Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The University of Texas at Austin’s undergraduate admissions system offers admission to all students who graduate in the top 10% of their Texas high school class, as required by the Texas Top Ten Percent Law. It fills the remainder of its freshman class, about 25%, by combining an applicant’s “Academic Index” (SAT score and high school academic performance) with a “Personal Achievement Index,” a holistic review containing numerous factors, including race. The University adopted the system in 2004, after a year-long-study of its admissions process—undertaken following two Supreme Court decisions—led it to conclude that its prior race-neutral system did not reach its goal of providing the educational benefits of diversity. Fisher was denied admission to the 2008 freshman class. She alleged that the University’s consideration of race disadvantaged her and other Caucasian applicants, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. On remand for application of the strict scrutiny standard, the Fifth Circuit again affirmed summary judgment in the University’s favor. The Supreme Court affirmed. The race-conscious admissions program is lawful under the Equal Protection Clause. The compelling interest that justifies consideration of race in college admissions is not an interest in enrolling a certain number of minority students, but an interest in obtaining “the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.” The University articulated concrete and precise goals—e.g., ending stereotypes, promoting “cross-racial understanding,” preparing students for “an increasingly diverse workforce and society,” and cultivating leaders with “legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry” and gave a “reasoned, principled explanation” for its decision. The University’s conclusion that race-neutral programs had not achieved its diversity goals was supported by significant statistical and anecdotal evidence, while consideration of race has had a meaningful, but limited, effect on freshman class diversity. That race consciousness played a role in a small portion of admissions decisions is a hallmark of narrow tailoring, not evidence of unconstitutionality. The Top Ten Percent Plan had more of an impact on Fisher’s chances of admission. The Court noted the University’s continuing obligation to satisfy the strict scrutiny burden by periodically reassessing the program and by tailoring it to ensure that race plays no greater role than necessary to meet its compelling interests. View "Fisher v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin" on Justia Law

Every state has a law that prohibits motorists from driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeding a specified level. BAC is typically determined by analysis of a blood sample or by using a machine to measure the amount of alcohol in a person’s breath. Implied consent laws require drivers to submit to BAC tests. Originally, the penalty for refusing a test was suspension of the motorist’s license. Some states, including North Dakota and Minnesota, now make it a crime to refuse to undergo testing. In consolidated cases, involving defendants prosecuted under such laws, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving but not warrantless blood tests. Breath tests do not implicate significant privacy concerns and are no more intrusive than collecting a DNA sample by rubbing a swab on the inside of a person’s cheek; they leave no biological sample in the government’s possession and are not likely to enhance the embarrassment inherent in any arrest. Blood tests, however, require piercing the skin and extract a part of the subject’s body, giving law enforcement a sample from which it is possible to extract information beyond a BAC reading. By making it a crime to refuse to submit to a BAC test, the laws at issue provide an incentive to cooperate and serve a very important function. Imposing a warrant requirement for every BAC test would likely swamp courts, with little corresponding benefit. The states have no satisfactory justification for demanding the more-intrusive alternative without a warrant. In instances where blood tests might be preferable—e.g., where substances other than alcohol impair the driver’s abilities, or where the subject is unconscious—nothing prevents the police from seeking a warrant or from relying on the exigent circumstances exception, if applicable. View "Birchfield v. North Dakota" on Justia Law

Taylor and other gang members twice broke into homes of marijuana dealers, demanded drugs and money, found neither, and left relatively empty handed. At Taylor’s retrial on Hobbs Act charges of affecting commerce or attempting to do so through robbery, the court excluded Taylor’s evidence that he targeted dealers selling only locally-grown marijuana. The Fourth Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. The Hobbs Act's commerce element is satisfied by showing that the defendant robbed or attempted to rob a drug dealer of drugs or drug proceeds. The Act’s language is unmistakably broad and reaches any obstruction, delay, or other effect on commerce, 18 U.S.C. 1951(a), over which the United States has jurisdiction. Congress may regulate activities that have a substantial aggregate effect on interstate commerce, including “purely local activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce,” if those activities are economic in nature. One such “class of activities” is the production, possession, and distribution of controlled substances. A robber who affects even the intrastate sale of marijuana affects commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction. If the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a robber targeted a marijuana dealer’s drugs or illegal proceeds, it has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction was affected. View "Taylor v. United States" on Justia Law

