No action on death penalty dispute
on Aug 18, 2008 at 10:23 am
The Supreme Court issued its second round of summer recess orders Monday, but no action was taken on a plea by the state of Louisiana to reconsider the June 25 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), striking down the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. Although the Court could act at any time, the next scheduled release of summer orders will be on Friday, Sept. 5.
Monday’s orders can be found here.
Among the orders the Court did release on Monday, it refused to rehear its rulings in companion cases on June 12, barring U.S. courts from stopping the American military in Iraq from releasing two U.S. citizens to Iraqi authorities to answer for crimes allegedly committed in that country. The decision came in Munaf v. Geren (06-1666), together with Geren v. Omar (07-394). As is customary, there was no explanation for the denial.
In other orders, the Court allowed the federal government to take part in oral argument in three cases. Acting Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre had sought permission for a lawyer from his office to join in the hearings Oct. 6 in Altria Group v. Good, et al. (07-562), on Oct. 14 in Pearson v. Callahan (07-751), and on Nov. 12 in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (07-665).
The Altria Group case involves the right of individual smokers to sue tobacco companies under state law over the marketing of so-called “light” cigarettes. The Altria appeal argues that such lawsuits are barred expressly by federal law, or at least by implication drawn from the Federal Trade Commission’s actions. The FTC and the Justice Department in the government brief address only the implied preemption argument, asserting that the Commission’s actions do not bar such lawsuits.
The Pearson case is a test of police authority to search a house without a warrant, if they enter right after an undercover agent has gone in. In granting review, the Court asked the lawyers to argue whether it should overrule its 2001 decision in Saucier v. Katz, laying down a method for analyzing whether officials accused of violating someone’s constitutional rights have limited immunity to lawsuits for their actions. The two-step inquiry first asks whether a constitutional right is at stake, and, if so, whether it was clearly established at the time of the incident involved. The U.S. government, in its brief in the case, urged the Court to relax the requirement that the constitutional question be answered first, allowing lower courts to focus, at least in some cases, on whether an arguable right exsisted clearly at the time. That brief also argued that there was no Fourth Amendment violation in the police entry without a warrant under the circumstances here.
In the Pleasant Grove City case, the issue is the scope of the right of a private group to display a permanent religious monument on government property, including a public park, if the government entity responsible has accepted other objects donated by other private individuals or groups. The U.S. government brief filed in the case argued that what is at stake is “government speech,” so the First Amendment does not require the acceptance of monuments that convey messages that the government entity does not embrace.
