"Supreme Court’s approval rating at 44%, poll says; Most say rulings are influenced by personal views" by Adam Liptak and Allison Kopicki | New York Times, June 08, 2012
WASHINGTON - Just 44 percent of Americans surveyed approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing and three-quarters say the justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News.
Those findings are a fresh indication that the court’s standing with the public has slipped significantly in the past quarter-century, according to surveys conducted by several polling organizations. Approval was as high as 66 percent in the late 1980s and more recently was near 50 percent.
The decline in the court’s standing may stem in part from Americans’ growing distrust in recent years of major institutions in general and the government in particular.
I'll let you in on a little clue: it was all the lying that did it.
But it also could reflect a sense that the court is more political, after the ideologically divided 5-4 decisions in Bush v. Gore, which determined the 2000 presidential election, and in Citizens United, the 2010 decision that allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions....
On the highest-profile issue now facing the court, the poll found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed hope that the justices overturn some or all of the 2010 health care overhaul law when they rule, probably this month. There was scant difference in the court’s approval rating between supporters and opponents of the law....
We all agree.
Either way, many Americans do not seem to expect the court to decide the case based solely along constitutional lines. Just one in eight of those polled said the justices decided cases based only on legal analysis....
Why would we? They never do.
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Also see: Supreme Court sows distrust with justices’ political activity
"Health care ruling looms, but decision still secret" by Jesse J. Holland | Associated Press June 25, 2012
WASHINGTON —Unlike the president, who has to be reelected every four years and needs positive publicity to help, the justices have lifetime appointments and do not need favorable publicity to keep their jobs.
And unlike the other constitutional branches, the justices rarely appear on television and do not even allow cameras inside their main workplace, the court....
The court’s mystique and reputation for silence means there have been no special warnings from the justices for employees not to spill the beans on the health care decision.
Clerks, secretaries, aides, janitors, and all of the other staff know they are not supposed to talk about anything the court does until the official announcement....
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Okay, let's get down to some decisions:
"High court rejects a challenge to DNA evidence; Ruling contrasts with trend for defendant rights" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, June 19, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld a rape conviction on Monday over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The court’s 5-to-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions that bolstered the right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.
Justice Clarence Thomas provided the margin of difference in the case
to uphold the conviction of Sandy Williams, even though Thomas has more
often sided with defendants on the issue of cross-examination of
witnesses.
No one from the company that performed the analysis showed up at the trial to defend it.
The court has previously ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports used at trial.
Related: Coakley's Missing Case
In this case, the state of Illinois said that the DNA expert who matched the two samples played the critical role - even though she did not actually extract the DNA samples and conduct the tests - and that she testified and was subjected to a thorough cross-examination.
Also see: Ill. not defending gay marriage ban
The court split into three factions in this case. Four justices - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy - joined in a strong opinion that would give prosecutors more leeway in using lab reports without having to put the analysts who prepared them on the witness stand.
What happened to the right to confront your accusers?
Four others - Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Antonin Scalia, and Sonia Sotomayor - said the Constitution does not permit the use of the lab analysis that helped convict Williams.
In the middle was Thomas, writing only for himself, but controlling the outcome of the case. Thomas said the lab report used in this case could not be considered testimonial and so does not fall under the Constitution’s cross-examination requirement....
Oh.
The Obama administration, 42 states, and several local prosecutors had warned that a ruling for Williams could make it much harder for scientific experts to testify about their professional opinions, a common occurrence at criminal trials.
Sieg heil.
A brief filed by the Manhattan district attorney and New York City medical examiner warned that as many as 12 employees might have to testify to allow for the use of DNA profiles.
In another decision Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must fully reimburse Native American tribes for money they spent on federal programs.
The federal government had agreed to reimburse money tribes spent on programs like law enforcement, environmental protection and agricultural assistance, but Congress capped the amount of money earmarked for that reimbursement. The tribes sued, and the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver said the money must be fully reimbursed.
The high court said the Ramah Navajo Chapter and other Native American tribes must get their money back.
Related: Indian Issues
Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion for Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Kagan. Roberts, and Ginsburg, Breyer, and Alito dissented.
The court is scheduled to issue the final nine rulings in its nine-month term by the end of next week, including decisions on the Obama health care overhaul, the Arizona’s immigration law, and on the Federal Communications Commission’s crackdown on indecent programming.
Related: Both sides preparing for Supreme Court ruling on Arizona immigration law
Supreme Court strikes down key parts of Arizona immigration law
Also see: Immigration law drafter calls court ruling ‘victory’
The justices will release opinions on Thursday and June 25 and will probably add days to their calendar next week.
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"Supreme Court tosses out $18m fine" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, June 22, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court threw out an $18 million penalty Thursday against a natural gas company convicted of violating an environmental law.
It really is a corporate court.
The court voted 6-3 in favor of Texas-based Southern Union Co. in an appeal of a penalty imposed for its improper storage of mercury in a building in Pawtucket....