Detective Fackrell conducted surveillance on a South Salt Lake City residence based on an anonymous tip about drug dealing. The number of people he observed making brief visits during the week made him suspect drug activity. After seeing Strieff leave the residence, Fackrell detained Strieff at a nearby parking lot, requested identification and relayed the information to a police dispatcher, who informed him that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Fackrell searched Streiff and found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. The Utah Supreme Court ordered that the evidence be suppressed. The Supreme Court reversed. The evidence Fackrell seized incident to Strieff’s arrest is admissible; Fackrell’s discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unconstitutional investigatory stop and the evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest. The exclusionary rule encompasses both the “primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure” and “evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality.” To ensure that the rule’s deterrence benefits are not outweighed by its substantial social costs, there are several exceptions, including the attenuation doctrine, which provides for admissibility when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is sufficiently remote or has been interrupted by intervening circumstances. The Court noted three factors: temporal proximity between the initially unlawful stop and the search favors suppressing the evidence; the presence of intervening circumstances (the existence of a valid warrant, predating the investigation and entirely unconnected with the stop) strongly favors the prosecution; the “purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct” also strongly favors the state. Fackrell was at most negligent; his errors did not rise to a purposeful or flagrant violation of Strieff’s rights. View "Utah v. Strieff" on Justia Law

Enacted in response to the high incidence of domestic violence against Native American women, 18 U.S.C. 117(a), applies to any person who “commits a domestic assault within . . . Indian country” and who has at least two prior convictions for domestic violence rendered “in Federal, State, or Indian tribal court proceedings.” The Sixth Amendment guarantees indigent defendants appointed counsel in state or federal proceedings in which a term of imprisonment is imposed, but does not apply in tribal-court proceedings. The Indian Civil Rights Act, (ICRA) which governs tribal-court proceedings, includes a right to appointed counsel only for sentences exceeding one year, 25 U.S.C. 1302(c)(2). Supreme Court precedent holds that convictions obtained in state or federal court in violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel cannot be used in subsequent proceedings “to support guilt or enhance punishment for another offense” except for uncounseled misdemeanor convictions for which no prison term was imposed. The Ninth Circuit reversed Bryant’s section 117(a) conviction, finding that the Sixth Amendment precluded use of his prior, uncounseled, tribal-court convictions a predicate offenses. The Supreme Court reversed. Because Bryant’s tribal-court convictions complied with ICRA and were valid when entered, use of those convictions as predicate offenses in a section 117(a) prosecution does not violate the Constitution. Bryant’s sentence for violating section 117(a) punishes his most recent acts of domestic assault, not his prior crimes. He suffered no Sixth Amendment violation in tribal court, so he cannot “suffe[r] anew” from a prior deprivation. ICRA sufficiently ensures the reliability of tribal-court convictions, guaranteeing “due process of law,” providing other procedural safeguards, and allowing a prisoner to challenge the fundamental fairness of proceedings in federal habeas proceedings. View "United States v. Bryant" on Justia Law

Defendants each sold a gun to an undercover police officer. Each was indicted for violation of the Puerto Rico Arms Act of 2000. While those charges were pending, federal grand juries indicted them, based on the same transactions, for violations of analogous U.S. gun-trafficking statutes. Both pleaded guilty to the federal charges and successfully moved to dismiss the Commonwealth charges on double jeopardy grounds. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and U.S. Supreme Court upheld the dismissals. The Double Jeopardy Clause bars Puerto Rico and the United States from successively prosecuting a person for the same conduct under equivalent criminal laws. While the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar successive prosecutions brought by separate sovereigns, “sovereignty” in this context does not bear its ordinary meaning. The issue is the “ultimate source” of the power authorizing the prosecutions. The states are separate sovereigns from the federal government and from one another, but U. S. territories, including an earlier incarnation of Puerto Rico, are not sovereigns distinct from the United States. Federal and territorial prosecutors do not derive their powers from independent sources of authority. Although constitutional developments made Puerto Rico “sovereign” in one commonly understood sense of that term, the dual-sovereignty test focuses not on the fact of self-rule, but on where it originated. Congress conferred the authority to create the Puerto Rico Constitution, which confers the authority to bring criminal charges. That makes Congress the original source of power for Puerto Rico’s prosecutors, as it is for the federal government’s. The island’s Constitution does not break the chain. View "Puerto Rico v. Valle" on Justia Law

