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Thread: Supreme Court of the United States

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    SOUTHERN UNION CO. v. UNITED STATES

    Supreme Court Rules Juries Must Determine Facts Used to Set Substantial Criminal Fines

    The U.S. Supreme Court has extended its decisions that require juries to find facts that lead to increased prison sentences or capital punishment.

    In Southern Union Company v. United States, the court said the same principle applies to criminal fines. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion (PDF). Justice Stephen G. Breyer dissented in an opinion joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

    The decision extends the reach of the 2000 decision Apprendi v. New Jersey, which said the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial bars judges from increasing prison sentences beyond the statutory maximum based on facts that aren’t submitted to a jury. “We see no principled basis under Apprendi for treating criminal fines differently,” Sotomayor wrote in the decision issued Thursday.

    Petioner Southern Union Co. was convicted for storing liquid mercury without a permit, Sotomayor wrote. The company was charged after two youths broke into a company facility in Rhode Island, played with the mercury and spread it around the complex.

    The statute set the fine for the violation at no more than $50,000 a day; the probation office found the violation occurred over the course of 762 days, for a maximum fine of $38.1 million. A judge fined the company $6 million and required it to fulfill a $12 million “community service obligation."

    The government had argued Apprendi shouldn’t apply because fines are less onerous than incarceration and the death penalty. Sotomayor disagreed with the reasoning. “Not all fines are insubstantial, and not all offenses punishable by fines are petty,” Sotomayor wrote. When a fine is substantial enough to trigger the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, she said, “Apprendi applies in full.”

    http://www.abajournal.com/news/artic...riminal_fines/
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  2. #12
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    To Beat the Execution Clock, the Justices Prepare Early

    By ADAM LIPTAK
    The New York Times

    WASHINGTON — John Balentine was an hour away from being put to death in Texas last month when the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution.

    The unseemly and unsettling spectacle of a last-minute legal scramble in the shadow of the ultimate deadline, with the condemned inmate waiting for word of his fate just outside the death chamber, may suggest that the Supreme Court does not render considered justice when it is asked to halt an execution.

    But it tries. Indeed, the court goes to extraordinary lengths to get ready, and its point person is a staff lawyer named Danny Bickell.

    “Cases where there is an execution date,” he said with a sigh, “that’s where I come in.”

    Mr. Bickell’s formal title is emergency applications clerk, but capital defense lawyers have an informal title for him, too. They call him the death clerk.

    In remarks at a conference of lawyers specializing in federal death penalty work at a hotel here last month, Mr. Bickell provided a rare inside look at the Supreme Court’s oversight of the machinery of death in the United States.

    It starts with a weekly update.

    “Every Monday morning,” Mr. Bickell said, “I put out a list to the court of all the executions that are scheduled in the country in the next six or seven weeks, and that gets distributed to all of the justices.”

    The Supreme Court clerk’s office is famously helpful to lawyers who have questions about the court’s rules and procedures, but in capital cases it goes further.

    “As the date approaches,” Mr. Bickell said, referring to impending executions, “I will be in touch with the attorney general’s office. I will be in touch with you, if you are representing the inmate, and with the lower courts, trying to figure out what is pending below and what is likely to make its way up to the Supreme Court.

    “Once we make contact about 10 days or two weeks before the scheduled execution, I will start asking you to forward me everything that you file in the lower courts. Once you forward it to me, I forward it on to the law clerks and to the justices so that they can begin reviewing the case.”

    By the time Mr. Balentine’s stay application reached the court, then, the justices were up to speed on the issues presented in his case, which concerned how claims of incompetent legal work at a capital trial should be presented.

    Under the Supreme Court’s rules, Mr. Balentine’s plea that his execution be stayed was addressed to Justice Antonin Scalia, who oversees the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

    But individual justices almost never rule by themselves on requests to halt executions. “I would say 99.9 percent of the time the circuit justice is going to refer the application to the full court, and all nine justices are going to act on the application,” Mr. Bickell said.

    He added that the court always makes sure it can rule on such applications in time for its decision to matter, even in states not inclined to wait for word from the justices.

    “The court won’t always act on it by 7 o’clock,” he said. That hour, 7 p.m., is important because it is when Texas executes people, Eastern time. The state has executed seven inmates this year.

