Supreme Refusal

"Supreme Court refuses immigration case; Alabama law remains blocked by prior ruling" by Adam Liptak  |  New York Times, April 30, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a case concerning a tough 2011 Alabama immigration law that makes it a crime to harbor or transport immigrants not authorized to be in the United States or to induce them to enter or live in the state. The move left in place an appeals court ruling blocking the law.

Related: Alabama and Immigration

Also see: Alabama: Bullies and Bankruptcy

The justices, as is their custom, offered no reasons for turning down the appeal. Justice Antonin Scalia noted his dissent but also offered no reasoning.

The question in the case was whether the Alabama law conflicted with a similar federal law. In August, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit blocked the state law at the request of the Obama administration, saying federal immigration law and policy ‘‘comprehensively addresses criminal penalties for these actions undertaken within the borders of the United States, and a state’s attempt to intrude into this area is prohibited because of Congress.’’

The Supreme Court has recently considered state efforts to address illegal immigration in connection with two Arizona laws.

Last June, the court delivered a split decision on a 2010 Arizona law, upholding its most hotly debated provision but blocking others on the grounds that they interfered with the federal government’s role in setting immigration policy.

See: A Supreme Sequel

The court unanimously but tentatively sustained the law’s centerpiece, the one critics have called its ‘‘show me your papers’’ provision, leaving the door open to further challenges. The provision requires state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if they have reason to suspect that the individual might be in the country illegally.

But the court blocked three other provisions in the 2010 law, including one that would have subjected people in the country illegally to criminal penalties for activities such as seeking work.

‘‘The national government has significant power to regulate immigration,’’ Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. ‘‘The sound exercise of national power over immigration depends on the nation’s meeting its responsibility to base its laws on a political will informed by searching, thoughtful, rational civic discourse.’’

In 2011, the court upheld a decision finding that a different Arizona law, this one imposing harsh penalties on businesses that hire illegal workers, was not preempted by federal law.

In other action Monday:

■  The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from a Louisiana man who claimed that most of a seven-year delay between his arrest and murder trial was the result of a breakdown in the state’s system for paying defense lawyers in death penalty cases.

The court’s conservative justices prevailed in a 5-to-4 vote to say they should never have taken the case of Jonathan Edward Boyer, who eventually was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. The outcome leaves his conviction and sentence in place.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Boyer’s case is illustrative of systemic problems in Louisiana and the court should have ruled in his favor.

■ The justices ruled unanimously that it is legal for a state to limit use of its Freedom of Information Act to its own residents. The court upheld a federal appeals court decision validating Virginia’s limitation of its FOIA law to state citizens and some media outlets.

In the case before the court, Rhode Island resident Mark J. McBurney and California resident Roger W. Hurlbert were suing Virginia for blocking them from getting public documents in Virginia that in-state citizens could have easily obtained.

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Related:

"Supreme Court wants high bar for affirmative action; Colleges ponder admission policies" by Marcella Bombardieri |  Globe Staff, June 25, 2013

The Supreme Court sent a major affirmative action case back to a lower court for reconsideration on Monday, leaving many local college officials relieved that race-conscious admissions policies were not overturned, but anxious about how to meet the new, higher standard the justices set for their use....

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