Justices Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy dissented.
Southern Union had used the building to store outdated mercury-sealed gas regulators that it removed from customers’ homes.
Although the mercury was initially removed and shipped to a recycling center, that work stopped, and the regulators, along with loose mercury, were left to accumulate in bags, containers and jugs inside the building.
A judge decided that the company should pay a $6 million fine and $12 million in charitable contributions.
He arrived at those numbers after taking the maximum fine of $50,000 a day and multiplying it by 762 days, as specified in the indictment. The judge said he could have imposed a fine of more than $38 million.
But Southern Union said the jury did not specifically determine how long the mercury was stored improperly and that the judge should have capped the fine at $50,000, the one-day maximum.
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"US justices sidestep indecency; 2 broadcasters escape fines for nudity, cursing" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, June 22, 2012
WASHINGTON — The larger free speech questions....
First Amendment issues raised by changes in the world of broadcasting and related media since 1978, when the Supreme Court decided the leading case in this area, Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica.
That decision said the government could restrict George Carlin’s famous ‘‘seven dirty words’’ monologue, which had been broadcast on the radio in the afternoon.
:-)
I miss him, I miss him a lot.
The court relied on what it called the uniquely pervasive nature of broadcast media and its unique accessibility to children.
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Also see: The Seven Words You Can't Say in Front of the Supreme Court
And why do I think the health law will be upheld?
“The biggest thing that could go wrong for us is if the whole thing gets overturned and we have to deal with the risk of uncertainty.”
"Health law’s mandate valid, professors say; Few in poll think court will allow it" Bloomberg News, June 24, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court should uphold a law requiring most Americans to have health insurance if the justices follow legal precedent, according to 19 of 21 constitutional law professors who ventured an opinion on the most-anticipated ruling in years.
Only eight of them predicted the court would do so.
‘‘The precedent makes this a very easy case,’’ said Christina
Whitman, a University of Michigan law professor. ‘‘But the oral
argument indicated that the more conservative justices are striving to
find a way to strike down the mandate.’’
Five of the 21 professors who responded, including Whitman, said the court is likely to strike down the coverage requirement. Underscoring the high stakes and complexity of the debate, eight described the outcome as a tossup.
During arguments in March, four justices named by Republican presidents questioned Congress’s constitutional power to enact the mandate, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been viewed as potential swing votes. A fifth, Justice Clarence Thomas, rarely speaks during courtroom sessions. Questioning by four Democratic appointees was more sympathetic to the provision, a centerpiece of President Obama’s health care law.
‘‘There was certainly a lot of hostile questioning by the more conservative members of the court,’’ said Jesse Choper, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley who described the court as likely to support the mandate. ‘‘It’s relatively straightforward — if they adhere to existing doctrine, it seemed to me they’re likely to uphold it.’’
There was broad agreement that the ruling, barely four months before November’s presidential election, has the potential to hurt the Supreme Court’s reputation as an impartial institution.
Can't hurt it much more according to the polls.
Eighteen of the 21 professors said the court’s credibility will be damaged if the insurance requirement, which passed Congress without a single Republican vote, is ruled unconstitutional by a 5-4 majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents.
‘‘When you take the fact of a high-profile, enormously controversial and politically salient case — to have it decided by the narrowest majority with a party-line split looks very bad; it looks like the court is simply an arm of one political party,’’ University of Chicago Law professor Dennis Hutchinson said in an interview.
I'm sure whatever the insurance companies want they will get.
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But just in case:
"Democrats gird for health care decision" by Peter Baker | New York Times, June 24, 2012
WASHINGTON — With the Supreme Court set to render judgment on President Obama’s health care law as early as Monday, the White House and Congress find themselves in a position that many advocates of the legislation once considered almost unimaginable.
Didn't come today.
In passing the law two years ago, Democrats entertained little doubt that it was constitutional. The White House held a conference call to tell reporters that any legal challenge, as one Obama aide put it, ‘‘will eventually fail and shouldn’t be given too much credence in the press.’’
Congress held no hearing on the plan’s constitutionality until nearly
a year after it was signed into law. Representative Nancy Pelosi, then
the House speaker, scoffed when a reporter asked what part of the
Constitution empowered Congress to force Americans to buy health
insurance. ‘‘Are you serious?’’ she asked with disdain. ‘‘Are you
serious?’’
A White House that had assumed that any challenge would fail now fears that a centerpiece of Obama’s presidency may be partly or completely overturned on a theory that it gave little credence. The miscalculation left the administration on the defensive as its legal strategy evolved over the last two years.
‘‘It led to some people taking it too lightly,’’ said a congressional lawyer who like others involved in drafting the law declined to be identified before the ruling. ‘‘It shouldn’t strike anybody as a close call,’’ the lawyer added, but ‘‘given where we are now, do I wish we had focused even more on this? I guess I would say yes.’’
