Showing papers on "Supreme Court Decisions published in 1990"

Perceived legitimacy of supreme court decisions: three functions of source credibility

Abstract: Public reaction to a Supreme Court decision hinges, in part, on the level of diffuse support enjoyed by the Court prior to announcement of the ruling. Previous investigators have exchanged adamant claims concerning the legitimacy-conferring ability of the Supreme Court, yet these studies have consistently ignored theoretical explanations of the psychological determinants of a receiver's response to an authoritative edict. Examined from the context of a cognitive view of persuasion, the credibility of the Supreme Court as a message source should not be expected to have a simple positive effect on opinion. Instead, unique effects may result from the interaction of source credibility and other components of the process of persuasion. This paper reports the results of a series of experiments that demonstrate that the credibility of the Supreme Court can serve three unique persuasive functions: Source credibility can cue a simple positive response, prompt increased cognitive effort, and serve as evidence in support of a persuasive claim.

An Institutional Analysis of Turnover in the Lower Federal Courts, 1900- 1987

Abstract: Retirement and resignation rates for lower federal court judges have been increasing steadily over the last two decades, yet there has been little systematic analysis either of the extent of, or reasons for this trend. Using multivariate time-series analysis, we investigate the turnover rates for lower federal court judges in the years 1900-1987, 1900-1953, and 1954-1987 by level of court and by political party. Drawing upon the literature on judicial and congressional retirements, we examine the impact of five variables on judicial leaving rates: presidential elections, salary increases, improved retirement benefits, caseload, and major Supreme Court decisions. We find that the caseload in each court, marked shifts in Supreme Court policies and especially presidential elections are consistently associated with judicial turnover in both lower federal courts for Democratic and Republican judges alike. Moreover, the electoral and major case effects continue to be statistically significant in the post-1953 e...

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Abstract: KIE: The District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania continued an injunction precluding the enforcement of the Pennsylvania anti-abortion act while allowing the petitioner, in response to a Supreme Court remand, to present additional evidence concerning the "undue burden standard" established by the Supreme Court concerning abortion statutes. Originally, Planned Parenthood had challenged the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's revised abortion statute. The Supreme Court remanded the case to permit the lower court to apply the Court's standard, i.e., that a state abortion statute will be found unconstitutional if it has "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial burden in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." The District Court held that it would open the record for additional evidence regarding the application of the undue burden standard. The court reasoned that, in spite of the absence of a direct order to reopen the record from the Supreme Court, it was within its discretion to make this decision.

A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty: The Constitutional Heritage of the Religion Clauses

Abstract: Foreword by Warren E Burger Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One The Historical Roots of American Religious Liberty Chapter Two The Founders on Religious Liberty Chapter Three The Supreme Court and Religious Liberty Chapter Four The Animating Principles of the Religion Clauses Chapter Five Religious Liberty in Contemporary America Conclusion Appendices One Historical Documents on American Religious Liberty Two Early Declarations sand Constitutional Previsions on Religion Three Leading Supreme Court Decisions on Religious Liberty Notes Bibliography Index

Public School Educators' Knowledge of Selected Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Daily Public School Operations.

Abstract: Determines if high school educators were aware of selected legal decisions rendered by the Supreme Court that affect the daily operations of the public schools. Forty‐three principals, 63 assistant principals and 184 teachers were administered an instrument to assess their knowledge of public school law. Educators lacked knowledge in areas of school finance, corporal punishment, and teacher rights. Demonstrates the need to require courses in school law as a prerequisite for teacher certification and to fund heavily staff development training in law.

From the Office of the General Counsel. The right to die after Cruzan.

Abstract: KIE: In June 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court decided its first right-to-die case, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. Writing under the auspices of the American Medical Association's Office of the General Counsel, Orentlicher sumarizes the Court's holdings in Cruzan, draws several inferences from the decision about the right to refuse medical treatment, and discusses Cruzan's implications for physicians and patients. Orentlicher concludes that while the Court "eschewed an expansive construction of the right to refuse medical treatment, its decision...enlarged the right in many respects without restricting it in other respects... In any situation in which withdrawal of treatment was permissible before the Cruzan case, withdrawal is permissible now...in some situations in which withdrawal was not permissible before the Cruzan case, withdrawal is permissible now."