    “If we’re getting to the point where we’re short on time — it’s 6:30 or 6:15 for a scheduled 7 o’clock execution — I will call my contact” at the state attorney general’s office to see “whether they’re going to go forward with the execution while the case is pending or if they’re going to hold off and wait,” Mr. Bickell said.

    If the state will not wait, the court will give itself time to think and to vote. That responsibility again falls to the justice in charge of the judicial circuit.

    “If we’re told they’re going to go forward with it and they’re not going to wait,” Mr. Bickell said, “the practice of the court recently — this has happened with Justice Thomas a few times last term — is the justice will issue a temporary interim stay.” Justice Clarence Thomas oversees the 11th Circuit, which covers Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

    Applications involving more mundane matters are also submitted to individual justices. The most common are requests for extra time to file briefs and other papers. Mr. Bickell said the justices take very different approaches to granting them.

    Justice Elena Kagan extended the deadline every time she was asked last term, Mr. Bickell said, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor did so more than 90 percent of the time. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony M. Kennedy granted extensions about three-quarters of the time.

    Mr. Bickell did not say how Justice Stephen G. Breyer is on this score, but he said Justice Scalia is strict.

    “Anyone want to take a guess?” Mr. Bickell asked. “Four percent,” he said, and there were groans from the assembled lawyers.

    “Doesn’t happen very often, so keep that in mind,” Mr. Bickell said. “These are capital cases included.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/us...ebar.html?_r=2

  3. #13
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    Today in 1970: The Supreme Court creates the Alford plea

    As anyone who has practiced criminal law may have noticed, not all defendants are easily categorized as “guilty” or “not guilty.”

    Many defendants who are guilty of the crimes with which they are charged are acquitted; at the same time, many defendants who are innocent of the crimes with which they are charged are convicted.

    Sometimes, those in the latter category voluntarily plead guilty, even though they maintain their innocence.

    What would possess someone to head down this road?

    Although the exact motivations differ with each individual, nearly all are induced into such action because there is strong evidence of guilt, the defendant is scared of a possible harsh sentence (e.g. the death penalty), or both.

    This, in turn, may raise serious questions as to whether such action is a “compelled” self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.

    Fortunately for us, the Supreme Court answered that question 42 years ago today, with the creation of the “Alford plea.”

    The Alford plea is, as you may have surmised, a guilty plea by someone who insists on his or her own innocence, and it was so named for the case that gave birth to it: North Carolina v. Alford.

    Alford started as a murder case.

    The defendant, Henry Alford, was charged with first-degree murder.

    Although he never stopped insisting on his innocence, the evidence against him was fairly damning:

    The state had witnesses who claimed that “shortly before the killing Alford took his gun from his house, stated his intention to kill the victim, and returned home with the declaration that he had carried out the killing.”

    In light of this evidence, Alford agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in order to avoid the death penalty for first-degree murder, with which he was originally charged.

    Alford was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment, the maximum penalty for second-degree murder.

    Afterward, Alford filed a habeas petition in federal court, arguing both that his plea was involuntary because it was induced by fear of the death penalty and that an actual admission of guilt is required by due process.

    The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where Alford lost.

    As to the first of Alford’s arguments, the Court replied that the question of whether the plea is voluntary turns on whether it “represents a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative courses of action open to the defendant.”

    In other words, if a plea is one of the better options available to the individual defendant, it is not involuntary.

    Regarding the second argument, the Court noted that, because of “the overwhelming evidence against him, a trial was precisely what neither Alford nor his attorney desired.”

    As such, since a plea bargain was more desirable to Alford, due process was not offended by his taking the guilty plea despite Alford’s continued insistence on his innocence.

    Alford pleas have since become relatively commonplace since, although much more so in state courts than federal.

    Nevertheless, these pleas today must have the same requisite elements as Alford’s to be constitutional – most prominently, a factual basis for the guilty plea in the face of the defendant’s maintaining his innocence.

    But while the Supreme Court decided that these types of pleas were constitutional, they didn’t address the question of whether public confidence in the courts is undermined by allowing defendants who claim innocence to get convicted regardless.

    http://westlawinsider.com/today-in-l...e-alford-plea/
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  4. #14
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    Robert Bork, former Supreme Court nominee, dies

    Robert Bork, former federal judge and Supreme Court nominee, has died, his family confirms to FoxNews.com.

    Family members said Bork, 85, died early Wednesday morning. He had a history of heart problems and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition.

