Today in Supreme Court History: June 3, 1918

6/3/1918: Hammer v. Dagenhart decided.

Comments

[Dilan Esper]

No captcrisis cases?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Sorry, overslept today (for personal reasons). Nice to know that someone missed me!

Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (decided June 3, 1918): Interstate Commerce Clause did not authorize Congress to prohibit child labor (specifically, to forbid interstate sale of goods produced by child labor) (overruled by United States v. Darby Lumber Co., 1941)

Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (decided June 3, 1946): (argued by Thurgood Marshall) Virginia law enforcing segregation on interstate buses violated Dormant Commerce Clause; decision was routinely ignored for years

Van Buren v. United States, 593 U.S. 374 (decided June 3, 2021): policeman who used his patrol car computer to find license plate information for outside income did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which applies to computer-accessed information “that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain” (and as a police officer he was entitled to obtain that information) (the whole case depended on that word “so”, which to me argues against this result)

Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435 (decided June, 3, 2013): no warrant needed for minimally invasive DNA test (swab inside mouth) during booking for serious crime (rape)

Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657 (decided June 3, 1957): conviction of labor union president for lying about Communist Party membership vacated because government would not submit reports made by government informants to in camera inspection

Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (decided June 3, 1968): jurors can be excluded if they say they would never vote for execution but not if they merely express scruples about the death penalty

Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U.S. 483 (decided June 3, 2013): widow of second marriage not entitled to life insurance proceeds because husband never changed the name of the beneficiary; this is irrelevant under state statute but preempted by federal law on life insurance policies given to federal employees

Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis, 587 U.S. — (decided June 3, 2019): Title VII requirement to file information with EEOC prior to filing suit is not “jurisdictional” (i.e., suit can go forward if defendant doesn’t timely object) (sexual harassment suit; employer didn’t bring up filing deficiency until years into litigation)

Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706 (decided June 3, 1996): Burford abstention (as to challenges to state administrative agency orders) not applicable where suit is for damages and not equitable or discretionary relief (here, a breach of contract suit against Allstate brought by state insurance commissioner as trustee of bankrupt insurer)

Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614 (decided June 3, 1991): extended the Batson principle (jurors can’t be excluded based on race) to civil suits

[Dilan Esper]

Scalia has a really nice dissent in Maryland v. King.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks for directing me to this (again). But Scalia (joined by Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor) focuses on "invasiveness". Fingerprinting has always been o.k. and shortly (if not already) a scrape off a finger will provide enough DNA for identification. This issue might fade into history.

[Dilan Esper]

I suspect Scalia might have not bought the justification for fingerprinting (actually you'd be surprised how many originalists don't) except for its long-established pedigree. But even if one accepts fingerprinting, going inside the body is a step beyond that.

[John F. Carr]

I feel like fingerprints survived Daubert because of their long pedigree.

[Noscitur a sociis]

going inside the body is a step beyond that.

I've got bad news for you about some other stuff that happens when you get arrested!

I think the main distinction is that, in this context, fingerprinting really was being taken (at least primarily) to try to correctly identify the inmate, which seems like a pretty legitimate interest, whereas this DNA testing was (regardless of the putative justification) actually done to try to gather additional evidence of criminal activity.

[SRG2]

Gotta give Fat Tony props for that dissent.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

"Nice to know that someone missed me!"

You and I sure disagree on almost everything, but I miss these summaries too. They make me think, and there's usually at least one a week I investigate further for my own amusement (IANAL). I think I've learned more from these posts than almost anything else here. Of course, you might not consider that a compliment, but I mean it as one.

[Dan Schiavetta]

This is like Captain Kirk getting a compliment from a Klingon. Which makes it count double. Thank you!

[SRG2]

^^^ what he said

[not guilty]

Morgan v. Virginia was among the 29 (out of 32) civil rights cases that Thurgood Marshall won before the Supreme Court. As field general of the fight against de jure segregation, Marshall may have influenced American history more than any other peacetime figure of the twentieth century.

[apedad]

In Maryland v. King (5 - 4), I fully agree with the decision because the swab is for identification purposes only and is NOT evidence.

Justice Scalia in dissent wrote, "The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence."

But the evidence was the DNA found at the crime scene NOT the swab taking from the mouth.

Cops would need a warrant to remove material under a person's fingernails or to seize their blood-stained clothing because those things could be evidence - but not a mouth swab (or photograph or fingerprints).

[apedad]

Note, Justices Bader Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined the dissent.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Progressives joining Scalia?

Unclean! Unclean! (rends garments)

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks!