Pension and employee benefit law

Abstract: This publication has been the leading casebook in the field for 20 years. It is the most authoritative work available on this topic, extensively cited by the Supreme Court and other courts, and in the scholarly literature. With the retirement of Professor Wolk, the author team of Professors Langbein and Stabile is joined in the Fifth Edition by Professor David Pratt, a scholar of pension taxation. The Fifth edition adds coverage of several recent Supreme Court decisions and a number of recent lower court decisions as well as addressing recent changes affecting benefit plans, including the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the effects of the current recession.

The Case of Ms. Nancy Cruzan and the Care of the Elderly

Abstract: The case of Ms. Nancy Cruzan is the first so-called "right to die" case to be heard by the US Supreme Court. The Missouri Supreme Court had ruled that Ms. Cruzan's parents, who are also her court-appointed guardians, cannot authorize the withdrawal of artificial hydration and nutrition from their daughter. Ms. Cruzan has been in a persistent vegetative state since an auto accident more than six years ago. Even though Ms. Cruzan is only 32 years old, the decision in her case will have serious implications for care of the elderly. Key features of the Missouri Supreme Court decision include their claims that (1) the authority for surrogate decision-making flows from the parens patriae power of the State rather than from the authority of the incompetent person, (2) the State has an unqualified interest in the preservation of life, and (3) the medical provision of nutrition and hydration ought to be considered differently than other forms of medical treatment. Such claims are at considerable variance from accepted standards of ethically defensible decision-making that focus on the well-being of the patient understood according to the patient's own values and life goals. If the US Supreme Court restricts decisions to forgo life-sustaining treatment according to patient prognosis, capacity for decision-making, type of treatment, or state of residence, then a patient-centered standard of medical decision-making will be impossible to sustain and the maximization of life extension will be required without regard to the suffering thereby imposed.

Government in Action

Abstract: A challenging collection of carefully selected primary sources which serve to illustrate government procedures and practices. Each document is historic in nature, relevant and germane to government actions taken by an institution of American government. Each entry irresistibly provokes controversial classroom discussion, inquiry into government action and thoughtful analysis of government power. The book is specifically designed to correlate with any standard government text, to enhance comprehension of how government works, and to demonstrate government's impact on history. Included are Presidential orders and agreements, Congressional statutes and resolutions, Supreme Court decisions, Federal regulations examples of federal and state power, and people power, along with rights and liberties as found in the Bill of Rights. Other documents include party platforms, interest group ratings, a ballot, literacy test, even a CIA manual.

Thirty Years of Social Science in Supreme Court Criminal Cases

Abstract: The Supreme Court early took note of extralegal, “social science” materials in Muller v. Oregon (1908), and a half-century later made specific reference to social science authorities in the famous footnote 11 of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since Brown, much has been written about the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence, but there has been little systematic study of that use. Those writing on the subject commonly focus on areas of law such as jury size, where social science has been used, and have generally assumed that social science information has been utilized in Supreme Court decisions with increasing regularity. Surprisingly little is known, however, about either the justices' baseline use of social science authorities, or many other aspects of their uses of social science information. The focus here is on the citation of social science research evidence in a sample of 240 criminal cases decided during the 30 years between the Supreme Court's 1958 and 1987 Terms. The resulting portrait contributes to a fuller understanding of the justices' use of social science materials, and may ultimately help promote more effective utilization of social science research evidence in Supreme Court decisions.

Nancy Cruzan in China.

