Judicial interpretation is the way in which the judiciary construes the law, particularly constitutional documents, legislation and frequently used vocabulary. This is an important issue in some common law jurisdictions such as the United States, Australia and Canada, because the supreme courts of those nations can overturn laws made by their legislatures via a process called judicial review.
For example, the United States Supreme Court has decided such topics as the legality of slavery as in the Dred Scott decision, and desegregation as in the Brown v Board of Education decision, and abortion rights as in the Roe v Wade decision. As a result, how justices interpret the constitution, and the ways in which they approach this task has a political aspect. Terms describing types of judicial interpretation can be ambiguous; for example, the term judicial conservatism can vary in meaning depending on what is trying to be "conserved". One can look at judicial interpretation along a continuum from judicial restraint to judicial activism, with different viewpoints along the continuum.
Phrases which are regularly used, for example in standard contract documents, may attract judicial interpretation applicable within a particular jurisdiction whenever the same words are used in the same context.
In the United States, there are different methods to perform judicial interpretation:
Balancing happens when judges weigh one set of interests or rights against an opposing set, typically used to make rulings in First Amendment cases. For example, cases involving freedom of speech sometimes require justices to make a distinction between legally permissible speech and speech that can be restricted or banned for, say, reasons of safety, and the task then is for justices to balance these conflicting claims. The balancing approach was criticized by Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter who argued that the Constitution gives no guidance about how to weigh or measure divergent interests.
Doctrinalism considers how various parts of the Constitution have been "shaped by the Court's own jurisprudence", according to Finn.
In American constitutional law, a statute is void for vagueness and unenforceable if it is too vague for the average citizen to understand, and a constitutionally-protected interest cannot tolerate permissible activity to be chilled within the range of the vagueness (either because the statute is a penal statute with criminal or quasi-criminal civil penalties, or because the interest invaded by the vague law is a strict scrutiny constitutional right). There are several reasons a statute may be considered vague; in general, a statute might be void for vagueness when an average citizen cannot generally determine what persons are regulated, what conduct is prohibited, or what punishment may be imposed. For example, criminal laws which do not state explicitly and definitely what conduct is punishable are void for vagueness. A statute is also void for vagueness if a legislature's delegation of authority to judges and/or administrators is so extensive that it would lead to arbitrary prosecutions. Related to the "void for vagueness" concept is the "unconstitutional vagueness" concept. A law can be "void for vagueness" if it imposes on First Amendment freedom of speech, assembly, or religion.
The "void for vagueness" doctrine applies only to criminal or penal laws (or quasi-criminal laws, for example laws that carry civil penalties), and laws that potentially limit "strict scrutiny" constitutional rights. The doctrine does not apply to private law (that is, laws that govern rights and obligations as between private parties), only to laws that govern rights and obligations vis-a-vis the government. The doctrine also requires that to qualify as constitutional, a law must:
State explicitly what it mandates, and what is enforceable.
Define potentially vague terms.
Roots and purpose.
In the case of vagueness, a statute might be considered void on constitutional grounds. Specifically, roots of the vagueness doctrine extend into the two due process clauses, in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The courts have generally determined that vague laws deprive citizens of their rights without fair process, thus violating due process.
The following pronouncement of the void for vagueness doctrine was made by Justice Sutherland in Connally v General Construction Company (1926):
he terms of a penal statute must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties… and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law.
The void for vagueness doctrine is a constitutional rule. This rule requires that laws are so written that they explicitly and definitely state what conduct is punishable. The vagueness doctrine thus serves two purposes. First: All persons receive a fair notice of what is punishable and what is not. Second: The vagueness doctrine helps prevent arbitrary enforcement of the laws and arbitrary prosecutions. There is however no limit to the conduct that can be criminalized, when the legislature does not set minimum guidelines to govern law enforcement.
Overseas and nonresident citizens.
U.S. citizens residing overseas who would otherwise have the right to vote are guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986. As a practical matter, individual states implement UOCAVA.
A citizen who has never resided in the United States can vote if a parent is eligible to vote in certain states. In some of these states the citizen can vote in local, state, and federal elections, in others in federal elections only.
Voting rights of U.S. citizens who have never established residence in the U.S. vary by state and may be impacted by the residence history of their parents.
U.S. territories.
U.S. citizens and non-citizen nationals who reside in American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, or the United States Virgin Islands are not allowed to vote in U.S. national and presidential elections, as these U.S. territories belong to the United States but do not have presidential electors. The U.S. Constitution requires a voter to be resident in one of the 50 states or in the District of Columbia to vote in federal elections. To say that the Constitution does not require extension of federal voting rights to U.S. territories residents does not, however, exclude the possibility that the Constitution may permit their enfranchisement under another source of law. Statehood or a constitutional amendment would allow people in the U.S. territories to vote in federal elections.
Like the District of Columbia, territories of the United States do not have U.S. senators representing them in the senate, and they each have one member of the House of Representatives who is not allowed to vote.
