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.

Three Recent United States Supreme Court Decisions for Professionals Who Testify in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

Abstract: This article provides a basic review of the most recent United States Supreme Court decisions that directly relate to child sexual abuse. These cases are Maryland v. Craig, Idaho v. Wright, and White v. Illinois. More specifically, the article illustrates how the legal principles of these cases practically affect professionals who treat and counsel sexual abuse victims when and if they are called to testify in court proceedings. After a brief introduction, a background section succinctly explains the basic legal principles of confrontation and hearsay which underpin the recent Supreme Court decisions. The rest of the article then analyzes each of the three recent cases and focuses on citing examples of testimony that was or was not admissible. This article is not intended to be an exhaustive legal analysis nor a commentary on the appropriateness of the case holdings, but rather a practical review with specific examples of what the United States Supreme Court has held to be acceptable as of this writing.

Woodrow Wilson: Interpreting the Constitution

Abstract: A close examination of early and modern American constitutional interpretation reveals that there has been an essential change in the manner in which the Constitution is interpreted. When that comparison takes the form of a comparison between very early Supreme Court decisions and very recent ones the difference is relatively clear--at least that there is a difference. To some extent, what some of the differences are is observable. For instance, the overt balancing of interests (those of state and individual) in modern civil liberties cases is quite different from the character of earlier Supreme Court decisions. On the other hand, an examination of the history of the Supreme Court does not immediately reveal when, why, and through whom this change occurred; nor is the precise character of the change readily ascertainable. This article will attempt to discover the character of that change, and the reasons for it, through an analysis of an important American political thinker and actor: Woodrow Wilson. Wilson's writings are peculiarly useful, because in some measure the process of change seems to have occurred within his thought. He cannot be said to be simply traditional or simply modern in his approach, even at any one point in his development. But he seems to have started his political writing with a generally traditional approach to constitutional interpretation (i.e., one similar to the Founders') and to have closed it with a generally modern approach. The character of the change itself, and the reasons for the change, then, will be the central focus of this article. Wilson's early position regarding American government is clearly, forcefully, and attractively portrayed in a book which still remains, despite his subsequent alterations, the most lasting statement of his political views: Congressional Government.' This outgrowth of his doctoral thesis (and an earlier undergraduate thesis), published in 1885, describes Wilson's early views of the Constitution.

Don't Knock Them until We Try Them: Civil Suits as a Remedy for Knock-and-Announce Violations after Hudson V. Michigan

Abstract: The sight of law enforcement officers knocking on a door and yelling "Police!" is more than just television drama. In fact, the idea that police should knock and announce their presence before entering is an ancient requirement that has its roots in the English common law. (1) The requirement was adopted at the time of this country's founding and has been more recently recognized as an "element of the Fourth Amendment reasonable test." (2) The Supreme Court has given content to the requirement by recognizing exceptions and outlining its parameters. (3) Until recently, however, the Court had not addressed the proper remedy for those situations in which officers do not properly knock and announce their presence. The Supreme Court ended its silence on the matter in its decision last Term in Hudson v. Michigan. (4) Police obtained a warrant to search the home of the defendant, Booker T. Hudson. (5) Officers went to the home to execute the warrant and announced their presence; after waiting "three to five seconds," they entered the home where they found drugs and a firearm. (6) Prosecutors brought state law charges against Hudson for drug and firearm offenses. (7) Hudson moved to suppress the evidence seized inside his home, claiming that his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the officers' failure to wait the constitutionally required time before entering his home. (8) The state trial court granted the motion. (9) On appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed, citing two Michigan Supreme Court decisions, People v. Stevens (10) and People v. Vasquez. (11) The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal, (12) and Hudson was convicted of both offenses. (13) The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Michigan Supreme Court again declined to review the case. (14) The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. (15) The Supreme Court affirmed Hudson's conviction. (16) Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia held that the exclusionary rule is not the proper remedy for "knock-and-announce" violations. (17) The opinion did not, however, overrule Court precedent regarding the constitutional nature of the knock-and-announce requirement. Rather, the Court began its analysis by noting the importance of the requirement in the common law and citing Wilson v. Arkansas, (18) which held that the knock-and-announce requirement forms part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry. (19) Justice Scalia wrote that the rule, while required, is "not easily applied." (20) The rule is difficult to apply because the amount of time officers must wait is "necessarily vague," depending on the amount of time it would require the resident to dispose of suspected contraband. (21) After reiterating the constitutional nature of the requirement, the Court considered whether its violation triggers the application of the exclusionary rule. It began by outlining the history of the exclusionary rule in the federal courts, tracing the evolution of the rule from "reflexive application" in Mapp v. Ohio (22) to a rejection of "its indiscriminate application" in United States v. Leon (23) and Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole v. Scott. (24) In particular, precedent required that a constitutional violation must be a "but-for" cause of discovering evidence to justify suppression. (25) The instant case did not meet that standard, the Court reasoned, because officers would have seized the evidence regardless of whether they properly knocked and announced. (26) The majority also drew upon the Court's precedents regarding attenuation, under which the exclusionary rule is inapplicable if evidence was found "by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint." (27) The concept of attenuation extends, Justice Scalia wrote, to situations in which "the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of the evidence obtained" despite the presence of a direct causal connection. …

