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Big Wins For Gay Marriage

    On the last day of the its term the Supreme Court today handed twin victories to the cause of marriage equality.
    If there was an empty seat in the courtroom I couldn't see it.

 

Justice Kennedy had the first opinion, U.S. v Windsor, in which the Court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

    And of course Justice Scalia read a lenghty dissent.

    The second victory for same-sex marriage was by default in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts where the Court found that the petitioners in support of California's Proposition 8 lacked standing, thereby allowing the lower court's ruling to stand.

    So much will be written about these decisions in the next few days that I won't bother linking to any one. 

 

Motor Voter, Right to Silence and More

    For a day without a real blockbuster it turned out to be an unusually busy one for me.

    Among the Supreme Court decisions today was one that overturned an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. In an opinion announced by Justice Scalia the Court found that the federal Motor Voter law preempts Arizona's law. 

    In another opinion, this one from Justice Alito, the Court said that if you want to  preserve your right to remain silent you've got to speak up. 

    I also finished a couple sketches I had started earlier, the Great Hall . . .
    . . . . and General Suter, the Clerk of the Court, calling up admissions to the bar.

 

 

 

DNA Sampling No Different Than Fingerprinting

    In an opinion delivered by Justice Kennedy today the Supreme Court said that taking a DNA sample from a suspect is the same as fingerprinting someone upon arrest, and that the purpose is indentification of the suspect.

    “When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," said Justice Kennedy.

    "That assertion taxes the credulity of the credulous," said Justice Scalia in a dissent delivered from the bench. "In approving that suspicionless search, the Court has cast aside a bedrock rule of our Fourth Amendment ..."

    The case is Maryland v. King

The End of the Civil Rights Era?

Notables of the civil rights movement sat in the audience as the Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in a major challenge to the Voting Rights Act, Shelby County v. Holder. 
From 1965 when President Johnson signed it into law to the election of the first African-American president, the Voting Rights Act has been the most important and successful civil rights law ever passed. So successful that a slim majority of the Court seem to think that its most important part, Section 5, is so outdated it's no longer constitutional.

Justice Scalia,below, to Solicitor General Verrilli on why the were no votes against the 2006 reauthorization in the Senate, "I think that's attributable to a phenomenon that has been called the perpetuation of racial entitlements."

Bob Barnes has WaPo story here.

 

The Morning After . . .

. . . election day. Best not to read anything into it; Scalia often looks down while the Marshal calls the Court to order.

Supreme Court Revisits Affirmative Action

Nine years after deciding that race, though not quotas, could be considered in college admissions a new, somewhat more conservative Supreme Court is reconsidering affirmative action. The case against the University of Texas was brought by Abigail Fisher, a Texas high school student who says she was denied admission because of her race.

The first question for Fisher's attorney, Bert W. Rein, came from Justice Ginsburg, who along with Justices Breyer and Sotomayor, is expected to uphold the Court's earlier position on affirmative action in college admissions. Justice Kagan, whose empty chair can be seen on the right, is not taking part in the case.

The more conservative members of the Court, who had been mostly silent during Rein's argument, sprang into active questioning as Gregory Garre took the lectern to defend the university's program.

Justice Alito, a foe of affirmative action plans who replaced Justice O'Connor, the author of the Court's earlier opinon in Grutter v. Bollinger, asked Garre, "I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students ...from underpriviledged backgrounds, ..." "But you say ...it doesn't admit enough African Americans and Hispanics ...from priviledged backgrounds."

Replied Garre, "Because, Your Honor, our point is that we want minorities from different backgrounds"

Justice Kennedy, as usual the swing vote on which the case hinges, said, "So what you're saying is that what counts is race above all."

The term "critical mass", refering to the proportion of minorities in the student body, was bandied back and forth with both Garre and Solicitor General Verrilli trying to avoid making it sound like a number.

Justice Scalia to General Verrilli, "So we should stop calling it mass."

Verrilli, "I agree."

Scalia, "Call it a cloud or something like that."

 

SCOTUSblog's Amy Howe has the Plain English summary here.

The Supreme Court's Health Care Opinion

My sketches from the announcement of the Court's opinion, and dissents, on the Affordable Care Act. 

As they took their seats Justice Breyer was smiling; Sotomayor looked glum.

Justice Scalia was actually sitting as far back from Roberts as possible. Forgive the artistic license, but I wanted to get his expression in the frame.

Announcing the Court's Opinion on Arizona Immigration Law

Sketches of the Supreme Court announcing its opinion in Arizona v. U.S. The Court upheld in part and struck down in part Arizona's law, SB 1070, aimed at curtailing illegal immigration. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority.....

.....and Justice Scalia dissented.
 

The Tucson Citizen has the story here.

 

 

The Fabulist Justice Scalia

Reading his opinion in a mortgage-settlement kickback case, Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Justice Scalia went to Aesop's fables to illustrate a point.

"Aesop's fable would be just as wryly humorous if the lion's claim to the entirety of the kill he hunted in partnership with less ferocious animals had been translated into English as the "lion's portion" instead of the lion's share," he wrote.