Abstract: Nancy Cruzan in China Had the Cruzan family been in China when Nancy Cruzan suffered the accident that left her in a persistent vegetative state, and had China done to the Cruzans what Missouri has done to them, outrage would have rung throughout the United States. The commandeering of Nancy Cruzan's living body by the Chinese government would likely have been condemned by the White House, the State Department, and the Attorney General. Nancy's parents, who know and love her better than anyone on earth, would have been seen as her natural protectors, the state as an unpredictable predator. Most Americans would likely have found it easy to see that both her and Nancy's family's rights were being unconscionably violated, and have thanked God that we live in a free country where arbitrary governmental actions are restrained by a Constitution. Yet the post-Reagan Supreme Court's majority seems to believe that while personal constitutional rights exist, the Constitution should not protect them against government restrictions that are related to a legitimate state interest and are not completely "irrational." In the abortion context the struggle between the individual and the state can be misleadingly portrayed as one between the pregnant woman and the fetus. But there can be no mistake in the case of Nancy Cruzan. The choice is between the rights of Nancy Cruzan and her family, and the interests of the state. How did the state prevail? Why are we moving more and more toward a government that sees citizens merely as means to its own ends? Nancy Cruzan in Missouri Nancy Cruzan, like Karen Quinlan before her, is a young woman in a persistent vegetative state whose parents believe that she would not want to continue to live permanently unconscious. Unlike Ms. Quinlan, however, who required both a mechanical ventilator and tube feeding at the time her case was heard in court, Ms. Cruzan requires only the latter. The trial judge granted the Cruzans' petition to have tube feeding discontinued because he believed this is what Nancy wanted. The Supreme Court of Missouri, however, reversed on the grounds that the judge's decision was based only on the preponderance of the evidence (that is, it was more likely than not that Nancy wanted tube feeding discontinued), and not on a higher standard of proof, "clear and convincing" evidence, which the court said would have required Nancy herself to have expressed a specific decision about permanent comas and tube feeding before her accident. The Missouri Supreme Court determined that such evidence was required because Nancy was "not dead" and the state had an "unqualified interest" in her continued life. (1) In the absence of clear and convincing evidence of her own wishes, the state could insist that treatment continue indefinitely. The Cruzans appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (2) Before the Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the five-to-four majority opinion of the Court, mischaracterizing the case as one involving the "right to die" and the right to "cause death." Without deciding the central right to refuse treatment issue, he said, "for purposes of this case" the Court would "assume that the United States Constitution would grant a competent person a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition." This right was implicit in previous Court decisions, based on the liberty interest delineated in the Fourteenth Amendment. The core of the case, however, involved determining what restrictions the state could impose on the exercise of the right to refuse treatment by surrogate decisionmakers acting on behalf of previously competent patients. In the Court's words, the narrow question was "whether the U.S. Constitution forbids a state from requiring clear and convincing evidence of a person's expressed decision while competent to have hydration and nutrition withdrawn in such a way as to cause death. …

Life, Death, and the American College of Physicians: The Cruzan Case

Abstract: Excerpt "Have you ever seen a person in a persistent vegetative state?" Calling his own question "impertinent, " U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun hushed an already tense courtroom as he...

Constitutionalizing the 'Right to Die'

Abstract: Following the Supreme Court’s unprecedented acceptance of three abortion cases, and for the first time a case involving the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment in the upcoming 1989 Term, this article addresses the so-called right to die. Specifically, as in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, whether the federal constitutional right of privacy extends to decisions, made on behalf of permanently unconscious patients, to have life-sustaining medical treatment discontinued and, if so, whether a state’s interest in the sanctity of life can override the patient’s privacy right? This article argues that on doctrinal as well as policy grounds, no such right should be recognized as a matter of federal constitutional law.Part I of the article reviews the Supreme Court's privacy decisions, with a special emphasis on the abortion decisions, and concludes that current privacy doctrine does not extend to medical decision-making on behalf of PVS patients. Part II considers whether there are reasons for recognizing a "fundamental right" that is protected by the federal constitution to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment for PVS patients. Part II concludes that, as important as it is to develop a response to the problem of incompetent patients that is ethically, legally, and medically acceptable, strong arguments nonetheless militate against such a move by the Supreme Court and in favor of continued state sovereignty over this issue at this time.

Cruzan and caring for others.