These voting restrictions have been challenged in a series of lawsuits in the 21st century. In 2015, residents of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands joined as plaintiffs in Segovia v Board of Election Commissioners (2016). The participants had all formerly lived in Illinois, but because of a change of residency to an unincorporated territory were no longer able to vote. Their claim was that the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, as it is implemented, violates the Equal Protection Clause. At issue was that Illinois, the former residence of all of the plaintiffs, allowed residents of the Northern Mariana Islands who had formerly lived in Illinois to vote as absentee voters, but denied former residents living in other unincorporated territories the same right. The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in 2016 that under the Absentee Voting Act, former residents of US states are entitled to vote in elections of the last jurisdiction in which they qualified to vote, as long as they reside in a foreign location. Using rational basis review, the court stated that the Northern Mariana Islands had a unique relationship with the United States and could be treated differently. It further pointed out that as the law does not differentiate between residents within a territory, as to who formerly resided in a state, but all are treated equally, no violation occurred. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concurred with the decision, but dismissed the case for lack of standing because the application of the Absentee Voting Act in Illinois is a state issue.
Young adults.
A third voting rights movement was won in the 1960’s to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. Activists noted that most of the young men who were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War were too young to have any voice in the selection of the leaders who were sending them to fight. Some states had already lowered the voting age: notably Georgia, Kentucky, and Hawaii, had already permitted voting by persons younger than twenty-one.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, prohibits federal and state laws which set a minimum voting age higher than 18 years. As of 2008, no state has opted for an earlier age, although some state governments have discussed it. California has, since the 1980s, allowed persons who are 17 to register to vote for an election where the election itself will occur on or after their 18th birthday, and several states including Indiana allow 17-year-olds to vote in a primary election provided they will be 18 by the general election.
Prisoners.
Prisoner voting rights are defined by individual states, and the laws are different from state to state. Some states allow only individuals on probation to vote. Others allow individuals on parole and probation. As of 2012, only Florida, Kentucky and Virginia continue to impose a lifelong denial of the right to vote to all citizens with a felony record, absent a restoration of rights granted by the Governor or state legislature. However, in Kentucky, a felon's rights can be restored after the completion of a restoration process to regain civil rights.
In 2007, Florida legislature restored voting rights to convicted felons who had served their sentences. In March 2011, however, Governor Rick Scott reversed the 2007 reforms. He signed legislation that permanently disenfranchises citizens with past felony convictions. After a referendum in 2018, however, Florida residents voted to restore voting rights to roughly 1.4 million felons who have completed their sentences.
In July 2005, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack issued an executive order restoring the right to vote for all persons who have completed supervision. On October 31, 2005, Iowa's Supreme Court upheld mass re enfranchisement of convicted felons. Nine other states disenfranchise felons for various lengths of time following the completion of their probation or parole.
Other than Maine and Vermont, all U.S. states prohibit felons from voting while they are in prison. In Puerto Rico, felons in prison are allowed to vote in elections.
Practices in the United States are in contrast to some European nations that allow prisoners to vote, while other European countries have restrictions on voting while serving a prison sentence, but not after release. Prisoners have been allowed to vote in Canada since 2002.
The United States has a higher proportion of its population in prison than any other Western nation, and more than Russia or China. The dramatic rise in the rate of incarceration in the United States, a 500% increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, has vastly increased the number of people disenfranchised because of the felon provisions.
According to the Sentencing Project, as of 2010 an estimated 5.9 million Americans are denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction, a number equivalent to 2.5% of the U.S. voting-age population and a sharp increase from the 1.2 million people affected by felony disenfranchisement in 1976. Given the prison populations, the effects have been most disadvantageous for minority and poor communities.
Legal challenges to disfranchisement.
Although African Americans quickly began legal challenges to such provisions in the 19th century, it was years before any were successful before the U.S. Supreme Court. Booker T Washington, better known for his public stance of trying to work within societal constraints of the period at Tuskegee University, secretly helped fund and arrange representation for numerous legal challenges to disfranchisement. He called upon wealthy Northern allies and philanthropists to raise funds for the cause. The Supreme Court's upholding of Mississippi's new constitution, in Williams v Mississippi (1898), encouraged other states to follow the Mississippi plan of disenfranchisement. African Americans brought other legal challenges, as in Giles v Harris (1903) and Giles v Teasley (1904), but the Supreme Court upheld Alabama constitutional provisions. In 1915, Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement due to Supreme Court cases.
From early in the 20th century, the newly established National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took the lead in organizing or supporting legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. Gradually they planned the strategy of which cases to take forward. In Guinn v United States (1915), the first case in which the NAACP filed a brief, the Supreme Court struck down the grandfather clause in Oklahoma and Maryland. Other states in which it was used had to retract their legislation as well. The challenge was successful.
