In New Term, Supreme Court Shifts Focus to Crime and First Amendment

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, which has been focused in recent terms on the rights of corporations and on curbing big lawsuits, returns to the bench on Monday with a different agenda. Now, criminal justice is at the heart of the court’s docket, along with major cases on free speech and religious freedom.

“The docket seems to be changing,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy told reporters at a judicial conference in August.

“A lot of big civil cases are going to arbitration,” he said. “I don’t see as many of the big civil cases.”

Still, the shift in focus toward criminal and First Amendment cases will soon be obscured if, as expected, the justices agree to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law. That case promises to be a once-in-a-generation blockbuster.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/us/supreme-court-turns-to-criminal-and-first-amendment-cases.html?pagewanted=all

---

The cases include:
- United States v. Jones (whether a warrant is needed to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect's car)
- Florence v. Board of Freeholders (strip-searching)
- Maples v. Thomas (death penalty appeal when defense attorneys quit, )
- Lafler v. Cooper; Missouri v. Frye (ineffective defense)
- Perry v. New Hampshire (eyewitness evidence)
- FCC v. Fox Television Stations (obscenity on TV; appeal of fines for Nicole Richie cursing during 2002 Billboard Music Awards on Fox and a nude scene on a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue on ABC)
- Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Americans with Disabilities Act applying to churches)
- Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories (patent)
- National Meat Association v. Harris (federal slaughterhouse law vs. state euthanasia law)

[jmowreader]

1. My predictions...

US v. Jones: warrants will not be required to attach GPS trackers to cars

Florence v. Board of Freeholders: strip searches will be allowed

Maples v. Thomas: it will go against Maples

Lafler v. Cooper: it will go against Lafler

Perry v. New Hampshire: This one's real muddy--the issue is, "should ALL unreliable witness identifications, or just the ones the police manufactured, be inadmissible in court?" The logical person would say "all of them," but with a Supreme Court that's as defendant-hostile as this one is, they'll say "just police-manufactured ones."

FCC v. Fox Television Stations: This is a tough one. It goes against the government, so in most cases I'd say it would go in Fox's favor, but since it's an obscenity case the FCC will almost certainly win.

Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC: No question: it's against the government AND the plaintiff is a church, who will win.

Mayo v. Prometheus: I'm thinking it will go to Prometheus--the patent in question is invalid because it fails the nonobviousness test, but half the patents issued in the last 10 years do that.

National Meat Association v. Harris: This SHOULD go to Harris. Here's the issue: The Federal Meat Inspection Act says any animal at a slaughterhouse that can't walk must be held for observation for evidence of disease. California law says no slaughterhouse may buy, sell, receive, process, butcher or hold a nonambulatory animal--IOW, if they become downer cows, they've immediately got to be killed and disposed of. The reality is, the California law is better for the eater than federal law, but federal law is better for the slaughterhouse. I predict the Supremes will use this case to overturn the federal law.

[Demeter]

2. I predict they will overturn the First Amendment

Nothing would surprise me any more.

[No Elephants]

3. Rethug courts after the Warren Court have been relatively protective of the First Am.

Maybe just to show they were willing to protect some part of the Bill of Rights. Besides, so many of the cases involved religious first amendment rights.

Not sure what the Roberts court will do, now that so much of the Constitution is being ignored with the overt or tacit approval of both Dems and Rethugs.

Reminds me of Orwell's 1984, which was such a great and prescient novel. I may not have seemed that way when first written, but, with the benefit of hindsight, WOW.

[Occulus]

4. “A lot of big civil cases are going to arbitration,”

Well, Captain Obvious, maybe that's because the court upon which you sit recently ruled it Constitutional for a corporation to strip a customer's right to sue (and force to arbitration) in those very same civil cases!

These people really do think we're all thick as a brick, even the "good" ones, don't they?