Supreme Court Decisions

About: Supreme Court Decisions is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1804 publications have been published within this topic receiving 17066 citations.

Hall v. Florida: Capital Punishment, IQ, and Persons With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract: The United States Supreme Court has ruled on the question of persons with intellectual disability and capital punishment in several notable cases, including Penry v. Lynaugh (1989) and Atkins v. Virginia (2002). In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the subject in Hall v. Florida. Although Florida Statute § 921.137 prohibits imposing a sentence of death on a defendant convicted of a capital felony if it is determined that the defendant is intellectually disabled, the Florida Supreme Court strictly interpreted the law so that, because Mr. Hall's IQ was not below the cutoff of 70, further evidence could not be presented to show that he had an intellectual disability. In Hall v. Florida, the Court analyzed the relevance of the standard error of measurement of IQ testing, whether there is a consensus among the states regarding capital punishment, and whether there is a consensus among professional associations regarding these questions. The Court also adopted the term "intellectual disability" as opposed to "mental retardation," following changes in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, and the U.S. Code and Code of Federal Regulations. We examine the Court's decision and offer commentary regarding the overall effect of this landmark case.

Special Education Hearing Officers: Balance and Bias

Abstract: The use of a simple 50%-50% box score of decisions for parents and districts, respectively, is a false measure of the impartiality of hearing officers under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This analysis canvasses relevant structural factors that the stakeholders, the mass media, and the professional literature have failed to recognize both generally and systematically. These factors include IDEA amendments, regulatory revisions, Supreme Court decisions, lower court precedents, and state system changes that cumulatively suggest that a more nuanced view is both appropriate and necessary.

“Power and Greed and the Corruptible Seed”: Mental Disability, Prosecutorial Misconduct, and the Death Penalty

Abstract: The Supreme Court's death penalty jurisprudence is based in large part on the assumption that jurors can be counted on to apply the law in this area conscientiously and fairly. All our criminal procedure jurisprudence is also based in large part on the assumption that prosecutors and judges will act

Judicial Power to Regulate Plea Bargaining

Abstract: Plea bargaining in the United States is in critical respects unregulated, and a key reason is the marginal role to which judges have been relegated. In the wake of Santobello v. New York (1971), lower courts crafted Due Process doctrines through which they supervised the fairness of some aspects of the plea bargaining process. Within a decade, however, U.S. Supreme Court decisions began to shut down any constitutional basis for judicial supervision of plea negotiations or agreements. Those decisions rested primarily on two claims: separation of powers and the practical costs of regulating plea bargaining in busy criminal justice systems. Both rationales proved enormously influential. Legislative rulemaking and state courts both largely followed the Court in excluding judges — and in effect, the law — from any meaningful role.This article challenges these longstanding rationales. Historical practice suggests that separation of powers doctrine does not require the prevailing, exceedingly broad conception of “exclusive” executive control over charging and other components of the plea process. This is especially true in the states, many of which had long traditions of private prosecutors and judicial oversight over certain prosecution decisions, as well as different constitutional structures. By contrast, English courts — based on both common law and legislation — retain some power to review such decisions. Moreover, assertions that legal constraints on plea bargaining would fatally impair the “efficiency” of adjudication is belied by evidence of very high guilty plea rates both in England, where bargaining is more regulated, and in U.S. courts before the Supreme Court closed off meaningful grounds for judicial review.