But, nearly as rapidly as the Supreme Court determined a specific provision was unconstitutional, state legislatures developed new statutes to continue disenfranchisement. For instance, in Smith v Allwright (1944), the Supreme Court struck down the use of state-sanctioned all-white primaries by the Democratic Party in the South. States developed new restrictions on black voting; Alabama passed a law giving county registrars more authority as to which questions they asked applicants in comprehension or literacy tests. The NAACP continued with steady progress in legal challenges to disenfranchisement and segregation.
In 1957, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to implement the Fifteenth Amendment. It established the United States Civil Rights Commission; among its duties is to investigate voter discrimination.
As late as 1962, programs such as Operation Eagle Eye in Arizona attempted to stymie minority voting through literacy tests. The Twenty-fourth Amendment was ratified in 1964 to prohibit poll taxes as a condition of voter registration and voting in federal elections. Many states continued to use them in state elections as a means of reducing the number of voters.
Religious test.
In several British North American colonies, before and after the 1776 Declaration of Independence, Jews, Quakers, Catholics, and/or Atheists were excluded from the franchise and/or from running for elections.
The Delaware Constitution of 1776 stated that "Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall ... also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.". This was repealed by Article I, Section II. of the 1792 Constitution: "No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under this State". The 1778 Constitution of the State of South Carolina stated, "No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion", the 1777 Constitution of the State of Georgia (article 6) that "The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county ... and they shall be of the Protestant religion".
With the growth in the number of Baptists in Virginia before the Revolution, who challenged the established Anglican Church, the issues of religious freedom became important to rising leaders such as James Madison. As a young lawyer, he defended Baptist preachers who were not licensed by (and were opposed by) the established state Anglican Church. He carried developing ideas about religious freedom to be incorporated into the constitutional convention of the United States.
In 1787, Article One of the United States Constitution stated that "the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature". More significantly, Article Six disavowed the religious test requirements of several states, saying: "o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
But, in Maryland, Jewish Americans were excluded from State office until the law requiring candidates to affirm a belief in an afterlife was repealed in 1828.
African Americans and poor whites.
At the time of ratification of the Constitution in the late 18th century, most states had property qualifications which restricted the franchise; the exact amount varied by state, but by some estimates, more than half of white men were disenfranchised. Several states granted suffrage to free men of color after the Revolution, including North Carolina. This fact was noted by Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis' dissent in Dred Scott v Sandford (1857), as he emphasized that blacks had been considered citizens at the time the Constitution was ratified:
Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens.
Roe v Wade was a 1971, 1973 landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. It ruled that a state law that banned abortion was unconstitutional. The 7 to 2 decision had Chief Justice Warren E Burger and six other Justices vote for "Jane Roe" and Justices William Rehnquist and Byron White vote against it.
The decision divided the United States and is still controversial. People became divided into pro-life and pro-choice groups. Pro-life supporters argue that the unborn baby has the same right to life as other people, and the government should intervene to protect it. Pro-choice supporters believe that the unborn baby is not the same as a person, and the woman has the right to choose what she wants to do with her body and that the government should not intervene. Roe was limited by a later decision, Webster v Reproductive Health Services (1989), which allowed the regulation of abortion in some cases. Several states have considered laws banning abortions altogether.
In May 2022, a leaked draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v Wade was published.
Background.
The case began in 1970 in Texas as a challenge against a law banning any kind of abortion unless the mother's life was in danger. A pregnant Texas woman, Norma McCorvey (alias Jane Roe), brought a lawsuit against Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney, in a Texas federal court. Claiming to be a single woman and pregnant, McCorvey wanted to terminate her pregnancy. She wanted it to be done safely by a doctor but said that she could not afford to travel outside Texas. She could not get a legal abortion in Texas because her life was not in danger. Her lawsuit claimed that the Texas law violated her right to privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Roe added she sued "on behalf of herself and all other women" in the same situation.
The case slowly made its way to the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, McCorvey had her baby and placed it for adoption.
Majority opinion.
In a 7 to 2 decision, the court held that a woman's right to an abortion was protected by her right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision allowed a woman to decide whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester. That affected the laws of 46 states.
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion. "We... acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires." — Justice Blackmun (1973).
Shurtleff v City of Boston, (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Background.
Boston, Massachusetts allows groups to have their flags flown over Boston City Hall. A Christian group, Camp Constitution, sought to have the city fly a Christian flag. Camp Constitution and its director Hal Shurtleff teach that the United States was created as a "Christian nation." After the city denied their application, the first denial of more than a few hundred applications, Shurtleff sued.
The city prevailed in the district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Shurtleff appealed to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court.
Certiorari was granted in the case on September 30, 2021. On May 2, 2022, the Court unanimously ruled that the City of Boston violated the First Amendment by denying Shurtleff's application to fly the flag.
Reactions.
The Joe Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union sided with the Christian group. The administration said that "The city cannot generally open its flagpole to flags from private civic and social groups while excluding otherwise similar groups with religious views".
Milestones of national franchise changes
1789: The Constitution grants the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).
