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.

The Impact of Permissive Judicial Policies: The U.S. Supreme Court and the Right to Die:

Abstract: Little research has examined the effects of permissive Supreme Court decisions that give lower courts, legislatures, and others very wide discretion in implementation. This research presents two main hypotheses that link the content of state policy before and after a permissive Supreme Court decision: (1) institutions whose previous policies exceed the scope of a new permissive Supreme Court decision will ignore the new policy and maintain their original course; (2) institutions whose previous policies lag a permissive Supreme Court ruling will innovate by altering their policies to meet but not exceed the new Supreme Court decision. A sub-hypothesis applicable to both of these hypotheses is: state political institutions that previously had no applicable policies, but adopt them following a permissive Supreme Court decision, will follow the main policy innovations chosen by their counterpart state institutions. Focusing on the right to die and the Supreme Court's Cruzan decision, the reserach confirms the...

Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington.

Abstract: KIE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed a district court judgment that ruled unconstitutional a Washington statute banning assisted suicide, as applied to competent, terminally ill adults who wish to obtain prescription medication to hasten their deaths. The statute, which was challenged by a group of patients, physicians, and the nonprofit organization Compassion in Dying, was held to be unconstitutional because it violated the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court took into consideration the interests of the state in protecting life, preventing suicides, preventing undue, arbitrary, or unfair influences on an individual's decision to end his life, and ensuring the integrity of the medical profession. These interests were balanced against an individual's strong liberty interest in determining how and when one's life should end. The court recognized this interest after assessing the growing public support for assisted suicide, changes in the causes of death and medical advances, and Supreme Court cases addressing due process liberty interests. The court then determined that the state's interest, which could be protected by adopting sufficient safeguards, did not outweigh the severe burden placed on the terminally ill, and thus the statute as applied was unconstitutional.

The Liberty to Die: California Enacts Physician Aid-in-Dying Law.

Abstract: On October 5, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed the End of Life Option Act into law, thereby legalizing physician aid in dying in California.1 The significance of this development cannot be overstated. The most populous state in the nation resolved to replace a sesquicentennial aid-in-suicide penal code with a death-withdignity statute. Other states may soon enact similar statutes. In 2015 alone, a total of 23 states and the District of Columbia have sought to codify the practice of physician aid in dying. Eight of these states have done so for the very first time. This unprecedented legislative wave represents more than double the number of death-with-dignity bills introduced in any year since 1995 and a 6-fold increase relative to 2014. In this Viewpoint, we trace the legalization of physician aid in dying, describe its operational constructs, discuss its ongoing challenges, and consider its future. In keeping with landmark rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States, neither the “right to die” (Vacco v Quill) nor the “right to assist in dying” (Washington v Glucksberg) are protected by the US Constitution.2 Moreover, no federal laws govern these actions. It follows that jurisdiction over the legal status of physician aid in dying is the domain of the states. In a first effort to legislate aid in dying by ballot, Washington State voters in 1991 narrowly defeated Initiative 119. California’s 1992 ballot measure Proposition 161 was also defeated. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician aid in dying after voters approved ballot measure 16, the Death with Dignity Act. The attempted repeal 3 years later was soundly defeated. In 2008, Washington voters approved a comparable ballot measure. A similar—if less restrictive construct—was passed by the Vermont legislature in 2013 and was signed into law. In a departure from the legislative path, the state of Montana effectively legalized physician aid in dying in 2009 when its Supreme Court in Baxter v Montana found no “precedent or... statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy.”3 Collectively, these legislative and judicial efforts have given rise to a reality in which 1 in 6 US residents now lives in a state where access to physician aid in dying is an option. The route—legislative or judicial—by which the practice of physician aid in dying is legalized carries substantial implications for both patients and physicians. The presenceofanexplicitdeath-with-dignitystatuteinsuchstates as Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California all but guarantees procedural guidelines, ample safeguards, reporting requirements, and state oversight. None of these provisions apply in the state of Montana, wherein physician aid in dying is governed by a common law precedent. The End of Life Option Act of California, modeled after its Oregon predecessor, constitutes a strictly voluntary “opt-in” construct in that “participation in activities authorized pursuant to this [law] shall be voluntary.”1 Neither patients nor physicians nor health care systems are obligated to participate. Eligible patients must be 18 years or older, residents of the state, of sound mind, and diagnosed with a terminal illness that, subject to reasonable medical judgment, will prove fatal within 6 months. Moreover, these patients must be capable of self-administering the aidin-dying drug. To qualify, eligible patients must make 2 oral requests to a physician separated by a 15-day waiting period, which must be followed by a witnessed written request. The prescribing “attending physician” must be appropriately licensed and registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration. It is the responsibility of this physician to inform the patient of alternatives (eg, palliative care). A “consulting physician” must certify the diagnosis and reassess the mental competence of the patient in question. If either physician deems the judgment of the patient to be impaired, the patient must be referred for a psychiatric evaluation. At the time of this writing, 38 states maintain broad statutory bans against physician aid in dying.4 Alabama, Massachusetts, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia outlaw the practice by existing common law. Yet Nevada, North Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming lack the requisite legal tools to govern the practice. Despite this prohibitive legal landscape, efforts to rewrite the status quo have been accelerating. Over the last 2 decades, Michigan (1998), Maine (2000), and Massachusetts (2012) have pursued death-with-dignity ballot initiatives, albeit without success. During the same time interval, a total of 35 states have introduced death-withdignity bills.5 Florida, New York, Michigan, California, New Mexico, and Arkansas have been the subject of unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to legalize the practice of physician aid in dying. Two additional claims, Hooker v Slater y made against Tennessee and Morris v Brandenburg against New Mexico, remain unresolved. The above progression notwithstanding, the notion of physician aid in dying remains controversial and contested.6 To its proponents, it represents compassion and beneficence in the face of terminal physical pain and disability and the right to exercise free choice and autonomy of will. Viewed in this light, assisting terminally ill patients in their quest to die on their own terms is one and the same with the right to refuse treatment, withdraw life-sustaining care, or avoid further sustenance. Support for this viewpoint has been expressed by the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Women’s Association, and the American Medical Student Association, among others. To its opponents, physician aid in dying violates deeply held views VIEWPOINT

