Supreme Court Tag

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Posted 10 Dec 2015 in Commentary
Today was a big day for redistricting before the Supreme Court. The Court decided one redistricting case and heard oral argument in two others.    Texas, like all other states, redistricts based on total population data from the census. A number of Texas voters argue that state legislative districts deviate from the ideal by as much as 45 percent when voting population is used. At oral argument today in Evenwel v. Abbott Justices Kennedy, frequently the Court’s “swing” vote in high-profile cases, asked whether both metrics can be used to comply with one-person, one-vote.

Posted 29 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary, IMLA Briefs
Same-sex marriage, Affordable Care Act, raisins. What do these three have in common?  The Supreme Court has recently issued a ruling regarding each of them. In Horne v. Department of Agriculture the Supreme Court held 8-1 that the federal government violated the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause by physically setting aside a percentage of a grower’s raisin crop each year without pay. At least six other agriculture set aside programs are in trouble as a result of this case. But what about its impact on state and local government?

Posted 25 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary
If you were surprised by the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Affordable Care Act Case, you may have even been more surprised by the Court’s ruling in the Fair Housing Act case. In Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. inclusive Communities Project the Supreme Court held 5-4 that disparate-impact claims may be brought under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). All Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals had decided this issue ruling that such claims were possible, though they disagreed about the level of proof required. The Supreme Court was expected to come to the opposite conclusion (or else why would they have taken this case?). Having taken up this question twice before, only to have the cases settle, the Court has finally resolved it.

Posted 24 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary, IMLA Briefs
In Kingsley v. Hendrickson the Supreme Court held 5-4 that to prove an excessive force claim a pretrial detainee must show that the officer’s force was objectively unreasonable, rejecting the subjectively unreasonable standard that is more deferential to law enforcement. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief in this case arguing for a subjective standard. As a result of this ruling it will be easier for pretrial detainees to bring successful excessive force claims against corrections officers.  

Posted 22 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary, IMLA Briefs
While cities are rewriting their sign codes, per the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona they should check to see if they have a hotel registry ordinance.  If they do, it will need some rewriting too. In City of Los Angeles v. Patel the Supreme Court held 5-4 that a Los Angeles ordinance requiring hotel and motel operators to make their guest registries available to police without at least a subpoena violates the Fourth Amendment. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia cites to the State and Local Legal Center’s (SLLC) amicus brief, which notes that local governments in at least 41 states have adopted similar ordinances. Eight states also have hotel registry statutes:  Indiana, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. 

Posted 19 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary
In Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans the Supreme Court held 5-4 that Texas may deny a proposed specialty license plate design featuring the Confederate flag because specialty license plate designs are government speech. Walker is of particular significance to state and local government because the Court did not narrow the 2009 landmark government speech case Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum.

Posted 03 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary
We didn’t learn much in Taylor v. Barkes. But we could have. Prison officials asked the Supreme Court to resolve a circuit split over whether supervisors can be liable for constitutional violations caused by their failure to supervise. Instead of requesting and holding oral argument before deciding the case, the Court summarily reversed the lower court in a per curiam (unauthored) opinion.  The Court “expess[ed] no view” on the vitality of supervisory liability instead concluding no clearly established constitutional right was implicated in this case. The Court granted two prison officials qualified immunity related to an inmate’s suicide reasoning that no precedent at the time of the suicide established that an incarcerated person had a right to proper implementation of adequate suicide prevention protocols. So prison officials could not be liable for failing to supervise the contractor providing suicide screening.

Posted 01 Jun 2015 in Case Notes, Commentary
The Supreme Court’s final employment case of the term is a loss for all employers—not just clothing retailers that impose their fashion sense on their employees. As Justice Thomas points out in his dissenting opinion, rather remarkably, it leaves open the possibility that an employer can be liable for intentional discrimination for failing to accommodate a practice it did not know or even suspect was religious. In EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores the Supreme Court held 8-1 that to bring a religious accommodation claim an applicant or employee need only show that his or her need for a religious accommodation was a motivating factor in an employment decision. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief, which IMLA attorneys wrote, arguing that to bring a failure to accommodate claim the applicant/employee should have to notify the employer of the need for a religious accommodation.