1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited citizenship to "free white persons." In practice, only white male property owners could naturalize and acquire the status of citizens, and the vote.
1792 to 1838: Free black males lose the right to vote in several Northern states including in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey.
1792 to 1856: Abolition of property qualifications for white men, from 1792 (New Hampshire) to 1856 (North Carolina) during the periods of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy. However, tax-paying qualifications remained in five states in 1860—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and North Carolina. They survived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island until the 20th century.
In the 1820 election, there were 108,359 ballots cast. Most older states with property restrictions dropped them by the mid-1820s, except for Rhode Island, Virginia and North Carolina. No new states had property qualifications although three had adopted tax-paying qualifications – Ohio, Louisiana, and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long lasting.
The 1828 presidential election was the first in which non-property-holding white males could vote in the vast majority of states. By the end of the 1820s, attitudes and state laws had shifted in favor of universal white male suffrage.
Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of the adult white male population in the 1840 presidential election. 2,412,694 ballots were cast, an increase that far outstripped natural population growth, making poor voters a huge part of the electorate. The process was peaceful and widely supported, except in the state of Rhode Island where the Dorr Rebellion of the 1840s demonstrated that the demand for equal suffrage was broad and strong, although the subsequent reform included a significant property requirement for anyone resident but born outside of the United States.
The last state to abolish property qualification was North Carolina in 1856. However, tax-paying qualifications remained in five states in 1860 – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and North Carolina. They survived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island until the 20th century. In addition, many poor whites were later disenfranchised.
1868: Citizenship is guaranteed to all persons born or naturalized in the United States by the Fourteenth Amendment, setting the stage for future expansions to voting rights.
1869–1920: Some states allow women to vote. Wyoming was the first state to give women voting rights in 1869.
1870: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents states from denying the right to vote on grounds of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era began soon after. Former Confederate states passed Jim Crow laws and amendments to effectively disfranchise African-American and poor white voters through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and other restrictions, applied in a discriminatory manner. During this period, the Supreme Court generally upheld state efforts to discriminate against racial minorities; only later in the 20th century were these laws ruled unconstitutional. Black males in the Northern states could vote, but the majority of African Americans lived in the South.
1887: Citizenship is granted to Native Americans who are willing to disassociate themselves from their tribe by the Dawes Act, making the men technically eligible to vote.
Voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.
Eligibility to vote in the United States is governed by the United States Constitution and by federal and state laws. Several constitutional amendments (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth specifically) require that voting rights of U.S. citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age (18 and older); the constitution as originally written did not establish any such rights during 1787 thru 1870, except that if a state permitted a person to vote for the "most numerous branch" of its state legislature, it was required to permit that person to vote in elections for members of the United States House of Representatives. In the absence of a specific federal law or constitutional provision, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own respective jurisdiction; in addition, states and lower level jurisdictions establish election systems, such as at-large or single member district elections for county councils or school boards. Beyond qualifications for suffrage, rules and regulations concerning voting (such as the poll tax) have been contested since the advent of Jim Crow laws and related provisions that indirectly disenfranchised racial minorities.
A historic turning point was the 1964 Supreme Court case Reynolds v Sims that ruled both houses of all state legislatures had to be based on electoral districts that were approximately equal in population size, under the "one man, one vote" principle. The Warren Court's decisions on two previous landmark cases—Baker v Carr (1962) and Wesberry v Sanders (1964)—also played a fundamental role in establishing the nationwide "one man, one vote" electoral system. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Twenty-fourth Amendment, and related laws, voting rights have been legally considered an issue related to election systems. In 1972, the Burger Court ruled that state legislatures had to redistrict every ten years based on census results; at that point, many had not redistricted for decades, often leading to a rural bias.
In cases of county or municipal elections, at-large voting has been repeatedly challenged when found to dilute the voting power of significant minorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act. In the early 20th century, numerous cities established small commission forms of government in the belief that "better government" could result from the suppression of ward politics. Commissioners were elected by the majority of voters, excluding candidates who could not afford large campaigns or who appealed to a minority. Generally the solution to such violations has been to adopt single-member districts (SMDs), but alternative election systems, such as limited voting or cumulative voting, have also been used since the late 20th century to correct for dilution of voting power and enable minorities to elect candidates of their choice.
The District of Columbia and five major territories of the United States have one non-voting member each (in the United States House of Representatives) and no representation in the United States Senate. People in the U.S. territories cannot vote for president of the United States. People in the District of Columbia can vote for the president because of the Twenty-third Amendment.
Brown v Davenport, (2022), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court. The case concerned whether habeas relief may be granted if the Brecht v Abrahamson test alone is satisfied, or if the application of Chapman v California by the state courts was unreasonable because of AEDPA. The court held that federal courts can not grant habeas relief when state courts have already ruled on a prisoner's claim, unless the situation satisfies the test laid out in Brecht v Abrahamson, and the test laid out in AEDPA.
