Tag: scotus

Sotomayor Is Right: The Supreme Court Should Reevaluate Absolute Immunity for Prosecutors

Consider the following hypothetical: You are jailed for two years as you await trial for murder. You are facing the death penalty. You have cancer, which relapsed during your incarceration without access to adequate treatment. And it turns out you were charged based on a false witness confession, which the local prosecutor allegedly destroyed evidence to obscure.

Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse, because such government employees are entitled to absolute immunity.

This is the backdrop for Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion Tuesday arguing that the Supreme Court may need to reevaluate the confines of that legal doctrine—absolute prosecutorial immunity—which prevents victims of alleged prosecutorial misconduct from getting recourse in the vast majority of circumstances.

The case at issue centers around Nickie Miller, a Kentucky man whom a woman named Natasha Martin implicated in a bizarre murder plot after the government offered her a deal to avoid prison time. The primary issue: She almost immediately sought to recant that confession. Law enforcement wouldn’t accept that. So she testified before a grand jury, and then tried to recant again, writing in jailhouse letters to another man she implicated that her statement came in response to “coercive interrogation techniques, threats, and undisclosed promises of consideration.”

When Miller’s defense team heard about those letters, it tried to obtain them. Martin reportedly asked Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Keith Craycraft how she should comply with the order, to which he allegedly responded that she should destroy the correspondence. She obliged.

The state eventually dropped the charges against Miller. The two years in jail, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said that his cancer was in remission but recurred after the state locked him up, as he could not access his medication.

After his release, he sued Craycraft; the district court concluded he was entitled to absolute immunity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit subsequently noted that Craycraft’s alleged misconduct was “difficult to justify and seemingly unbecoming of an official entrusted with enforcing the criminal law.” And then that court, too, confirmed the grant of absolute immunity, a testament to the sort of behavior the doctrine greenlights with its sweeping inoculation.

Miller has since died, and his estate is continuing the litigation on his behalf.

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U.S. Supreme Court Sends Marijuana And Gun Case Back To Lower Court, Emboldening DOJ’s Defense Of Firearm Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has sent a case concerning gun rights for marijuana consumers back down to a lower court after issuing a potentially relevant ruling in a separate Second Amendment case, and the Justice Department is now reiterating its position that cannabis use warrants a ban on firearm ownership.

The high court has remanded several gun cases to their respective lower courts in light of the ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which affirmed the government’s right to restrict gun rights for a man with restraining orders for domestic violence. The cases heading back to lower levels include at least one related to the cannabis ban, and DOJ is now arguing that the SCOTUS decision “undermines” a federal court’s ruling that deemed the prohibition for marijuana consumers to be unconstitutional last year.

In a supplemental letter brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where the United States vs. Daniels case was remanded by SCOTUS, the Justice Department said history “supports the government’s authority to disarm categories of persons whose firearm possession would endanger themselves or others.”

“Consistent with that principle, Congress may temporarily disarm unlawful users of controlled substances during periods of active drug use, when they present a special danger of firearm misuse,” it said. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Rahimi also is in tension with this Court’s opinion in United States v. Daniels, which made some of the very methodological errors that Rahimi corrected to find Section 922(g)(3) unconstitutional as applied to a marijuana user. The district court’s judgment should be reversed.”

DOJ has argued in multiple federal cases over the couple year that the statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.

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Supreme Court Demands Deeper Look at Social Media Anti-Censorship Laws

The US Supreme Court has unanimously remanded two crucial cases involving social media regulation laws from Florida and Texas back to lower courts. This move concerns cases relating to both Florida and Texas, where the primary question was whether laws that restrict certain websites from making editorial censorship decisions violate the First Amendment.

On May 24, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law SB 7072, which aims to regulate social media platforms by prohibiting the deplatforming of political candidates and requiring platforms to provide explanations when censoring content, among other stipulations.  SB 7072 places several specific restrictions and requirements on social media platforms, including:

  • Prohibiting the willful deplatforming of political candidates,
  • Banning the censorship or deplatforming of journalistic enterprises based on content,
  • Imposing hefty fines on social media platforms that deplatform candidates for political office—up to $250,000 per day for statewide candidates and $25,000 per day for other candidates,
  • Requiring platforms to notify users and provide explanations before taking actions like censoring or deplatforming,
  • Granting Floridians the right to sue platforms for violations and seek monetary damages,
  • Empowering the Florida Attorney General to sue technology companies under the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act,

That same year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 20, a law regulating social media platforms by prohibiting them from censoring content based on viewpoint and imposing several obligations related to content moderation processes.

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SCOTUS Ruling On Presidential Immunity Delivers Trump Victory, Blow To Crooked Jack Smith

The United States Supreme Court on Monday issued a 6-3 ruling that former presidents have total immunity from prosecution for any official presidential acts, but do not have immunity for any unofficial acts.

The court stated:

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

The justices also ordered lower courts to now apply their decision to the Donald Trump immunity case being led by special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Conservatives are calling the decision a victory, but some leftist legal analysts appear to believe there is still room for the lower courts to rule against the former president.

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Free Speech Legislation Gains Attention Following Supreme Court Siding with Biden in Social Media Censorship Case

US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has reacted to Wednesday’s ruling by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in the Murthy v. Missouri case, to call for new legislation that would, going forward, reinforce the rules, already contained in the First Amendment, meant to protect citizens from government-orchestrated censorship.

Jordan, whose Committee is probing alleged government-Big Tech collusion in violation of the First Amendment through the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, noted that the US Constitution’s First Amendment is “first for a reason.”

According to the Republican congressman, free speech that this amendment protects (from government intervention) should extend to any government infringement – be it in Congress, or online.

