woman . . . ?

[Frank Drackman]

Great, insulting a Black man you don't even know on the 60th anniversary of the murder of Medgar Evans by a DemoKKKrat.

[not guilty]

Perhaps Justice Thomas believes that, like affirmative action, substantive due process is a really crappy idea for anyone whose last name is not Thomas or whose first name is not Clarence.

[Frank Drackman]

So because Clarence Thomas is Black he had to have gotten there because of Affirmative Action? Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to be the race-ist here. And on the 60th anniversary of the murder of Medgar Evans (by another DemoKKKrat BTW)

Frank "Don't blame me, I was 11 months old"

[Brett Bellmore]

What he believes is that incorporation has to be done under the Privileges and Immunities clause, not through 'substantive' due process. This doesn't imply for any given claim under substantive due process that he would object to it under the Privileges and Immunities clause.

This isn't an empty distinction, since due process is a right of "people", while P&I are rights of citizens, so under this theory a lot of rights that are only rights of citizens are being granted to every warm body in the country.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The decision was in two parts, equal protection and substantive due process.

The equal protection part concluded: “We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/1

That’s enough to strike down the law all by itself. Remind me what reason, other than your personal dislike of Thomas (and his white wife), you can give for assuming he wouldn’t have agreed with the quoted passage.

[SRG]

Re House

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-8990.ZX.html

Roberts has a strange piece of logic - that as before DNA testing, the jury knew that the semen could as easily have come from the victim's husband as from House, it doesn't matter that now we know it definitely came from the husband.

Unsurprisingly. Scalia and Thomas joined Roberts in partial dissent, because the law is more important than justice.

[not guilty]

The unindicted co-ejaculator theory?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I could see that one coming!

[Frank Drackman]

Thats "What about Jism"!!!

[Noscitur a sociis]

I believe you’re (probably intentionally) misreading the opinion. Roberts’s point is that (presumably) because the DNA results were fairly inconclusive, they weren’t a significant part of the prosecution case, and that accordingly the defendant’s successful refutation didn’t significantly undermine the strength of it.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

By the way, did you spot the homophobic passage in the Loving case?

"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival."

This seems to link marriage with procreation, whereas in our more enlightened age we know there is no such link.

[Brett Bellmore]

“Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U.S. 47 (decided June 12, 2017): striking down requirement that foreign-born non-marital children seeking citizenship needed a U.S. citizen father who had been in the country for at least five years before birth while for a U.S. citizen mother needed only one year (8 U.S.C. §1409)”

Given how much the ERA gets enforced even after the states rejected it, you can only imagine how powerful it would have been if ratified.

Note, I write not to complain about the policy decision here, which I generally agree with, but just the judiciary's practice of reading the defeated ERA into the 14th amendment, so as to render its defeat moot.