Background
In 2008, Ervine Davenport was convicted of first-degree murder. His conviction was challenged because during his trial he had been placed in shackles. His wrists, waist, and ankles were all restrained, but there was a curtain to prevent the jury from seeing the shackles. The state said that although the shackles were unconstitutional, they did not affect the jury's verdict. Michigan's Court of Appeals agreed with the state. The Michigan Supreme Court disagreed, however, after several jurors testified that they had seen the shackles or heard comments about them, and then sent the case back to the lower courts. The lower court again determined that the shackles did not affect the verdict, and the appellate court agreed with the state once again, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied an appeal.
Davenport then challenged his conviction in the federal courts. The district court refused to hear the case. He then petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which agreed to hear the case. This appeals court cited the Deck v Missouri decision, and quoted from Holbrook v Flynn: "shackling is inherently prejudicial". The court found that the state had not met the burden of proof necessary to show that the jury was not influenced by the shackling, and provided habeas relief. The state attempted to have the decision stayed, but the court declined.
…
United States v Vaello Madero, (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the constitutionality of the exclusion of United States citizens residing in Puerto Rico from the Supplemental Security Income program. In an 8 to 1 decision, the Court ruled that as Congress had been granted broad oversight of United States territories by Article Four of the United States Constitution, the exclusion of the territories by Congress from programs like Supplemental Security Income did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Background.
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is a benefit for older or impaired citizens that are unable to take care of themselves. As established by Congress, the benefits are available to all citizens of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands, but does not cover residents of the other United States territories, including Puerto Rico.
Jose Luis Vaello Madero was a recipient of SSI benefits while living in New York, and then moved to Puetro Rico in 2013. He continued to receive SSI benefits, but eventually the government discovered his new residence, terminated the SSI benefits and sought to recover approximately $28,000 he had improperly received while in Puetro Rico. A federal district judge and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that this exclusion violated the equal protection principle of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution's due process clause, which was first established in Bolling v Sharpe.
City of Austin v Reagan National Advertising of Austin LLC, (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the application of zoning restrictions on digital billboards in the city of Austin Texas. In a 6 to 3 ruling, the Court ruled that the Austin regulation against off-premise digital signs was content-neutral and thus should be reviewed as a facial challenge rather than a strict scrutiny following from the reasoning in Reed v Town of Gilbert.
Background.
Austin is one of 350 cities and towns in Texas that enacted bans related to digital billboards along the sides of highways, generally as a long-term effect of the Highway Beautification Act as well as to avoid distractions for drivers along these highways. Austin's city codes includes a Sign Code that distinguishes between signage that is located on-premises, including signs in shop windows and mounted street signs on the property, and those off-premises, like billboards. On-premises signs are generally unregulated and may be updated and improved without any limitations, including improvements to digital signage. Off-premises signage, however, are restricted from such improvements. In addition, the city has banned the installation of new billboards.
Around 2017, two advertising companies that operated static billboards in Austin, Lamar Advantage Outdoor Company and Reagan National Advertising of Austin, sued the city as the city council denied over 80 applications to allow them to convert existing static billboards into digital billboards. The advertising companies contended that the city had allowed some digital signage such as that on the Austin Convention Center, and believed the ban was unconstitutional. They were joined by the Austin Police Association and supporters of local emergency services, believing that such digital billboards could be used to provide information such as Amber Alerts. The case was first filed in a state district court before the city moved it to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in 2017. The district court selected to review the matter under intermediate scrutiny based on Metromedia Incorporated v San Diego, rather than the strict scrutiny content-based standard of Reed v Town of Gilbert, as the off-premise versus on-premise standard was content-neutral. Under this distinction, the District Court ruled for the city. Though the city amended the sign code in 2017 after litigation had started, the changes did not impact the case nor render it moot.
The advertisers appealed to the Fifth Circuit. In October 2020, the Fifth Circuit reversed the District's ruling in favor of the advertisers. The Fifth Circuit used the strict scrutiny standard of Reed to evaluate the city codes, as it determined that because to determine whether a sign was on or off-premises, one had to consider the message it was conveying, and that meant that this was a content-based restriction. Given this assessment, the rationale the city had given to maintain the ban against digital signage – to assure the safety of drivers and maintain the beauty of the landscape – were not sufficient reasons to violate the First Amendment rights of the advertisers, and thus ruled the city's sign code unconstitutional
Thompson v. Clark, (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning whether a plaintiff suing for malicious prosecution must show that he or she was affirmatively exonerated of committing the alleged crime. The Supreme Court, in a 6 to 3 opinion authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh held that no such requirement existed and that a plaintiff suing for malicious prosecution in the context of a Fourth Amendment "need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction." Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch. Media coverage of the decision portrayed the Court's ruling as a victory for civil rights lawsuits.
Background.