Williams was convicted of a 1984 murder and sentenced to death. Philadelphia District Attorney Castille approved a request to seek the death penalty. Williams’s conviction and sentence were upheld on direct appeal, state post-conviction review, and federal habeas review. In 2012, Williams filed a successive petition under Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), arguing that the prosecutor had obtained false testimony from his codefendant and suppressed exculpatory evidence. Finding that the prosecutor had committed Brady violations, the court stayed Williams’s execution. The Commonwealth asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, whose chief justice was former District Attorney Castille, to vacate the stay. Without explanation, Castille denied Williams’s motion for recusal and request for referral to the full court; Castille joined an opinion vacating PCRA relief and reinstating Williams’s death sentence. Two weeks later, Castille retired. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated, holding that Castille’s participation violated the Due Process Clause. There is an impermissible risk of actual bias when a judge earlier had significant, personal involvement as a prosecutor in a critical decision regarding the defendant’s case. No attorney is more integral to the accusatory process than a prosecutor who participates in a major adversary decision; the decision to pursue the death penalty is a critical choice. Neither the involvement of multiple actors nor the passage of time relieves the former prosecutor of the duty to withdraw. An unconstitutional failure to recuse constitutes structural error, “not amenable” to harmless-error review, regardless of whether the judge’s vote was dispositive. The Court noted that many jurisdictions, including Pennsylvania, have statutes and professional codes that already require recusal under these circumstances. View "Williams v. Pennsylvania" on Justia Law

Himmelreich, a federal prisoner, sued the United States, alleging that he was severely beaten by a fellow inmate as the result of negligence by prison officials. The government treated the suit as a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b). The court granted the defendants summary judgment on the ground that the claim fell into the exception for “[a]ny claim based upon . . . the exercise or performance . . . [of] a discretionary function,” namely, deciding where to house inmates. While the motion was pending, Himmelreich filed a second suit: a constitutional tort suit against individual Bureau of Prison employees, again alleging that his beating was the result of officials’ negligence. After the dismissal of Himmelreich’s first suit, the court dismissed the second suit as foreclosed by the FTCA’s judgment bar provision. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court affirmed. The FTCA “Exceptions” section’s plain text dictates that the judgment bar does “not apply” to cases that, like Himmelreich’s first suit, are based on the performance of a discretionary function. Had the court dismissed Himmelreich’s first suit because, e.g., the employees were not negligent, it would make sense that the judgment bar provision would prevent a second suit against the employees. Where an FTCA claim is dismissed because it falls within one of the “Exceptions,” the dismissal signals merely that the United States cannot be held liable for the claim; it has no logical bearing on whether an employee can be liable instead. View "Simmons v. Himmelreich" on Justia Law

During jury selection at Foster’s trial, the state (Georgia) used peremptory challenges to strike all four qualified black prospective jurors. Foster was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. The trial court rejected an argument that the strikes were racially motivated, in violation of Batson v. Kentucky. While his state habeas petition was pending, Foster obtained copies of the prosecution’s trial file, including the jury venire list with the names of each black prospective juror highlighted; an investigator's statement comparing black prospective jurors and concluding, “If it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors, [this one] might be okay”; notes with “N” (for “no”) appearing next to the names of all black prospective jurors; a document with notes about a church, annotated "No. Black Church”; and questionnaires, on which each juror’s response indicating race was circled. The state court denied relief. The Georgia Supreme Court denied a certificate of appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, first holding that it had jurisdiction to review the denial of a Certificate of Probable Cause; there was no indication that denial rested on state law “independent of the merits” of Foster’s Batson claim. The lower court’s application of res judicata depended on a federal constitutional ruling; its decision that Foster failed to show purposeful discrimination was clearly erroneous. Though the trial court accepted the prosecution’s justifications for the strikes, "the record belies much of the prosecution’s reasoning." That a prosecutor’s reasons for striking a black prospective juror apply equally to an otherwise-similar nonblack prospective juror, who is allowed to serve, suggests purposeful discrimination. The Court noted “the prosecution’s shifting explanations, misrepresentations of the record, and persistent focus on race.” Because Batson was decided only months before Foster’s trial, the state argued that the prosecution’s file was an effort to maintain a detailed account should the prosecution need a defense against any suggestion that its reasons were pretextual. That argument, having never before been raised in the 30 years since Foster’s trial, “reeks of afterthought.” View "Foster v. Chatman" on Justia Law

Voters from Virginia’s Congressional District 3 challenged the Commonwealth’s 2013 congressional redistricting plan on the ground that the legislature’s redrawing of their district was unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Three members of Congress from Virginia intervened to defend the plan. The district court struck down the plan and, after remand from the Supreme Court, again held that the plan was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court dismissed a second appeal for lack of standing. A party invoking federal court jurisdiction can establish Article III standing only by showing that he has suffered an “injury in fact,” that the injury is “fairly traceable” to the challenged conduct, and that the injury is likely to be “redressed” by a favorable decision. , Representative Forbes, the Republican incumbent in District 4, has decided to run in District 2, regardless of the litigation's outcome; even if Forbes had standing when he first intervened, he does not have standing now. Representatives Wittman and Brat, the incumbents in Districts 1 and 7, respectively, have not identified any record evidence to support their allegation that the redistricting plan has harmed their prospects of reelection. The allegation of an injury, without more, is not sufficient to satisfy Article III. View "Wittman v. Personhuballah" on Justia Law