Jordan said that while respectfully disagreeing with the SCOTUS ruling the Committee’s own oversight “has shown the need for legislative reforms.”

“While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, our investigation has shown the need for legislative reforms, such as the Censorship Accountability Act, to better protect Americans harmed by the unconstitutional censorship-industrial complex,” Jordan wrote in a statement.

In other words, the increasingly pressing issue of how the government “interacts” with social platforms (because of their massive reach and therefore influence among the electorate) should be put into the hands of courts and their interpretations based on new and clear legislation to guide those decisions.

The Judiciary Committee chairman mentioned the Censorship Accountability Act – a bill that would let citizens launch legal action against federal employees suspected of colluding to suppress free speech.

Regardless of the SCOTUS decision, Jordan pledged that the Committee’s “important work will continue” – stating that the Subcommittee’s thus far “uncovered how and the extent to which the Biden Administration engaged in a censorship campaign in violation of the First Amendment.”

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Clarence Thomas appears open to making drug addiction illegal

U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas identified a previous ruling that he would like to upend.

The conservative majority sided with an Oregon city that prohibited unhoused people from sleeping on public land, and Thomas said in his opinion in the case that he would like to “dispose” of a 1962 ruling that struck down a California law that criminalized being addicted to narcotics, reported Newsweek.

“In an appropriate case, the Court should certainly correct this error,” Thomas wrote.

The court relied on that decades-old ruling in Robinson v. California to decide that penalizing homeless people for sleeping on the streets when no other shelter was available did not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

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Supreme Court strikes obstruction charge used for hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters

Federal prosecutors improperly charged a Jan. 6 defendant with obstruction, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Friday, likely upending many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

After the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 participants in the pro-Trump mob with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding. The charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud andshredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the government’s broad reading of the statute would give prosecutors too much discretion to seek a 20-year maximum sentence “for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment.”

To use the statute, he wrote, the government must establish that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity” of records, documents or other objects used in an official proceeding.

In dissent, Justice Amy Coney Barrett — joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — said the court’s reading of the obstruction statute is too limited and requires the majority to do “textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach” of the law.

Friday’s ruling has the potential to affect the convictions and sentences of a small set of rioters — around 27— who are serving time in prison for only this felony. It also could impact about 110 more who are awaiting trial or sentencing, according to prosecutors.In addition, the ruling may affect former president Donald Trump’s stalled trialfor allegedly trying to remain in power after his 2020 defeat; two of the four charges he faces are based on the obstruction statute, and he could move to have those charges dismissed.

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Supreme Court allows cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside

The Supreme Court decided on Friday that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors, even in West Coast areas where shelter space is lacking.

The case is the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court reversed a ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court that found outdoor sleeping bans amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The majority found that the 8th Amendment prohibition does not extend to bans on outdoor sleeping bans.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. “A handful of federal judges cannot begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”

He suggested that people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could raise that as a “necessity defense,” if they are ticketed or otherwise punished for violating a camping ban.

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Supreme Court overturns ex-mayor’s bribery conviction, narrowing the scope of public corruption law

The Supreme Court overturned the bribery conviction of a former Indiana mayor on Wednesday, the latest in a series of decisions narrowing the scope of federal public corruption law.

The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.

“Some gratuities can be problematic. Others are commonplace and might be innocuous,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. The lines aren’t always clear, especially since many state and local officials have other jobs, he said.

The high court sided with James Snyder, a Republican who was convicted of taking $13,000 from a trucking company after prosecutors said he steered about $1 million worth of city contracts to the company.

In a sharply worded dissent joined by her liberal colleagues, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the distinction between bribes and gratuities ignores the wording of the law aimed at rooting out public corruption.

“Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one that only today’s court could love,” she wrote.

The decision continues a pattern in recent years of the court restricting the government’s ability to use broad federal laws to prosecute public corruption cases. The justices also overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2016 and sharply curbed prosecutors’ use of an anti-fraud law in the case of ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in 2010.

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The Court Green-Lights Censorship

In 1919, the Supreme Court used the pretext of crisis to overhaul the First Amendment as it jailed critics of the Great War. Over a century later, the Court has again fallen victim to the Beltway’s prevailing zeitgeist in today’s regrettable decision in Murthy v. Missouri. 

The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, rejects the lower court’s injunction against many government agencies to stop leaning on social media companies to curate content, and does so on grounds that the plaintiffs lack standing. 

The opinion rests on omitted facts, skewed perceptions, and absurd conclusory statements. The dissent, issued by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, masterfully recounts the facts of the case and the inconsistency of the majority. 

Justice Barrett’s opinion completely ignored the Court’s decision last week in National Rifle Association v. Vullo. In that case, the Court held that New York officials violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights by launching a campaign to coerce private actors to “punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion activities.” 

Justice Sotomayor issued the opinion for a unanimous Court, writing, “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” 

In Murthy, the majority did not even attempt to differentiate the case from its clear precedent in Vullo. Justice Alito, however, explained the ominous message the Court sent through the two opinions.

What the officials did in this case was more subtle than the ham-handed censorship found to be unconstitutional in Vullo, but it was no less coercive. And because of the perpetrators’ high positions, it was even more dangerous. It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so. Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by.

Further, the majority opinion is bereft of references to the perpetrators, their “high positions,” or their statements of coercion. Justice Barrett does not mention Rob Flaherty or Andy Slavitt – the two main henchmen behind the Biden Administration’s censorship efforts – a single time in her holding. The dissent, however, devotes pages to recounting the White House’s ongoing censorship campaign.

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