Abstract: Cruzan and Caring For Others How can one be a health care professional in Missouri today? What does one say to the family of a very sick elderly person? Does one actually acknowledge that every life-sustaining treatment must be provided unless the person left very specific, formal advance directives declining specific life-extending interventions? Or does the responsible health care provider just continue to serve patients well and ignore the potential adverse force of the law? Must one try so hard to avoid being trapped in the cycle of treatment that long-shot treatments are simply not offered? Health care professionals can hardly be expected to pretend that following the Supreme Court's Cruzan analysis will not hurt patients and families. If they generally simply refuse to follow Cruzan, instead relying on good sense and family wishes, they place themselves at substantial risk. The Court's Cruzan opinion, to be sure, did some helpful things. Just in case there was ever any doubt, competent persons will apparently be allowed to decide whether to accept life-sustaining health care, probably even if the decisions are made by way of advance directives. Artificial nutrition and hydration will be considered "medical treatment." Nothing important was made to turn on whether a patientis near death or is in persistent vegetative state. Since these gains seem to be largely dependent upon the need of the majority to secure Justice O'Connor's concurrence, however, one shudders to realize that, the wake of Justice Brennan's recent resignation, this troubling opinion is probably the high water mark for federal jurisprudence in this area for a long time to come. The grand tradition of personal rights guarantees in the federal Constitution ought to have given some protections against the seriously wrongheaded actiosn of states. Although the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court is potentially ambiguous on some points, clearly the intention was to make it virtually impossible for a postponable death to occur early, at least for incompetent persons. The suffering of the patient and family, the costs, the kind of life that can be gained, all are to count for nothing. If life can be prolonged, then it will have to be. It is hard to say what one should do if confronted with a family member in PVS. Most people queried in public opinion polls think they would want to be allowed to die, though some think even think sort of life should be sustained. The discord yields quickly when the question is changed to that of whether persons would want their families to be authorized to make this decision: Virtually everyone trusts their families to make the decision, and they also would rather have families risk error than have the decisions to be dictated by some other authority. Society runs real risks of damaging the social institution of families by mistrusting them, by ignoring that they will have to live with and make sense of the decisions made, and by abrogating long traditions of family responsibility in favor of state decisionmaking. The U.S. Supreme Court has tried to remove the Constitution from resolution of questions about decisionmaking for incompetent patients, and returned these issues almost entirely to the states. Undoubtedly, many more people will execute advance directives, some of which will help shap optimal decisionmaking and many of which will be inadequate due to incomplete advance understanding of the clinical situation, incompetence or death of the designated surrogate, and other shortcomings. …

Public policy in the wake of Cruzan: a case study of New York's health care proxy law.

Abstract: O n June 25,1990, seven years after Nancy Cruzan lapsed into permanent unconsciousness following a car accident, the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. The decision provided the Court’s first ruling on the right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, addressing both the right of individuals to decide for themselves and the right of family members to decide on their behalf.’ Inextricably linked to the Court’s holding on individual rights were questions about the authority and responsibility of each state to fashion policy for treatment decisions on behalf of incompetent patients. The Cruzun case presented an opportunity for the Court to comment upon and reshape the patchwork of laws that define the right to decide about life-sustaining treatment in states across the country. This article examines the implications of the Cruzan decision for public policy. It then discusses New York’s health care proxy law, enacted just six days after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Cruzan. The analysis of New York’s proxy law focuses on issues central to recent debates about treatment decisions, including decisions about artificial nutrition and hydration, objections to treatment decisions by health care professionals and institutions on grounds of conscience, and assisted suicide.

State Taxation of Interstate Sales: Enforcement Problems and Prospects

Abstract: In their search for additional revenues, state governments in recent years have turned greater attention to collection of use taxes. Growth in interstate mail order sales has vastly increased the potential yield from use taxes, but Supreme Court decisions have limited the ability of states to effectively collect the tax. States have attempted to overcome enforcement barriers by joining in interstate use tax compliance compacts, and promoting congressional legislation to overcome constitutional prohibitions.

