Today in Supreme Court History: January 30, 1939

1/30/1939: Justice Felix Frankfurter takes oath.

Justice Felix Frankfurter

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Southern Pacific Co. v. Gallagher, 306 U.S. 167 (decided January 30, 1939): California’s Use Tax did not violate Dormant Commerce Clause because it applied only to use or storage of property in-state after interstate sale was completed

United States v. Durkee Famous Foods, 306 U.S. 68 (decided January 30, 1939): can’t bring second indictment after statute of limitations has run (first one was quashed)

H.P. Welch Co. v. New Hampshire, 306 U.S. 79 (decided January 30, 1939): New Hampshire statute prohibiting driving for hire more than 12 hours a day was not preempted by federal regulation

Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. v. Radio Corp. of America, 306 U.S. 86 (decided January 30, 1939): directional antenna is patentable even though it merely rearranges wires in different lengths and directions in accordance with publicly known formula

Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U.S. 501 (decided January 30, 1922): state can’t tax income from lease of protected Indian lands (overruled by Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 1938, insofar as applied to other government-protected lands)

[A Japanese Student]

Indictments toll the statute of limitations here. Maybe the facts are more complicated than that?

[Dan Schiavetta]

In the Durkee case a statute allowed a short grace period after the s/l ran to bring a new indictment and they blew it.

Such grace periods are not unusual. In New York, for a time in the 1990’s, a civil case dismissed for failure to effect proper service (one could make such motions then at any point in the case, even several years in) could be revived within 6 months despite the running of the s/l if service in the new case was done correctly. Using that statute I got a case revived which had been totally screwed up by prior counsel.

[SRG2]

I was bingeing on "Elementary" recently and there was an episode where the SoL was about to expire for a crime but it was tolled because the criminal had briefly left the US (to go to a hockey game in Canada) and that allowed him to be charged in time. Is this a real thing?

[A Japanese Student]

In Japan, yes. I expect almost all other countries to have a similar rule.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Tolling provisions when someone is outside the country (or even outside the state) are common. There is no federal tolling provision like that, but there is one for “any person fleeing from justice.” 18 U.S.C. § 3290.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Some American jurisdictions have similar tolling provisions, but federal law doesn’t. If an indictment is dismissed after the statute of limitations has expired, current federal law gives an extra six months to refile.

[A Japanese Student]

Narcotics Control Act Case (Third Petty Bench, decided January 30, 1951): "Ignorantia juris non excusat" applies even when a criminal statute was effective immediately upon promulgation (see Oct. 15 entry for an extreme application of this rule)

Nippon Television Videotape Seizure Case (Second Petty Bench, decided January 30, 1989): Citing Hakata Station Case (Nov. 26), rules that video tapes held by news broadcasters may be seized as material evidence to be used in filmed subject's trial (on bribery); TV station's injury was limited given that the filmed section was already broadcasted

Aum Shinrikyo Dissolution Case (First Petty Bench, decided January 30, 1996): Judicial dissolution of religious corporation on secular grounds does not violate religious liberty, given that it doesn't prohibit religious practice (the "religious corporation" was Aum Shinrikyo, whose leaders were all hanged for using self-manufactured biotoxins and nerve gases in numerous terrorisms and assassinations, most notably Tokyo subway sarin attack)

Sakai Breathalyzer Case (First Petty Bench, decided January 30, 1997): Breathalyzer tests are not "confessions" and refusal can be criminalized

[JoeFromtheBronx]

What about blood draws? Are they allowed against a person's will?

[A Japanese Student]

Reminder that the case was on self-incrimination grounds, and not on Fourth Amendment. Blood draws are uncommon because the drunk-driving law allows either blood or breath tests to be used.

One of my local representative actually questioned the Government on utilizing blood tests (213th Diet, HoR Committee on the Cabinet, Feb. 21, 2024) - the answer is that blood tests require a Article 168 examination warrant and is conducted by a physician. Like with arrests, the actual paper warrant must be presented to the suspect. Perhaps blood tests will become common once the new electronic warrants law takes effect.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Thanks. In American law, it is sometimes noted that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments run into each other.

Blood draws were allowed in Mitchell v. Wisconsin (2019) in some cases without the person's consent.

[Satchmo_Lives]

Very interesting additions!!

For the American lawyers here, how could the Aum Shinrikyo Dissolution Case be applied in the good ol' U.S. of A? What additional difficulties would arise considering the nature of the incorporated entity (a religious sect).

It is quite easy to understand a corporation sponsoring sarin gas attacks being dissolved. Having little faith in our justice system, could it possible for the US guvmint to dissolve the Southern Baptist Convention or Catholic Church assuming they sponsor other illegal activities. Blocking access to abortion clinics, or giving illegal aliens advice on how to skirt our laws comes to mind.*

*I am not making as assertion. It is simply an example based on at least one DOJ prosecution regarding abortion clinics.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Justice Felix Frankfurter often appealed to judicial restraint, including "one person, one vote." Some people who knew him from his support of progressive causes were disappointed.

One area he accepted a strong role in the courts was the separation of church and state. He dissented in a case allowing funding of school transportation to religious schools. He opposed allowing release time programs that he argued still unconstitutionally established religion.

His infamous support of the constitutionality of flag salute laws fit into this position. He saw public schools as an important way to teach citizenship without undue coercion. The separation of church and state was part of religious liberty. As he noted:

The sharp confinement of the public schools to secular education was a recognition of the need of a democratic society to educate its children, insofar as the State undertook to do so, in an atmosphere free from pressures in a realm in which pressures are most resisted and where conflicts are most easily and most bitterly engendered. Designed to serve as perhaps the most powerful agency for promoting cohesion among a heterogeneous democratic people, the public school must keep scrupulously free from entanglement in the strife of sects.

Justice Jackson, who wrote the flag salute opinion, joined that statement. So, the exact rules are open to some debate.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6084194715158137020

[F.D. Wolf]

Before joining the Court, as a law professor and public intellectual, Frankfurter was generally considered a liberal, and even a radical. And then he joined the Court and, along with Justice Jackson, became the leader of its conservative wing. Certainly not what most expected from the Jewish intellectual Ivy League law professor. Yes, I daresay many were indeed disappointed (and many pleasantly surprised, of course).