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.

Religious Organizations and Free Exercise: The Surprising Lessons of Smith

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Much has been written about the protections afforded by the Free Exercise Clause when government regulation impacts the religious practices of individuals, and if one looks for guidance from the Supreme Court, the rules are fairly clear. Government action designed to thwart religious exercise is, of course, unconstitutional.1 A more difficult issue arises when the state does not intend to burden religious exercise but does so inadvertently. Prior to 1990, the Supreme Court had long employed a balancing approach that afforded significant relief. Under this approach, developed in the seminal case Sherbert v. Verner,2 individuals were entitled to exemptions from laws that substantially burdened religious conduct unless enforcement was justified by a compelling state interest.3 In 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith,4 the Supreme Court abandoned this balancing test for all but a few categories of cases.5 Under the Court's new rule, the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with neutral, generally applicable laws that are not intended to burden religious exercise.6 Scholarly writing addressing the proper scope of free exercise protections for individuals has been extensive, and even more than a decade after Smith, individual free exercise rights remain a familiar subject in the academic literature.7 The scholarly and judicial landscape is much different when one turns to the free exercise rights of religious organizations. Just as in the case of individuals, government regulation frequently impacts the activities of religious groups. For example, common areas of litigation include: the application of federal antidiscrimination statutes to employment decisions;8 the imposition of mandatory collective bargaining requirements under state and federal labor laws;9 the application of state licensing, teacher certification and curriculum requirements to church-operated schools;10 zoning and historic preservation regulation;11 and the licensing and regulation of religiously affiliated social services programs.12 However, while clashes between churches13 and regulators are recurring, one finds fewer scholarly works addressing the free exercise rights of religious groups and much less guidance from the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Supreme Court has, surprisingly, never directly addressed the scope of free exercise protections when government regulation interferes with the internal affairs of religious groups. The Court has addressed claims for tax exemptions,14 but none of these cases has involved government action that directly impinges on internal church operations. While no case has addressed this issue directly, Supreme Court precedents involving religious groups provide support for three very different approaches.15 On the one hand, there is some support for a broad right of "church autonomy"16 that prohibits government interference with internal church affairs regardless of whether the activities affected are religious in nature or more mundane administrative matters. On the other hand, Supreme Court decisions also support an approach that mirrors Smith's rule for individuals. When government action is neutral and generally applicable, religious groups are not entitled to special relief even if the regulation burdens religious practices. In between these two options, a third approach provides limited relief where government regulation impinges on religious practice or activity. Under this middle position, religious organizations do not have a broad right of autonomy over all internal affairs, but they are entitled to exemptions from laws that burden religious practice. Each of these approaches can be found in lower court decisions, and each has its supporters in the legal academy. This Article examines the Supreme Court's decision in Smith for guidance in choosing among these three options. The use of Smith as a prism through which to analyze the free exercise rights of religious groups makes sense for several reasons. …

Doctrine Formulation and Distrust

Abstract: Legal scholars exhaustively debate the substantive wisdom of Supreme Court decisions and the appropriate methods for interpreting legal texts, but rarely consider the more pragmatic need to craft rules that will be faithfully implemented by the lower court judges who have the last word in the overwhelming majority of cases Political scientists, in contrast, invest tremendous effort seeking to determine whether lower courts "comply" with Supreme Court directives, but find themselves unable to explain why their own studies generally find high levels of compliance This Article argues that part of the answer lies in the Court's ability to craft legal doctrines that both shape a trial court's initial decision and increase the efficacy of appellate monitoring After identifying numerous strategies for increasing lower court control, this Article argues that appreciating the links between them helps illuminate recent developments in three areas of public law - the constitutional law of punitive damages; the rules governing "officer suits" brought under 42 USC § 1983; and the concept of "reasonable" searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment

Holding Steady on Shifting Sands Countermajoritarian Decision Making in the US Courts of Appeals

Abstract: Empirical claims that US Supreme Court decisions tend to follow public opinion raise important questions about the countermajoritarian role of the American judiciary. Yet, for the vast majority of federal cases, the de facto court of last resort is actually a US court of appeals. We examine the role of public opinion in shaping decisions on these courts. We argue that the courts of appeals’ position in the judicial hierarchy, lack of docket control, and lack of public attention encourage circuit judges to ignore public opinion and adhere to consistent legal rules; however, appeals by federal litigants are strongly associated with public opinion. Consequently, circuit judges actively resist ideological shifts in public opinion, as they issue consistent rulings in the face of varying case facts. Applying multilevel modeling techniques to a data set of courts of appeals decisions from 1952 to 2002, we find strong support for our theory.

A (forensic) stylistic analysis of adverbials of attitude and emphasis in supreme court decisions in philippine english

Abstract: Contemporarily, stylistics today has developed into its multiplicity – one of which is forensic stylistics. Being a powerfully legal written discourse, Supreme Court decisions are a rich corpus in which linguistic vis-a-vis stylistic choices of Court justices could be examined. This study is a humble attempt at stylistically analyzing Supreme Court decisions in Philippine English (PhE) drafted by two Filipino justices. Specifically, it sought to investigate on the classes, placements, and environments of adverbials of attitude and emphasis employed by the two justices, and drew their implications to teaching and learning English for Legal Purposes (ELP). Using McMenamin (2012), Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985), and Dita’s (2011) frameworks, 54 randomly selected Supreme Court decisions as primary sources of legal language were analyzed. Results are the following. Firstly, the classes of adverbials of attitude in Supreme Court decisions in PhE used by the two judges were the evaluation to the subject of the clause, judgment to the whole clause, and evaluation to an action performed by the subject of the clause, while those adverbials of emphasis were adverbials of conviction and doubt . Secondly, both adverbials they used have placements that were frequently medial and less initial in sentences where they belonged. Thirdly, the two justices put their adverbials within two principal environments, i.e. within functor, and before/after the verb among others. In these regards, legal and stylistic explanations with respect to these recurrent linguistic features in the two justices’ Court decisions were revealed. Implications of the study to ELP are explained. Lastly, trajectories for future (forensic) stylistic analyses have been recommended.

Who owns federally funded research? The Supreme court and the Bayh-Dole act.

Abstract: Collaboration between academic researchers and private companies is essential to medical innovation and development. A recent Supreme Court decision focused on contracts between these parties and the public's interest in agreements involving federally funded research.