Larry Thompson, a Navy veteran and postal worker, lived with his fiancée and newborn daughter in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. When Thompson's daughter was one week old, his sister-in-law called 911 and accused Thompson of sexually abusing the child. Four police officers were dispatched to Thompson's house to investigate but Thompson refused to let them in without a search warrant. In response, the four officers forced their way into Thompson's home and attempted to restrain Thompson. Thompson resisted, was taken into custody for two days, and was subsequently charged with resisting arrest. Further investigation by law enforcement revealed no signs of child abuse. Rather than prosecute Thompson for resisting arrest, the prosecution opted to dismiss the charges. Neither the prosecutor nor the judge offered any explanation as to why the charges were dismissed.
Following the dismissal of his criminal charges, Thompson filed suit against the officers responsible for arresting him under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleging, among other things, that he had been maliciously prosecuted in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, which provided the right against unlawful seizures. Thompson's claims were dismissed at the trial level and his appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals was similarly denied as both courts held that, under existing precedent, Thompson was required to show that he had been affirmatively found innocent of committing the underlying crime. On November 6, 2020, Thompson filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which was granted on March 8, 2021. During the October 12, 2021, oral argument, the justices posed a series of hypotheticals involving the fictional character of Jean Valjean and the mythological centaur.
Ramirez v. Collier (2022), is a United States Supreme Court case related to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
Background.
On July 19, 2004, 20-year-old John Henry Ramirez (born June 29, 1984), a former United States Marine, accompanied by two female acquaintances, murdered 46-year-old convenience store worker Pablo Castro outside a Times Market in Corpus Christi, Texas. Ramirez stabbed Castro a total of twenty-nine times, resulting in his death. The trio stole less than two dollars from Castro and fled the scene without entering the store. The two female acquaintances were captured a day later but Ramirez fled to Mexico and was not captured until 2008. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death soon thereafter.
Ramirez was originally scheduled to be executed in September 2020. That warrant was withdrawn.
In 2021, Ramirez filed suit to challenge the Texas execution protocol under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, seeking to have his minister be allowed to lay hands on his body and audibly pray during the execution process. The district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit both denied stays of execution, the latter over the dissent of Judge James L Dennis. Ramirez then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari.
Houston Community College System v. Wilson (2022), is a United States Supreme Court case related to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Background.
David Buren Wilson was elected a member of the Houston Community College System's board in 2013 who was censured for repeated incidences of what other members of the Board of Trustees deemed to be behavior that was not becoming of an elected official or beneficial to the HCC system. Wilson filed suit claiming that the censure was an offense to his First Amendment rights.
Supreme Court.
Certiorari was granted in the case on April 26, 2021. In a March 24, 2022 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Wilson's First Amendment rights were not violated by his fellow board members' censure of him because the censure did not result in any hindrance of his ability to exercise his free speech in his capacity as an elected official and member of the public. The opinion cites the fact that the use of censure by elected bodies to address the behavior and actions of their members is a practice with a long history in the United States, and it also states that the censure itself constitutes an exercise of First Amendment rights by Wilson's colleagues on the board who voted to reprimand him.
Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the use of law enforcement surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 and the state secrets privilege defense. The case stems from a 2011 class action lawsuit filed against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) related to one of its surveillance operations. In August 2012, the district court dismissed the case on the basis of the FBI's invocation of state secrets privilege. The Ninth Circuit overturned this ruling in part in 2019, ruling that FISA precluded the defendants from invoking the state secrets defense. However, the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in a unanimous decision in March 2022, stating that FISA does not override the state secrets defense.
Background.
In 2006, the FBI and the Orange County, California Joint Terrorism Task Force ran Operation Flex, a counterterrorism operation, by recruiting a fitness instructor, Craig Monteilh, to become an informant. Monteilh, under an assumed name, pretended to convert to Islam and joined the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI) in Irvine, California. Besides his own gathering of information, Monteilh wore and planted recording devices throughout the mosque and in homes and businesses of ICOI members that Monteilh came to know personally, passing on the information to the FBI. After about a year, Monteilh began making statements about taking violent action while in the presence of ICOI. He was reported to the police and put under a restraining order from ICOI. The FBI lost confidence in Monteilh and ended the operation.
Monteilh was convicted of grand theft in connection with the distribution of steroids in a separate matter in 2008, and ended up in California state prison. In April 2008, he was stabbed repeatedly in prison after being labeled a snitch. Monteilh filed a lawsuit against the FBI, stating that they failed to protect him after using him for their investigation, and made numerous details of Operation Flex public in 2009 prior to filing his suit against the FBI in 2010. Monteilh also spoke to these details of Operation Flex in a 2009 case the FBI brought against Ahmad Niazi, an Afghan immigrant that Monteilh had attempted to blackmail to become an FBI informant, though charges against Niazi were eventually dropped.
Wooden v. United States, (2022), was a Supreme Court of the United States case dealing with the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that multiple criminal offenses that a person commits during a single criminal episode do not count as separate convictions when considering the number of prior convictions a criminal has under the ACCA.
Background.