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Eh?

the swab is for identification purposes only and is NOT evidence.

Cops would need a warrant to remove material under a person’s fingernails or to seize their blood-stained clothing because those things could be evidence – but not a mouth swab (or photograph or fingerprints).

If the mouth swab is not evidence, it is only compared to evidence, then the same applies to blood-stained clothing; it is only compared to evidence.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

And if the answer is that the mouth swab is his personal substance, whereas fingernail fluff and blood were from the victim, then I say that admits the mouth swab is of his person, covered by the Fourth Amendment, whereas the others are allegedly stolen property.

This is the kind of quibbling which lawyers have worked so hard to earn, and has nothing to do with justice or principles.

[SMP0328]

Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (decided June 3, 1918): Interstate Commerce Clause did not authorize Congress to prohibit child labor (specifically, to forbid interstate sale of goods produced by child labor) (overruled by United States v. Darby Lumber Co., 1941)

Dagenhart was almost abrogated by the Child Labor Amendment, but it fell less than 10 ratifications short of adoption. Darby did what the rejected proposal would have done, but without the need to add text to the Constitution.

[Dan Schiavetta]

thanks!

[John F. Carr]

Like the Supreme Court enacted the Equal Rights Amendment when states failed to.

[F.D. Wolf]

In Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), a 5-4 Court held that the regulation of child labor was not within the commerce powers of Congress, and the matter was reserved to states. In an attempt to get around the decision, Congress attempted to tax companies that used child labor, but this scheme was struck down by an 8-1 Court in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922). Finally, in 1924, Congress passed and submitted to the states the Child Labor Amendment, which provided:

Section 1. The Congress shall have the power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.

Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress</blockquote

By the end of 1932, five states had ratified the amendment, and thirty-six had rejected the amendment. When Franklin Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1933, his administration renewed efforts to revive the amendment, and twenty states that had previously rejected the amendment voted to ratify it. As of today, twenty-eight states have voted to ratify the Amendment, the last to do so being Kansas in 1937, after its initial rejection in 1925. (Thirty-eight states would currently need to ratify the amendment to reach the requisite three-quarters threshold.)

The main objection to the Amendment was that its broad language would allow the federal government to regulate the work children did at home (particularly on farms, but certainly not limited to that.) In 1935, the American Bar Association came out against the amendment, arguing that the Amendment would the federal government to intrude upon the sacred confines of the home and, additionally, that too much time had passed since the amendment's initial introduction.

There have been recent efforts to revive the Amendment. For example, in 2021 and 2022, the Hawaii state senate voted to ratify the amendment, but the state house did not take any action. Since 2018, resolutions to ratify the Amendment have been introduced in the legislatures of New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Nebraska,

[SMP0328]

What's the point of adopting the Child Labor Amendment now? Darby achieved what the proposal would have done and there's no realistic chance of SCOTUS overruling Darby.

[Drewski]

In Nebraska, some people want it because the state won't curb some practices they dislike and they hope Congress will step in if allowed. Primarily the concern is detasseling; Nebraska farms traditionally employ youths at low wages to do it, and some people see it as exploitative. Because the farm lobby is powerful here, they think they may get better support federally, where as everyone knows the farm lobby is a basket of kittens (this is me dripping with sarcasm).
I think they're wrong both in their objection to the practice and optimism that Congress would share it. As long as there are good safety practices (and there generally are), I think it's an excellent way for young men and women to earn a few bucks in the fresh air. I detasseled as a kid, and it was not brutal or even very unpleasant.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Had to look up "detasseling". Now I know something I didn't know before -- thanks.

[SMP0328]

In Nebraska, some people want it because the state won’t curb some practices they dislike and they hope Congress will step in if allowed.

Congress is already allowed under Darby. Do "some people" in Nebraska think Hammer v. Dagenhart is still good law?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

So long as Congress can exclude child-made goods from interstate commerce, then many of the worst abuses can be curbed.

The worst-of-the-worst abuses can also be curbed by imposing severe penalties for enslavement of children (or adults of course), and by banning slavery-like conditions which can bleed over into actual slavery.

But a power to "save" children from working on the parental homestead? That's what this hopefully-defunct amendment would have allowed.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Holmes' dissent with some shade on the ongoing Prohibition conversations:

"But if there is any matter upon which civilized countries have agreed-far more unanimously than they have with regard to intoxicants and some other matters over which this country is now emotionally aroused-it is the evil of premature and excessive child labor. I should have thought that if we were to introduce our own moral conceptions where is my opinion they do not belong, this was preeminently a case for upholding the exercise of all its powers by the United States."