Looking back, Democrats said they had had every reason for confidence, given decades of Supreme Court precedents affirming Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce, and lawyers who defended the law said they had always taken the challenge seriously, even if politicians had not. But they underestimated the chances that conservative judges might interpret those precedents differently or discard them.
Adversaries said the law’s proponents had been too attentive to liberal academics who shaped public discussion.
‘‘There’s very little diversity in the legal academy among law professors,’’ said Randy E. Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor and a leading thinker behind the challenge. ‘‘So they’re in an echo chamber listening to people who agree with them.’’
The Amerikan news media better get to a hospital then.
David B. Rivkin Jr., who filed a challenge that was joined by 26 states, said that extended across party lines. ‘‘Nobody in Congress is interested in constitutional issues,’’ he said. ‘‘The Republicans on the Hill were no better than the Democrats. It really was very late in the game when Republicans realized there would be no policy deal and began to look at the constitutional issues.’’
But THAT is THEIR JOB!!
And the Supreme Court may yet uphold the law, in which case the second-guessing in Washington will quickly transform into triumphant told-you-so’s. Pelosi, for one, has not retreated. ‘‘We’re ironclad on the constitutionality of the bill,’’ she told CBS this month. ‘‘I think we’ll be 6-3 in our favor.’’
She must know something.
Democrats were so sure from the start because the concept of requiring Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty had originally been advanced by conservatives to avoid government-run health care. The Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but critics argued that rather than regulate activity, the law regulated inactivity, in other words, the choice of some Americans not to purchase a health policy.
If it were single-payer I bet it would get struck down in a second.
Thomas J. Perrelli, until recently the associate attorney general, said that the legal team had taken the case seriously and that anyone who had not was misguided. ‘‘You had to know this was going to the Supreme Court,’’ he said, ‘‘and it would be one of the most important cases of the decade.’’
The issue came up briefly on the Senate floor when Democrats voted down a constitutional objection by Republicans. Days before final passage, White House and Justice Department lawyers sat down to map out a defense. Some in the room recalled being acutely aware of the danger. The White House assigned a new associate deputy attorney general, Robert Weiner, to coordinate defense.
The first lawsuits were filed the day Obama signed the plan into law in March 2010. By the end of January 2011, judges in Florida and Virginia had ruled it unconstitutional. Only then did the Senate and House hold hearings on its constitutionality, and the administration grew worried.
As cases moved to appeals courts, Neal Katyal, the acting solicitor general, personally took over, rather than wait until they reached the Supreme Court.
After some debate, Katyal decided to speed up the process rather than delay. The Department of Health and Human Services wanted the law resolved to prepare for full implementation in 2014. Katyal dropped procedural objections and asked for quick schedules.
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Maybe Oregon could serve as a model "as the Supreme Court prepares to rule, probably next week, on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law."
Related:
Justices’ health care ruling expected soon
Health care ruling expected Thursday
You might want to take a seat, readers.
You can read your chart while you are waiting:
"As records go online, clash over mental care privacy" by Liz Kowalczyk | Globe Staff, June 21, 2012
At her weekly therapy sessions, Julie revealed her most uncomfortable secrets: depression, debt, childhood sexual abuse. Her psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital would then type a summary into Julie’s computerized medical record.
With that, more than 200 pages of sensitive notes became available to any doctor who cared for her within the sprawling Partners HealthCare system. She discovered this only when one doctor later referenced the notes.
Julie, a 43-year-old lawyer, was unnerved, then angry. “The details are really nobody’s business,” she said.
The clash reflects the delicate privacy issues surfacing as electronic medical records become widespread. Providers in separate networks are preparing to share patients’ records more widely online — to better coordinate care and cut wasteful spending. This will probably intensify the debate about what should and should not be shared, as well as fears about the unauthorized release of patient information.
Both the House and Senate health care cost-control bills passed this spring require the state to create a system for sharing records across provider networks. This is also a priority for Governor Deval Patrick, whose administration already is working on the project, which includes stringent patient privacy protections.
Dr. David Blumenthal, Partners’s chief health information and innovation officer and former national coordinator for health information technology for the Obama administration, said the privacy issues “are huge.’’ Though technology has advanced to allow providers to share records, patient trust remains an obstacle to adoption of these systems, he said.
“It’s one thing to give your psychiatrist the right to share your information [with certain doctors], it’s another to enter your data into a system that makes it available with relative ease to an unknown number of physicians who may be involved in your care. Most Americans see the benefits as much greater than the risks. But there are groups who are very uncomfortable with their records being shared with people they have not specifically designated.’’
Doctors and hospitals in Massachusetts have been quicker than those in many other states to adopt computerized patient records, with between 35 and 45 percent using at least a basic system, according to a recent study.
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Also see: Corporate campaign spending limits rejected
Court rules no more life without parole for juveniles
High court to hear surveillance case
Haven't seen a ruling yet.