In 1997, William Wooden was involved with the burglary of a self-storage space, breaking into ten adjacent units within a single night. He was convicted on ten counts of burglary and served an eight-year prison sentence. Later, in 2014, Wooden was arrested for possession of a rifle under Georgia law when a police officer, out of uniform and without a warrant, entered his home and discovered the rifle. The charges were later dismissed due to the irregularities of the discovery, but federal officers stepped in to charge Wooden for possession of firearms under the ACCA. While a first-time conviction under the ACCA would normally lead to a sentence of 21 to 27 months, federal prosecutors believed that the ten prior convictions from the storage burglary were separate "occasions" under the ACCA, and triggered the enhanced sentencing provision of the ACCA for criminals that have been convictions on three or more separate occasions, setting a minimum sentence of 15 years.
While Wooden argued that the ten burglary convictions should be treated as a single occasion for purposes of the ACCA, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee found in favor of the government's argument, as this stance was based on current case law for the Sixth Circuit. The decision was upheld on appeal at the Sixth Circuit.
Current scheme.
Acquisition of nationality.
There are various ways a person can acquire United States nationality, either at birth, by naturalization, or through court decisions and/or treaties.
Birth within the United States.
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The language has been codified in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, section 301(a). Regardless of the status of the parent, unless they are in the employ of a foreign government, birth within the territory confers nationality. The Supreme Court has not explicitly ruled whether children born in the United States to unauthorized migrants present in the country are birthright nationals, but it is generally presumed they are. Birth certificates from U.S. jurisdictions are typically acceptable proof of nationality.
Through birth abroad to United States citizens.
For children born abroad, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad may be requested to confirm entitlement as a national. Section 301(c) of the Nationality Act of 1952 extends automatic nationality at birth to children born abroad to two parents who are U.S. nationals, as long as one of the parents resided for any length of time in the United States or its possessions. Section 301(g) establishes that to attain automatic nationality for a child born abroad to a citizen and a foreign national, residency in the United States or its possessions is also required. Time served as active military service was considered equivalent to residence in the U.S. For children with one national parent, requirements vary, depending on when they were born, and whether the parents were married.
Legitimate children.
Automatic nationality is extended based upon the law applicable at the time of the child's birth:
If a birth abroad occurred after May 24, 1934 but prior to December 23, 1952, the U.S. national parent must have resided in the United States or its possessions for ten years, with five of them after the age of fourteen.
If a birth abroad occurred after December 24, 1952 but prior to November 13, 1986, the U.S. national parent must have been the legal and genetic or gestational parent, and have resided in the United States or its possessions for ten years, with five of them after the age of fourteen.
If the birth occurred on or after November 14, 1986, the U.S. national must have resided in the United States for five years, two of them after the age of fourteen, previous to the birth of the child.
United States nationality law details the conditions in which a person holds United States nationality. In the United States, nationality is typically obtained through provisions in the U.S. Constitution, various laws, and international agreements. Citizenship is a right, not a privilege. While the domestic documents often use citizenship and nationality interchangeably, nationality refers to the legal means in which a person obtains a national identity and formal membership in a nation and citizenship refers to the relationship held by nationals who are also citizens.
Individuals born in any of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia or almost any inhabited territory are natural-born United States citizens. The sole exception is American Samoa, where individuals are typically non-citizen U.S. nationals at birth. Foreign nationals living in any state or qualified territory may naturalize after becoming permanent residents and meeting a residence requirement (normally five years).
History.
Constitutional foundation.
Nationality defines the legal relationship between a person and a state or nation, specifying who is a member or subject of a particular nation. The rights and obligations of citizenship are defined by this relationship, as well as the protections to which nationals are entitled. Though nationality and citizenship are distinct and the United States recognizes the distinction between those who are entitled or not entitled to rights, its statutes typically use the words "citizen" and "citizenship" instead of "national" and "nationality". The Constitution of the United States did not define either nationality or citizenship, but in Article 1, section 8, clause 4 gave Congress the authority to establish a naturalization law. Before the American Civil War and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, there was no other language in the Constitution dealing with nationality.
Nationality laws 1790–1866.
The first statute to define nationality and naturalization in the United States was the Naturalization Act of 1790. It limited those who were eligible to be nationals as free, white persons. Following the practices of English common law, the legal system of the United States absorbed coverture, or the assumption that a woman's loyalty and obligations to her spouse were more important than her loyalty and obligation to the nation. While the Nationality Act did not forbid a woman to have her own nationality, judicial rulings and custom on domestic matters established that infants, slaves, and women were unable to participate in public life, as a result of the belief that they lacked critical judgment and had no right to exercise free will or control property. Native Americans were considered to be subjects of foreign governments and per decisions like Dred Scott v Sandford (1857) were only eligible to become naturalized if they assimilated white culture. From 1802, only fathers were able to pass on their nationality to their children. The Naturalization Act of 1804 confirmed that a woman's nationality was dependent upon her marital status and the Naturalization Act of 1855 tied a wife's nationality, and that of her children, to her husband's. A wife who married a foreign husband in this period was assumed to have suspended her nationality in favor of his. She was able to repatriate upon termination of the marriage and resumption of residence in the United States. While the 1855 Act specified that foreign wives gained U.S. nationality, the law created confusion as to whether it required American women who married aliens to take the nationality of the spouse. For example, Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S Grant, reacquired her U.S. nationality in 1898 by an Act of Congress, after a divorce from a British husband.
