Today in Supreme Court History: June 23, 1987

6/23/1987: South Dakota v. Dole is decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (decided June 23, 2005): eminent domain power can be used to condemn homeowners’ property and sell to private nonprofit for office space, parking lots etc. as part of downtown revitalization (I assume the compensation paid to Ms. Kelo and her neighbors was the same as was billed to the New London Development Corporation?)

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 594 U.S. --- (decided June 23, 2021): First Amendment prohibits school from punishing student for vulgar non-disruptive, off-campus speech (she posted on Snapchat “fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything”) (sounds like late-period George Carlin)

South Dakota v. Dole, 505 U.S. 377 (decided June 23, 1987): Tenth Amendment not violated by withholding federal highway funds from states with an under-21 drinking age

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (decided June 23, 2003): upholding use of race as a “plus factor” but not a “predominating factor” in law school admission policy

Nance v. Ward, 597 U.S. --- (decided June 23, 2022): can challenge lethal injection method of execution (painful in his case because of drug-abuse-compromised veins) even if less painful alternate method is not authorized by state law (he wanted a firing squad) (case is still being litigated in lower courts); 5 - 4 decision

​New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. --- (decided June 23, 2022): striking down on Second Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment grounds state law requiring “proper cause” requirement for open carry hangun licenses; no “strict” or “intermediate” scrutiny analysis relevant, just showing that restriction would be in conflict with historical tradition (law at issue was from 1911 but Court discounts the 20th century)

Micou v. Nat’l Bank, 104 U.S. 530 (decided June 23, 1881): bankrupt father can pay off his creditor daughters ahead of the bank because no intent to defraud the bank

P.R. v. Branstead, 483 U.S. 219 (decided June 23, 1987): federal courts can order state governors to extradite (one would think this was obvious in light of the Extradition Clause, art. 4, §2, cl. 2, but the Court had held otherwise in Kentucky v. Dennison, 1860)

Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261 (decided June 23, 1947): upholding New York’s use of special (“blue ribbon”) jury (education and morality qualifications) in criminal case involving construction contract extortion despite defendant’s argument that such a jury is more likely to convict (statute allowing special juries was repealed in 1965 -- too bad!)

Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596 (decided June 23, 1982): struck down Massachusetts statute excluding public from trials of those accused of sexual offenses against minors

[apedad]

Re: South Dakota v. Dole

Facts of the case

In 1984, Congress enacted legislation ordering the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not adopt a 21-year-old minimum drinking age. South Dakota, a state that permitted persons 19 years of age to purchase alcohol, challenged the law.

Question

Did Congress exceed its spending powers, or violate the Twenty-first Amendment, by passing legislation conditioning the award of federal highway funds on the states' adoption of a uniform minimum drinking age?

Conclusion (7 - 2)

No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that Congress, acting indirectly to encourage uniformity in states' drinking ages, was within constitutional bounds. The Court found that the legislation was in pursuit of "the general welfare," and that the means chosen to do so were reasonable. The Court also held that the Twenty-first Amendment's limitations on spending power were not prohibitions on congressional attempts to achieve federal objectives indirectly. The five percent loss of highway funds was not unduly coercive.

Dissent

Justices O'Connor and Brennan filed dissents. O'Connor agreed that Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds, and that the Twenty-First Amendment gives states authority over laws relating to the consumption of alcohol. However, she wrote that the attachment of condition on the states must be "reasonably related to the expenditure of funds." She disagreed with the Court's conclusion that withholding federal highway funds was reasonably related to deterring drunken driving and drinking by minors and young adults. She argued that the condition was both overinclusive and underinclusive: it prevented teenagers from drinking when they are not going to drive on federal and federally funded highways, and it did not attempt to remedy the overall problem of drunken driving on federal and federally funded highways. She viewed the relation between the condition and spending as being too attenuated: "establishment of a minimum drinking age of 21 is not sufficiently related to interstate highway construction to justify so conditioning funds appropriated for that purpose." (wiki)

I don't agree with Justice O'Connor's point that the conditions are "too attenuated."

The conditions might not be fully direct to the funding but they're not too far off either.

And actually, I'm not sure why conditions have to be related at all to the central law; Congress can attached totally unrelated riders, right?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks!

(I got the cite wrong. It should be 483 U.S. 203.)

[Magister]

Totally unrelated riders could be used to coerce states to enact a wide range of policies, which would seem to undermine their sovereignty.

[SRG]

Re: Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 594 U.S.

8-1. Thomas dissented. His dissent is all about history - or perhaps "hysteria".

[F.D. Wolf]

In school discipline/First Amendment cases, Thomas consistently sides with the schools. And, yes, he grounds this in the (unquestionable, in my opinion) historical view that schools had a very wide latitude in discipline and the First Amendment rights of students were severely curtailed in this respect. As to whether or not that is the "correct" jurisprudential view, I have no strong opinion, but I hardly find such a view to be irrational or off-the-wall.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Horrible man who got off easy.