New Supreme Court Term
 

Chicago Tribune

The Supreme Court is back in session today with several important criminal justice cases on its docket:

<ul type="square">[*] The most watched case is another Guantanamo detainee case. This time, its a challenge to a law Congress passed last year denying Guantanamo detainees Habeas Corpus protections and the right to challege their detention in federal court. I would prefer we handle the detainees as Geneva Convention POWs, but failing that, the only other option should be as criminal defendants.
[*] A drug related case involves whether federal judges can ignore statutory sentencing guidelines in drug cases. These laws are often criticized as draconian and I suspect many judges would like to hand out lighter sentences.
[*] A similar case examines whether judges may ignore the tougher sentencing guidelines on crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine. This is the famous "100:1" discrepancy where you need to be found with 100 times as much powder as crack to get the same sentence.
[*] The court will consider whether a person can be arrested and searched for an offence like speeding that normally resuts in a ticket.
[*] Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography. The appellate court struck this law down as a 1st Amendment violation.
[*] Whether the normal lethal injection method of execution constitutes an 8th Amendment violation. I'd like to put money on the Court rejecting this argument.
[*] An Indiana law requiring voters to present a government ID at the polling place. I don't have a strong opinion on this one. On one hand, preventing voter fraud is important; on the other hand, I can definately see how this would disproportionally hurt the poor.
[*] Cases the court hasn't agreed to hear but likely will:

A Louisiana man is on death row for raping a 12 year old. He is the only person in the country on death row for a crime not involving a murder. The Court will examine whether the death penalty for non-murder crimes is an 8th Amendment violation

The 2nd Amendment case I've been talking about (I guess I misheard the radio).[/list]

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography.

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lol. Most open and shut one imo.

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A Louisiana man is on death row for raping a 12 year old. He is the only person in the country on death row for a crime not involving a murder. The Court will examine whether the death penalty for non-murder crimes is an 8th Amendment violation

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Why does it matter whether it's murder or not with regard to the death penalty being cruel or unusual? Obviously, the founders did not intend the Eighth Amendment to prevent states from executing people.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography.

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lol. Most open and shut one imo.

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A Louisiana man is on death row for raping a 12 year old. He is the only person in the country on death row for a crime not involving a murder. The Court will examine whether the death penalty for non-murder crimes is an 8th Amendment violation

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Why does it matter whether it's murder or not with regard to the death penalty being cruel or unusual? Obviously, the founders did not intend the Eighth Amendment to prevent states from executing people.

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Nitty point: Cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited not cruel or unusual.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Why does it matter whether it's murder or not with regard to the death penalty being cruel or unusual? Obviously, the founders did not intend the Eighth Amendment to prevent states from executing people.

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I don't particulary want to research this, but I think the SC has kind of morphed the "Cruel and Unusual" clause and the "Excessive bail and fines" clause into "Excessive punishment".

If you're making a federalism argument, most of the 8th has definately been incorporated and therefore applies to the states. However, the excessive fines provision was only incorporated in 2001 and the excessive bail provision has not been incorporated, so that portion of the 8th does not apply to states.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

How about dual polls on what the decisions should and will be?

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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The most watched case is another Guantanamo detainee case. This time, its a challenge to a law Congress passed last year denying Guantanamo detainees Habeas Corpus protections and the right to challege their detention in federal court. I would prefer we handle the detainees as Geneva Convention POWs, but failing that, the only other option should be as criminal defendants.


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The Guantanamo cases are extremely interesting because the subject matter (constitutional rights, war powers, foreign policy) is so legally vague in many very important ways. It's the type of case where one little sentence in the opinion could be used as foder for either "side" for years to come, especially if the court comes down with a vague ruling.

Pretty sure there are already pretty solid holdings on the child pornography and search incident to ticket offenses cases, so despite the blurbs I imagine the cases are about some uninteresting semantics.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography.

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lol. Most open and shut one imo.

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I have no idea which way you think it'll go.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

What is the relevant precident and constitutional basis in those cases.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography.

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lol. Most open and shut one imo.

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I have no idea which way you think it'll go.

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He thinks it will go towards allowing artificially created child pornography. I agree with him that this would be one of the more insane decisions if it went the other way, but I don't seem to have as much faith as Tiger does that the supreme court isn't insane.

Re: New Supreme Court Term
 

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Whether explicit images created without using actual children can be prosecuted as child pornography.

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lol. Most open and shut one imo.

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I have no idea which way you think it'll go.

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It's well-settled that the government can't punish the possession of pornography that contains what "appears to be" child pornography, even if it isn't. I checked, and the case this term distinguishes itself by addressing a law that punishes the pandering of such "looks like but isn't" material. As I mentioned above, it's semantics, but you never know.