    His funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

    Bork was among the most polarizing figures in American law and conservative politics for more than four decades. When Bork was solicitor general in 1973, he fired Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor on the order of President Richard Nixon to help in the Watergate cover-up.

    President Ronald Regan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. In a 58-to-42 vote, the Senate rejected his nomination -- it was by one of the widest margins in U.S. history.

    Republicans have long said his defeat was a completely partisan move and have said Bork was one of the greatest conservative figures in history.

    Bork's grandson, Robert Bork III, recalled fond memories of his grandfather, in an interview with FoxNews.com Wednesday morning.

    "Even in his old age, he was just a great person to talk to. He was open to conversation, and I looked forward to seeing him," he said. "We were planning to see him for Christmas."

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz2FVk0eUVf
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  5. #15
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    Former Supreme Court Clerk Reveals The Most Stressful Part Of Law's Most Prestigious Gig

    The U.S. Supreme Court justices hand-pick four clerks each every year for what's arguably the most prestigious legal gig out there.

    High court clerks write "bench memos" to fill their justices in on a particular case, discuss cases with them, and even draft opinions that interpret the law for the entire country.

    It's a serious job.

    But perhaps the most intense part of clerking for the high court involved death penalty cases, former Supreme Court clerk Jay Wexler told Business Insider.

    Wexler, who's now a law professor at Boston University, clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg back 1998 and 1999, when he was married and worked mostly pretty normal hours.

    However, Wexler worked day and night whenever it was his turn to review last-minute petitions to halt executions and brief Ginsburg, he told BI.

    "The death penalty cases are the ones that keep you in the building the whole day, the whole night," Wexler said. "The death penalty cases go down to the wire all the time."

    The Supreme Court grants a tiny fraction of the petitions it receives to stop executions.

    "It's very, very hard to get an execution stopped at the end, but you have to read the arguments," he said.

    Ginsburg herself has hinted that reviewing death penalty cases is the most painful part of her job, SF Gate reported in September 2011.

    While she hasn't gone as far as to call the death penalty unconstitutional, she told a group of law students that reviewing impending executions was a "dreadful part of the business."

    http://www.businessinsider.com/whats...#ixzz2JyOCrHn4
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #16
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    Justice Ginsburg Says The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished

    Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was speaking about her love of opera music with New York’s WQXR radio program earlier this week when, somehow, the death penalty came up.

    According to Think Progress, she said she would abolish it if she was the one making the rules:

    “Every time I have to participate in a case where someone has been sentenced to death, I feel that same conflict. But…when you’re with a group of nine people, the highest court in the land, you can’t pretend to be king or queen. If I had my way, there would be no death penalty. But the death penalty for now, is the law. And I could say, ‘Well, I won’t participate in those cases.’ But then I can’t be an influence.” [Emphasis added]

    Ginsburg has long opposed the death penalty, but has typically shied away from “absolute” statements like some of her predecessors in order to remain a voice on the matter.

    But this is not the first time she has spoken out against American laws.

    Last February, for instance, she told a group of Egyptians that they should look to the South African Constitution rather than the one she has sworn to uphold in crafting the post-Arab Spring law of the land.

    The rest of the WQXR interview largely focused on Ginsburg’s love of music, Thomson Reuters adds.

    “People ask me, ‘If you could be whatever you want to be, what would you be?’ And my first answer is not, ‘A great lawyer.’ It is, ‘I would be a great diva,’” she joked. “But I totally lack that talent, so the next best thing is the law.”

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...#ixzz2KDdy1W3z
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #17
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Seems to me like the 9th Circuit got another smack down with one of today's rulings. Can someone with a legal decoder ring confirm or deny my take on the read?

    here is the case ruling : http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...2-382_4h25.pdf

  8. #18
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    It is definitely a "smackdown." Even the opinion called it "substantial". Another attempt by the 9th Circuit to shape their precedents to grant relief and try to ignore the holding of the last state court to rule. I don't know visiting Judge Zhoury, but I am not surprised at all that Reinhardt and W. Fletcher were on the panel.

  9. #19
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Moreover, decisions that are per curiam (that is, unsigned) are usually cases where the lower court is completely wrong--where it does not even approach being a close call for the Supreme Court.

  10. #20
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Do you think the fact the opinion was released on April FOOLS day gave it some additional "smack" factor?? : P

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