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]