Race, Social Class, Jury Participation: New Dimensions for Evaluating Discrimination in Jury Service and Jury Selection

Abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the racial background of prospective jurors as an important dimension for evaluating jury participation. Recent Supreme Court decisions, however, have downplayed the importance of other relevant achieved status considerations, such as income and occupational standing, and the Court has yet to give social class "cognizable" status in evaluating the fairness of the jury selection system. The main thrust of this article is to examine whether jurors' social class status is equally as important as jurors' racial and ethnic characteristics in explaining disproportionate representation on jury panels. The research site is Orange County, California. Probit modelings are the analytic methods used. The analysis reveals that jurors' social class backgrounds are important determinants of jury participation, perhaps even more than racial and ethnic considerations of unrepresentative juries. The findings suggest that the analysis of jury representation based on a single criterion, such as race, does not delineate the true extent of discrimination in jury selection. For example, when jurors' social class backgrounds were incorporated into the analysis of jury participation, jurors' social class positions, measured by their occupational prestige, annual income, and managerial authority at the work place, exerted greater influence than race in explaining disproportionate jury representation. Similarly, when both the race and social class of jurors were simultaneously analyzed, African American and Hispanic prospective jurors with higher incomes and jobs of greater prestige were systematically overrepresented on jury panels. Since jurors' race and social class positions together provide a more comprehensive view of disproportionate jury representation by various segments of community populations, future Supreme Court decisions need to take both race and social class factors into consideration in order to evaluate unrepresentative juries and to assess the extent of systematic discrimination in jury selection.

The Constitutional Case Law of Japan: Selected Supreme Court Decisions, 1961-70

Abstract: Preface Abbreviations and Legends Introduction Relationships between Forms, Levels, and Types of Law The Diet, the Cabinet, and the Courts Local Autonomy Taxation under the Constitution Equality of Rights under the Law The Economic Freedoms of Citizens Rights Related to the Quality of Socioeconomic Life the Right to Participate in Election Politics Procedural Questions Intellectual Rights and Freedoms Appendix 1. Supreme Court Justices of Japan, 1961-1970 Appendix 2. Organization Chart of Japan's Judicial System, and Map of Court Jurisdictions in Japan Appendix 3. The Constitution of Japan Selected Bibliography Index