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.

American Government: Brief Version

Abstract: The brief edition maintains the framework of the complete text, emphasizing the historical development of the American political system, who governs, and to what end. Revisions include updated examples, tables, and figures; complete coverage through the 2004 Presidential election; and expanded discussion of domestic and foreign and defense policy in two new chapters--Chapter 12, Making Domestic Policy and Chapter 13, Making Foreign and Military Policy. Additional updates include discussions of current topics such as the U.S.A Patriot Act, recent Supreme Court decisions, and the Department of Homeland Security. An expanded discussion on education addresses how students may be influenced by interactions with campus organizations, political movements, and social contacts and how they may in turn affect public opinion.

Managing without Immunity: The Challenge for State and Local Government Officials in the 1980s

Abstract: The beleagured City of Newport, Rhode Island councilman, responding to these questions put by the attorney for an organization whose entertainment permit had been cancelled by the city council, may have voiced the quiet mutterings of many state and local government officials apprehensive about recent Supreme Court decisions which have significantly expanded their personal liability as well as that of their governmental units. The consequences of these decisions can be both direct and costly.2 The Newport councilman had ample reason for feeling that the world of government was no longer as before. When he gave the testimony quoted above, the city council had already been enjoined by a state court from cancelling a permit after a promoter proposed substituting a rock group, Blood, Sweat and Tears, for a jazz performer, Sarah Vaughn. A jury was soon to award damages to the concert promoters, finding the city liable for $72,910 in compensatory damages, for they determined that the city's attempt to cancel the permit resulted in the promoters being able to sell less than half of the 14,000 available tickets. More significantly, the jury awarded $200,000 in punitive damages against the city, and assessed liability for an additional $80,000 in punitive damages against the mayor and seven city council members in their personal capacities.3 Although the courts that considered the case found that the council's decision to cancel the permit infringed upon the promoter's right of free speech, for which the Supreme Court traditionally has applied strong protection, the case reflects the extent to which liability can arise while officials are exercising their responsibility to govern. The most recurring source of liability under the most recent Supreme Court pronouncements will likely derive from the performance of administrative functions, and in particular from those related to federally sponsored and federally assisted programs. With the present litany of managemental regulation and instruction far beyond any individual's capacity to absorb, misinterpretation and misapplication are inevit-

Wisdom of the Ages or Dead-Hand Control? Patentable Subject Matter for Diagnostic Methods after in Re Bilski

Abstract: For a quarter century following the landmark 1980 decision of the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, inventions and discoveries in biotechnology research appeared to be eligible for patent protection, assuming they meet the statutory standards for patent protection. The Supreme Court reopened the issue of patentable subject matter in 2005 when it granted certiorari in Laboratory Corporation v. Metabolite on the question of whether a method of diagnosing vitamin deficiency by observing a biomarker was unpatentable as a “basic scientific relationship.” Although the Court later dismissed the case without reaching a decision on the merits, since that time the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has struggled to discern the limits of patentable subject matter for diagnostic methods in old Supreme Court decisions that had previously seemed destined to languish on library shelves. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the authority of these decisions without explanation in Bilski v. Kappos, thereby demanding formal adherence to stare decisis without following the discipline of common law reasoning. To make sense of these decisions as a guide to the subject matter boundaries of the patent system in the context of contemporary technologies, it is necessary to begin with an account of the functions of subject matter boundaries in patent law. In Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, the Supreme Court has another opportunity not only to clarify the boundaries of patentable subject matter, but to explain what the doctrine of patentable subject matter is all about. This article reviews developments on the issue of patentable subject matter and considers alternative accounts of the work that patentable subject matter doctrine might do for the patent system in the hope of clarifying the application of that doctrine to new technologies with a focus on diagnostic method claims.

The Facts About Qualified Immunity

Abstract: This article provides a critical analysis of the Supreme Court's qualified immunity doctrine, which protects public officials from constitutional tort damages actions when their conduct does not violate...clearly established...constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. It argues that there exists an irresolvable tension between the Court's objective that constitutional tort cases be terminated at an early stage of litigation and the inherently fact-based nature of the reasonableness inquiry that lies at the heart of the doctrine's analytical framework. The article surveys the Court's ill-fated and ill-advised attempts to refine the doctrine in a manner that consciously disregards the complex role of facts in constitutional adjudication. The first part of the article describes how the Court's early immunity decisions shaped the doctrine and its procedural structure in order to circumvent or avoid the factual issues that dominate much constitutional tort litigation. Next, the article discusses four recent Supreme Court decisions that purport to guide lower courts in the proper adjudication of immunity claims. It argues that the manner in which these cases refine qualified immunity is driven by the Court's desire to eliminate, or at least minimize, messy factual conflicts that might impede early dismissal of civil rights claims. After illustrating this new understanding of the recent cases, the article examines why the Court denies that factual conflicts often impede the resolution of qualified immunity claims. First, it asserts that the Court treats the inherently factual reasonableness inquiry in qualified immunity claims as purely legal questions because of its desire that judges, rather than juries, resolve such claims. Thus, the Court's characterization of qualified immunity serves an allocative function. Next, the article contends that the Court has allocated decision making power in this way because it remains uncomfortable with the idea that qualified immunity is just that - qualified. In other words, the Court's recent efforts to refine qualified immunity reflect its wish to move the doctrine toward something resembling absolute immunity. Finally, the article criticizes the Court's role in this tacit transformation and argues that its actions obscure public discourse about the costs and benefits of constitutional torts as a means of ensuring compliance with constitutional norms.