Court to hear RICO abortion case
on Jun 28, 2005 at 10:01 am
Closing out its Term, the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to review — for the third time — a celebrated case over the use of the RICO law to try to stop blockades of abortion clinics. The Seventh Circuit had ordered another round of litigation in the District Court.
An earlier post on this case can be found here.
Anti-abortion forces contend in parallel appeals that the Supreme Court had put an end to the case with its second ruling in the case, in 2003. The case has been pending in federal courts for 19 years. The Court will hear Scheidler v. NOW (04-1244) and Operation Rescue v. NOW (04-1352) as a consolidated case.
That was one of three new cases the Court accepted for decision next Term. There was no word Tuesday morning on Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s plans to retire or remain on the Court.
In one of the other cases granted, the Court will be examining for the first time a case in which a convicted individual claims to be innocent based upon DNA evidence from the scene of the crime. A Tennessee man convicted on circumstantial evidence of murdering a young woman, his neighbor, and sentenced to death, claimed that DNA lab tests showed him to be innocent. But the en banc Sixth Circuit, while finding his innocence claim strong, denied habeas relief by an 8-7 vote because the majority found the evidence did not overcome his failure to raise the issue in his trial in state court. The case is (House v. Bell, 04-8990). The Justices had considered the case in five separate Conferences this month.
In the other newly granted appeal, the Court will be reviewing a Ninth Circuit case on federal habeas review of state court fact-findings about a prosecutor’s reason for striking a black woman from the jury panel (Rice v. Collins, 04-52). The case involved a black California man on trial on charges of possessing cocaine.
The Court refused to reopen the issue of the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments in public schools — on classroom walls, and on the grounds outside. One day after a split ruling on Commandments displays in courthouses and on government buildings’ lawns, the Court simply denied review of cases from Ohio and Kentucky, in which lower courts had found school displays unconstitutional.
The Court, in its last previous ruling on the Commandments (Stone v. Graham, in 1980), had decided that it was unconstitutional to post the sacred text on the classroom walls in a public school. When the Court agreed this Term to hear the new Commandments cases, it expressly avoided granting review of the issue in the public school context.
The Court does not explain its refusals to hear cases, so it is not certain why the Justices on Tuesday did not send the school cases back to lower courts to apply Monday’s rulings. Ordinarily, it takes five votes to take that step. It seems likely that there were not five Justices who wanted to send the cases back, which could leave the impression that the issue was still an open one in the wake of the new decisions. By simply denying review, the Court seemed to be suggesting it thought either that the issue was not worth its time, or that it did not want to encourage speculation that there was something more to be decided in lower courts — in other words, a sense that the lower courts had got it right in barring school displays.
No doubt, those who wish to place the Ten Commandments on public school house walls or on school grounds will pursue further cases, despite what the Court did on Tuesday, on the premise that the issue is at least worth another look.
The Adams County, Ohio, cases turned aside were Johnson v. Baker (03-1661) and Adams County School Board v. Baker (04-65). The Kentucky case was Harlan County v. ACLU of Kentucky (03-1698).
In addition, the Court voted Tuesday not to hear an Ohio state judge’s appeal challenging a ruling against his use of a Ten Commandments poster in his courtroom (DeWeese v. ACLU (04-841). Similarly, it refused to review an appeal by city officials in Great Falls, S.C., challenging a lower court ruling forbidding prayers referring to Jesus Christ before meetings of the City Council (Town of Great Falls v. Wynne, 04-1052).
All of the religion cases disposed of Tuesday had been held by the Court pending the rulings on the Commandments that were issued Monday.