Constitutionalizing the 'Right to Die'

Abstract: Following the Supreme Court’s unprecedented acceptance of three abortion cases, and for the first time a case involving the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment in the upcoming 1989 Term, this article addresses the so-called right to die. Specifically, as in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, whether the federal constitutional right of privacy extends to decisions, made on behalf of permanently unconscious patients, to have life-sustaining medical treatment discontinued and, if so, whether a state’s interest in the sanctity of life can override the patient’s privacy right? This article argues that on doctrinal as well as policy grounds, no such right should be recognized as a matter of federal constitutional law.Part I of the article reviews the Supreme Court's privacy decisions, with a special emphasis on the abortion decisions, and concludes that current privacy doctrine does not extend to medical decision-making on behalf of PVS patients. Part II considers whether there are reasons for recognizing a "fundamental right" that is protected by the federal constitution to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment for PVS patients. Part II concludes that, as important as it is to develop a response to the problem of incompetent patients that is ethically, legally, and medically acceptable, strong arguments nonetheless militate against such a move by the Supreme Court and in favor of continued state sovereignty over this issue at this time.

Euthanasia and the right to die: Nancy Cruzan and New Mexico.

Abstract: At about 1:00 a.m. on January 11, 1983 a recently married thirtyyear-old employee of the State of Missouri, Nancy Cruzan, was involved in a one-car accident in Jasper County, Missouri.' The car was overturned and she was found about 35 feet from the car. Police arrived five or six minutes after being dispatched to the scene of the accident; paramedics arrived about nine minutes after the police. Nancy Cruzan was not conscious when she was taken to the hospital. The hospital did a series of tests which revealed lacerations of her liver but no significant brain abnormality. She was provided treatment for all of her physical ailments, although she remained unconscious. The only way she interacted with her environment was to react reflexively to sound and perhaps to painful stimuli.3 Although she was able to take nutrition orally, to "assist her recovery and to ease the feeding process," a gastrostomy tube, a feeding tube, was placed into her stomach.3 A gastrostomy tube is a flexible piece of tubing that goes through the abdomen into the stomach so that food can be poured through the tube into the stomach. There followed, over years, what the court described as "valiant efforts" at rehabilitation. 4 Nancy's parents visited her regularly and tried various ways of communicating with her. Several rehabilitation experts worked with her and tried to communicate with her, hoping that they would see some kind of improvement, but she has not improved. It is now seven years later and Nancy Cruzan is thirty-six years old. She now sits-or, rather, she sometimes rests on her back, sometimes on her stomach, depending on her placement by nurse's aides, in a nursing home in Missouri. The trial court made seven findings of fact, based on the consensus opinions of her doctors, about her and her prospects for life. First, she can breathe on her own, and she will continue to breathe on her own. Second, she is oblivious to her environment. Third, what used to be her brain, or at least the cerebral cortex, has

At law. One flew over the Supreme Court.

Abstract: It is too soon to tell how seriously to take Soviet historian Roy A Medvedev's statements that "Gorbachev's taking a lot from the American Constitution," and that the US "can take some pride in setting an example for us [the Soviets]" (1) But it is not too soon to conclude that the President of the United States and the US Supreme Court have taken a page from some old totalitarian tactics The President, for example, remains committed to constitutional amendments that would outlaw almost all abortions and outlaw flag burning as a means of political protest The US Supreme Court last year gutted the Fourth Amendment as it applied to US citizens to foster the "war on drugs" (2) Early in 1990 the Court decided that antipsychotic drugs could be forcibly administered to competent prisoners to maintain order, even if the result might be death or permanent disability How could our highest court endorse such a prototypical totalitarian measure at this juncture of our history? The Case of Walter Harper Walter Harper was convicted of robbery in 1976 and sentenced to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla He was confined primarily to the mental health unit there from 1976 to 1980, where he voluntarily underwent antipsychotic drug therapy In 1980 he was paroled on condition that he continue in treatment He did, but in 1981 his parole was revoked after he assaulted two nurses at an inpatient facility Upon his return to prison he was sent to the Special Offenders Center (SOC), a 144-bed facility operated by the Department of Corrections in Monroe While there he voluntarily took medications until November, 1982, after which he was medicated by antipsychotic drugs against his will for all but one month until june 1985, because he was thought to be a danger to others The forced medication was consistent with SOC policy which provides that a prisoner may be subjected to involuntary drug treatment by a psychiatrist in a nonemergency situation only if he (1) suffers from a "mental disorder," and (2) is "gravely disabled" or poses a likelihood of serious harm "to himself, others, or their property" If the prisoner refuses medication, he is entitled to a hearing before a special committee consisting of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and the associate administrator of the SOC, none of whom may be, at the time of the healing, involved in the prisoner's treatment or diagnosis The prisoner must be given twenty-four hours' notice of the hearing (during which time he cannot be medicated), has the right to attend the healing, to present evidence, to cross-examine witnesses, and to have a lay adviser help him The prisoner may appeal a decision against him to the Superintendent of the SOC, and may later seek judicial review After seven days of forced treatment, a committee composed in the same manner as the original committee must review the case If the committee approves forced treatment again, it can continue indefinitely provided a report by the treating psychiatrist is sent to the medical director of the Department of Corrections every fourteen days Harper had his hearing and was unsuccessful in his appeal to the Superintendent His forced treatment was periodically reviewed according to the policy In February 1985, he filed suit alleging that he had a constitutional right not to be medicated against his will without a judicial hearing In March 1987, the trial court ruled that the SOC policy provided him with all that the US Constitution required On appeal, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously reversed (3) The Decision of the Washington Supreme Court The Washington Supreme Court was unimpressed by the SOC's antipsychotic medication policy and found it constitutionally defective as a matter of both substantive and procedural due process Substantively, the Washington court found that Harper had a protected liberty interest to refuse antipsychotic drugs that was of the same importance as his liberty interest in being able to refuse electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) …