The school official's ability to limit student First Amendment freedom: Exploring the boundaries of student speech and expression in school as defined by the United States federal courts

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify and review the current legal boundaries of student speech and expression rights in public school, as developed and defined by the U.S. federal courts, to better enable educators to make informed decisions regarding student speech and expression when confronted with such situations. The study examined federal court student speech and expression decisions published between January 1, 1983 and December 31, 2008. Four Supreme Court decisions and numerous lower federal court decisions were reviewed and analyzed to identify the current legal boundaries of student speech and expression in school. The Supreme Court decisions in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Sch. Dist. (1969), Bethel Sch. Dist. v. Fraser (1986), Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier (1988), and Morse v. Frederick (2007) were reviewed to identify the principles that express the Supreme Court’s perspective of student speech and expression in school. The study then focused on the lower federal courts’ interpretation and application of the Supreme Court’s student speech and expression decisions to specific circumstances, and school leaders’ utilization of these principles in making informed decisions regarding student speech and expression rights under the First Amendment. The study concluded that the current constitutional boundaries of student speech and expression rights in school were identified by applying the Supreme Court’s student speech and expression principles to specific factual situations encountered by school leaders and addressed by the federal courts. The results of the study were condensed into a reference table that displays a spectrum of possible student speech and expression factual situations, identifies how the Supreme Court’s student speech and expression principles may be applied to specific sets of facts, and

Religious Institutionalism, Implied Consent and the Value of Voluntarism

Abstract: Increasingly, clashes between the demands of law and aspirations of religion center on the legal status and treatment of religious institutions. Much of the rising tensions revolving around religious institutions - exemplified by recent Supreme Court decisions such as Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby - stem from conflicts between the religious objectives of those institutions and their impact on third parties who do not necessarily share those same objectives. This Article aims to provide a framework for analyzing the claims of religious institutions by grounding those claims in the principle of voluntarism. On such an account, religious institutions deserve protection because they are created through the voluntary choices of individuals to join together in the pursuit of collective religious objectives such as faith and salvation. In so doing, these individuals implicitly authorize their religious institutions to make rules and develop doctrine that can promote these shared religious objectives. This process of consent - what the Supreme Court referred to in Watson v. Jones as “implied consent - empowers the religious institution to promulgate rules that promote shared religious values. In this way, the creation of religious institutions represent the voluntary free exercise of religion on the part of many individuals, each granting a religious institution authority over internal religious life among the membership in order to promote shared religious objectives. And in focusing on the core voluntarism of voluntarism, the article proposes answers to some of the more vexing questions left unanswered by recent Supreme Court decisions such as which institutions count as religious institutions and to what extent should these institutions be excused from complying with otherwise valid laws.