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.

Undermining Christian Legal Society v. Martinez

Abstract: In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a sharply divided Supreme Court held that officials at a public institution in California might require a student religious group to admit all-comers from the student body, including those who disagree with its beliefs, as a condition of being recognized. Put another way, the Court declared that the government, through university officials, might force religious groups to choose between compromising their values and receiving benefits that other student groups receive as a matter of constitutional right. Yet, three years after Christian Legal Society, there is cause to question the continued viability of the decision. Two recent Supreme Court decisions, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC and Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., collectively undermine the result in Christian Legal Society. First, Hosanna-Tabor establishes that religious groups have a right of religious autonomy — absolute discretion to determine whom its leaders will be. Logically, if an organization can restrict its leadership to those who adhere to the faith, basic principles, then the organization ought to be able to impose a similar requirement on membership. Second, in Alliance for Open Society, the Court revived and redefined the unconstitutional conditions doctrine — government may impose conditions that define the program, but may not impose conditions that reach outside the program. As a result, government cannot force a religious group to surrender its religious autonomy rights as a condition of receiving some government subsidy or benefit — such as university recognition or access to student activity funds. In sum, Hosanna-Tabor and Alliance for Open Society collectively contradict the result in Christian Legal Society.

Abortion on the Supreme Court Agenda: Planned Parenthood v. Casey and its Possible Consequences

Abstract: PIP: On June 29, 1992, the US Supreme Court released its Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey opinion. A majority of the Court reaffirmed the essential holding of the landmark Roe v. Wade case, including a recognition of a woman's guaranteed constitutional right to choose an abortion before viability. At the same time, the Court eliminated Roe's trimester framework, established a new, less stringent undue burden standard for reviewing governmental limitations upon woman's right to choose, and applied this standard in upholding the constitutionality of most of Pennsylvania's abortion restrictions. Currently, 15 states have informed consent laws, and 13 states have laws requiring waiting periods between counseling and the abortion; many states also require parental notification or consent, some with the option of judicial bypass. Now that the Court has upheld the constitutionality of restrictions such as these, it is expected that states will enforce existing provisions and impose new limitations as well. In Illinois, the proposed Abortion Informed Consent Act would require the dissemination of particular information and then impose a 72-hour waiting period between counseling and abortion. In North Dakota, a state with only 1 abortion clinic, the State Attorney General announced that he expected to begin enforcing a 24-hour waiting period. And in Tennessee, as in other states, Casey may encourage courts to lift injunctions that have prevented enforcement of waiting periods or other restrictions. Casey explicitly implicates patient autonomy, the doctor patient relationship, and the First Amendment rights of health professionals. As the Court's new interpretation of Roe suggests, the right to privacy will never be immune from redefinition.

Federalism: The Next Generation

Abstract: This essay is part of a symposium on a series of Supreme Court decisions during the 1990s that reinvigorated, and at times reinvented, federalism-based limits on congressional power, a constitutional doctrine that has lain dormant since a trilogy of post-New Deal decisions repudiating the Court’s Lochner era jurisprudence of reserved state powers. The long term practical impact of the recent decisions remains unclear, even if the basic contours of the new doctrine are fairly discernable. Indeed, the new federalism raises more questions than it answers, and its final frontiers will depend on how the Supreme Court resolves this next generation of federalism questions.I focus on one subset of questions raised by the recent federalism decisions: their implications for the scope of “other” federal powers, particularly the power to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments and the spending power. Until recently, the commerce power has been the dominant focus of cases concerning the scope of federal authority, and the Supreme Court has paid relatively less attention to the scope of other federal powers. But many of the new federalism limits are specific to the commerce power and do not appear to apply to other federal powers. In light of new sovereignty-based limits on the commerce power, including the “no commandeering rule” and decisions denying Congress the authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity under the commerce power, the power to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments and the spending power are especially attractive and potentially expansive alternative bases of authority for federal action. It is therefore to be expected that the courts will increasingly confront questions concerning the scope of these other federal powers. How the courts resolve those questions will go a long way toward determining whether the new federalism effects a significant practical shift in the balance of federal and state authority. Beyond its practical significance, the resolution of these issues is of immense doctrinal interest because the courts are engaged in their first extended analysis of the scope of congressional power to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments since the nineteenth century, and may soon address the spending power in much the same way.

Preserving the Federal Arbitration Act by Reining in Judicial Expansion and Mandatory Use

Abstract: This Article considers the rationale for arbitration reform, as well as the arguments for no reform at all. Part II sets out the Federal Arbitration Act’s basic framework, and discusses the Supreme Court decisions which have arguably expanded the scope of the FAA and enabled a controversial use of modern arbitration. Part III considers specific proposals warranting congressional attention, including pending legislation under the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007. Part IV concludes in offering final thoughts for arbitration reform.

More than Class Action Killers: The Impact of Concepcion and American Express on Employment Arbitration

Abstract: This Article highlights how two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant that, although involving class actions, could impact individual employment arbitration proceedings and destabilize the broader legal framework supporting arbitration in the United States. The shrinking scope of judicial review of arbitration agreements should prompt a broader debate about the relationship between the courts and a system of arbitration. If employment arbitration is to have any legitimacy, judicial review of arbitration agreements should be increasing in scope rather than decreasing, to ensure that employees knowingly and voluntarily entered into arbitration agreements.