Gideon v. Wainwright Revisited: What Does the Right to Counsel Guarantee Today?

Abstract: In Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court unanimously held that indigent state felony defendants are constitutionally entitled to the appointment of trial counsel. The opinion aroused wide support, and even enthusiasm, almost from the moment it was announced in 1963. Two and a half decades later this support has not diminished. However, are the words of praise only lip service to the noble idea of the right to counsel? Has Gideon really made a difference? Has its promise of a fair shake for poor criminal defendants been kept, or has Gideon meant only that defendants are provided with the fleeting and pressured presence of an unprepared lawyer? Moreover, does Gideon's extend beyond the initial criminal trial stage to other important quasi-criminal and civil proceedings? To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Gideon, to reflect upon its impact today, and to assess its broader meaning, the Legal Aid Society of New York convened a meeting on October 22, 1988, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. A diverse collection of distinguished individuals addressed the conference. The speakers included a leading author and chronicler of Gideon, judges, practitioners, academics, and even players in the Gideon drama. Pace Law Review has chosen to publish this edited version of the proceedings to provide an illuminating perspective on one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions of our time.

The Supreme Court's spring term: abortion, the right to die, and the decline of privacy rights

Abstract: In the spring of 1990 several Supreme Court decisions were handed down that will drastically affect health policy in the US for decades. Hodgson v. Minnesota affirmed a Minnesota statute that required unemancipated minors seeking abortion to give 48-hour notice to both parents. The only exceptions are in cases of medical emergency or through a judicial bypass. Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health upheld the constitutionality of an OHio law that requires physicians to personally give a 24-hour notice or a 48-hour constructive notice by mail before performing an abortion for an unemancipated minor. A judicial bypass is also allowed in the Ohio law. Cruzan v. Missouri Department of Health affirmed the constitutionality of a state court decision to deny the family of a woman in a persistent vegetative state to discontinue her life-sustaining treatment. This decision severely changes the right to die that has previously been upheld by lower courts. The 2 abortion cases have clearly shown the court to has taken a stance that will significantly weaken the right to abortion in Roe. The Cruzan case raises many questions about the vested state interest in protecting its citizens compared to an individuals right to refuse treatment.

Cruzan: On taking substituted judgment seriously.

Abstract: KIE: In its September/October 1990 issue, the Hastings Center Report published six brief essays with a short introduction by Courtney S. Campbell under the collective title of "Cruzan: clear and convincing?" These articles present a range of responses from participants, parents, constitutional scholars, and caregivers to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (June 25, 1990). Legal scholar Charles Baron, though an advocate for patients' rights in general and the right to die in particular, argues that the Supreme Court rendered the right decision in Cruzan.