Current scheme.
Acquisition of nationality.
There are various ways a person can acquire United States nationality, either at birth, by naturalization, or through court decisions and/or treaties.
Birth within the United States.
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The language has been codified in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, section 301(a). Regardless of the status of the parent, unless they are in the employ of a foreign government, birth within the territory confers nationality. The Supreme Court has not explicitly ruled whether children born in the United States to unauthorized migrants present in the country are birthright nationals, but it is generally presumed they are. Birth certificates from U.S. jurisdictions are typically acceptable proof of nationality.
Through birth abroad to United States citizens.
For children born abroad, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad may be requested to confirm entitlement as a national. Section 301(c) of the Nationality Act of 1952 extends automatic nationality at birth to children born abroad to two parents who are U.S. nationals, as long as one of the parents resided for any length of time in the United States or its possessions. Section 301(g) establishes that to attain automatic nationality for a child born abroad to a citizen and a foreign national, residency in the United States or its possessions is also required. Time served as active military service was considered equivalent to residence in the U.S. For children with one national parent, requirements vary, depending on when they were born, and whether the parents were married.
Legitimate children.
Automatic nationality is extended based upon the law applicable at the time of the child's birth:
If a birth abroad occurred after May 24, 1934 but prior to December 23, 1952, the U.S. national parent must have resided in the United States or its possessions for ten years, with five of them after the age of fourteen.
If a birth abroad occurred after December 24, 1952 but prior to November 13, 1986, the U.S. national parent must have been the legal and genetic or gestational parent, and have resided in the United States or its possessions for ten years, with five of them after the age of fourteen.
If the birth occurred on or after November 14, 1986, the U.S. national must have resided in the United States for five years, two of them after the age of fourteen, previous to the birth of the child.
Wooden v. United States, (2022), was a Supreme Court of the United States case dealing with the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that multiple criminal offenses that a person commits during a single criminal episode do not count as separate convictions when considering the number of prior convictions a criminal has under the ACCA.
Background.
In 1997, William Wooden was involved with the burglary of a self-storage space, breaking into ten adjacent units within a single night. He was convicted on ten counts of burglary and served an eight-year prison sentence. Later, in 2014, Wooden was arrested for possession of a rifle under Georgia law when a police officer, out of uniform and without a warrant, entered his home and discovered the rifle. The charges were later dismissed due to the irregularities of the discovery, but federal officers stepped in to charge Wooden for possession of firearms under the ACCA. While a first-time conviction under the ACCA would normally lead to a sentence of 21 to 27 months, federal prosecutors believed that the ten prior convictions from the storage burglary were separate "occasions" under the ACCA, and triggered the enhanced sentencing provision of the ACCA for criminals that have been convictions on three or more separate occasions, setting a minimum sentence of 15 years.
While Wooden argued that the ten burglary convictions should be treated as a single occasion for purposes of the ACCA, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee found in favor of the government's argument, as this stance was based on current case law for the Sixth Circuit. The decision was upheld on appeal at the Sixth Circuit.
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court granted Wooden's petition in February 2021. The case was argued on October 4, 2021.
The Court issued its decision on March 8, 2022. The judgment was unanimous, reversing the decision of the lower courts. The majority opinion was written by Justice Elena Kagan, joined in whole by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and all but Part 2-B by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett. Kagan wrote that based both on the legislative history of the ACCA and the ordinary meaning of "occasion", that the ten burglary convictions that Wooden had received were all within the same occasion. "Consider first how an ordinary person (a reporter; a police officer; yes, even a lawyer) might describe Wooden’s 10 burglaries — and how she would not", Kagan wrote.
While Justice Barrett wrote a concurrence in part and in the judgment which was joined by Justice Thomas, she wrote that she took issue with Justice Kagan's use of legislative history as part of the rationale. Kagan had pointed to a 1988 amendment where Congress had made it clear that they intended that the enhanced sentencing was to come from separate episodes by referring to a person that was convicted under the enhanced provisions of the ACCA after performing a stick-up of six people at the same time. Barrett stated this was too much of a stretch for statutory interpretation and that they should defer to what Congress explicitly stated in the law.
Justice Neil Gorsuch also wrote a concurrence in judgment, joined in the most part by Justice Sotomayor. Gorsuch wrote that Wooden's case calls for the use of the rule of lenity, deferring in favor of the defendant when there is ambiguity in criminal law. Gorsuch also expressed concern that the ACCA created enhanced penalties to be decided by a judge rather than by a jury, which may be a violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendment.