Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Under the one-person, one-vote principle, jurisdictions must design legislative districts with equal populations. In state and local legislative districting, states may deviate from perfect population equality to accommodate traditional districting objectives. Where the maximum population deviation between the largest and smallest district is less than 10%, a state or local legislative map presumptively complies with the rule. Texas, like all other states, uses total-population numbers from the decennial census when drawing legislative districts. After the 2010 census, Texas adopted a State Senate map that has a maximum total-population deviation of 8.04%. However, measured by a voter-population baseline—eligible voters or registered voters—the map’s maximum population deviation exceeds 40%. Objectors unsuccessfully sought an injunction. The Supreme Court affirmed. The Framers endorsed allocating House seats to states based on total population. Debating what would become the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress reconsidered the proper basis for apportionment and rejected proposals to allocate House seats to states based on voter population. A voter-population rule is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent that states and localities may comply with the one-person, one-vote principle by designing districts with equal total populations. Adopting voter-eligible apportionment would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 states and countless local jurisdictions have long followed. Representatives serve all residents. Nonvoters have an important stake in policy debates and in constituent services. View "Evenwel v. Abbott" on Justia Law

Michigan law enforcement received an anonymous tip that two white males were traveling on I–96 in a white Audi, possibly carrying cocaine. Officers spotted a vehicle matching that description and pulled it over for speeding. Etherton was driving; Pollie was a passenger. A search uncovered 125.2 grams of cocaine in the driver side door. Pollie testified, with a plea agreement, that he had accompanied Etherton, not knowing that Etherton intended to obtain cocaine; that, in Detroit, Etherton left him alone at a restaurant for 45 minutes; and that, while returning to Grand Rapids, Etherton revealed he had obtained the drugs. Officers described the content of the tip; on the third recounting, Etherton’s counsel objected on hearsay grounds. The prosecutor agreed to move on, but, at closing, again described the tip. The court instructed the jury that “the tip was not evidence,” but was admitted “only to show why the police did what they did.” Etherton’s conviction was affirmed. State courts denied post-conviction relief, rejecting arguments that admission of the tip violated the Confrontation Clause; that counsel was ineffective for failing to object; and that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the Confrontation Clause and ineffective assistance claims. The Sixth Circuit reversed denial of federal habeas relief. The Supreme Court reversed, citing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1) standard of review. A “fairminded jurist” could conclude that repetition of the tip did not establish that the uncontested facts it conveyed were submitted for their truth and that Etherton was not prejudiced when the tip and Pollie’s testimony corresponded on uncontested facts. It would not be objectively unreasonable for a fair-minded judge to conclude that failure to raise a challenge was because the facts in the tip were uncontested and consistent with Etherton’s defense. View "Woods v. Etherton" on Justia Law

Under 18 U.S.C. 1345(a)(2), a court may freeze, before trial, assets belonging to a defendant accused of violations of federal health care or banking laws, including: property “obtained as a result of ” the crime; property “traceable” to the crime; and other “property of equivalent value.” Luis was charged with fraudulently obtaining nearly $45 million through crimes related to health care. To preserve $2 million remaining in Luis’ possession for payment of restitution and criminal penalties, the government secured a pretrial order prohibiting Luis from dissipating her assets, including assets unrelated to her alleged crimes. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the order. The Supreme Court vacated, holding that the pretrial restraint of untainted assets needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment. The right to counsel of choice is “fundamental” and the property at issue is untainted--it belongs to Luis. The government’s interest in its punishment of choice and the victim’s interest in restitution are important, but, compared to the right to counsel, “they seem to lie somewhat further from the heart of a fair, effective criminal justice system.” The constitutional line between a criminal defendant’s tainted funds and innocent funds needed to pay for counsel should prove workable. Without pretrial protection for some of a defendant’s assets, the government could nullify the right to counsel of choice, eviscerating the Sixth Amendment’s meaning and purpose. The modern, judicially created right to government-appointed counsel does not obviate those concerns. View "Luis v. United States" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a Massachusetts law prohibiting the possession of stun guns after examining “whether a stun gun is the type of weapon contemplated by Congress in 1789 as being protected by the Second Amendment.” The court explained that stun guns are not protected because they “were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment,” that stun guns are “dangerous per se at common law and unusual,” and that “nothing in the record to suggest that [stun guns] are readily adaptable to use in the military.” The U.S. Supreme Court, per curiam, vacated, reiterating that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” and that it has rejected the proposition “that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.” View "Caetano v. Massachusetts" on Justia Law

V. L. and E. L. were in a relationship from 1995-2011. Through assisted reproductive technology, E. L. gave birth to a child. in 2002 and to twins in 2004. The women raised the children as joint parents. V. L. rented a house and filed a petition to adopt the children in Georgia. E. L. gave express consent to the adoption, without relinquishing her own parental rights. A final decree recognized both V. L. and E. L. as the legal parents of the children. The women ended their relationship in 2011, while living in Alabama. V.L filed suit, alleging that E. L. had denied her access to the children and interfered with her ability to exercise her parental rights. She asked the Alabama court to register the Georgia adoption judgment and award her custody or visitation rights. The Family Court of Jefferson County awarded V. L. scheduled visitation. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Georgia court had no subject-matter jurisdiction under Georgia law to enter a judgment allowing V. L. to adopt the children while still recognizing E. L.’s parental rights and that Alabama courts were not required to accord full faith and credit to that judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed on summary disposition, stating that the Georgia judgment appears on its face to have been issued by a court with jurisdiction; there is no established Georgia law to the contrary. View "V.L. v. E.L." on Justia Law

Walber was murdered in 1998. Two years later, Scott, then incarcerated, contacted authorities and initially reported that Wearry and others had confessed to shooting and driving over Walber, leaving his body on Blahut Road. Walber had not been shot; his body was found on Crisp Road. Scott changed his story in material ways four times. Another witness, Brown, recanted a prior inconsistent statement and agreed to testify. The prosecution stated that Brown “is doing 15 years on a drug charge… hasn’t asked for a thing” and “has no deal on the table.” Although the state presented no physical evidence, it offered additional circumstantial, but somewhat inconsistent, evidence linking Wearry to Walber. Three women testified that Wearry had been at a wedding reception 40 miles away. The bride testified that the reception had ended around 9:00, potentially leaving time for Wearry to have committed the crime. Jail employees testified that they had overheard Wearry say that he was present at the crime. The jury convicted Wearry of capital murder and sentenced him to death. After unsuccessful direct appeal, it emerged that the prosecution had withheld police records showed that two inmates had made statements that cast doubt on Scott’s credibility and that, contrary to the prosecution’s assertions, Brown wanted a deal for testifying. Police had told Brown that they would “‘talk to the D. A..’” Wearry’s trial attorney admitted at the state collateral-review hearing that he had conducted no investigation. Collateral-review counsel found many witnesses lacking any personal relationship with Wearry to corroborate his alibi until 11 pm. The lower courts and the Louisiana Supreme Court denied relief. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed on the Brady claim, finding that the state withheld material evidence, and did not reach the ineffective assistance claim. View "Wearry v. Cain" on Justia Law

Montgomery was 17 years old in 1963, when he killed a deputy in Louisiana. The jury returned a verdict of “guilty without capital punishment,” which carried an automatic sentence of life without parole. Nearly 50 years later, the Supreme Court decided, in Miller v. Alabama, that mandatory life without parole for juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. The trial court denied his motion for relief. His application for a supervisory writ was denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which had previously held that Miller does not have retroactive effect in state collateral review. The Supreme Court reversed. Courts must give retroactive effect to new watershed procedural rules and to substantive rules of constitutional law. Substantive constitutional rules include “rules forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct” and “rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense.” Miller announced a substantive rule of constitutional law, which is retroactive because it necessarily carries a significant risk that a defendant faces a punishment that the law cannot impose. A state may remedy a Miller violation by extending parole eligibility to juvenile offenders. This would neither impose an onerous burden nor disturb the finality of state convictions and would afford someone like Montgomery, who may have evolved from a troubled, misguided youth to a model member of the prison community, the opportunity to demonstrate the truth of Miller’s central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change. View "Montgomery v. Louisiana" on Justia Law

A Kansas jury sentenced Gleason to death for killings to cover up a robbery. Another Kansas jury sentenced the Carr brothers to death after they were convicted of rape, kidnapping, and five execution-style shootings. The Kansas Supreme Court vacated the death sentences, holding that the sentencing instructions violated the Eighth Amendment and that the Carrs’ rights to individualized capital sentencing determinations was violated. The Supreme Court reversed. The Eighth Amendment and Supreme Court precedent do not require capital-sentencing courts to instruct a jury that mitigating circumstances need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Ambiguity in capital-sentencing instructions constitutes constitutional error only if there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevented consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence. The instructions at issue clarified that both the existence of aggravating circumstances and the conclusion that they outweigh mitigating circumstances must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt but that mitigating circumstances must merely be “found to exist.” No juror would reasonably speculate that “beyond a reasonable doubt” was the correct burden for mitigating circumstances. The Constitution did not require severance of the Carrs’ joint sentencing proceedings. Claiming that admission of mitigating evidence by one Carr brother could have “so infected” jury consideration of the other’s sentence as to amount to a due process denial was “beyond the pale.” Joint proceedings are often preferable when the joined defendants’ criminal conduct arises out of a single chain of events. Limiting instructions, like those given in the Carrs’ proceeding, often suffice to cure any risk of prejudice. View "Kansas v. Carr" on Justia Law

Under Florida law, the maximum sentence a capital felon may receive based on a conviction alone is life imprisonment. He may be sentenced to death only after an additional sentencing proceeding, Fla. Stat. 775.082(1), with an evidentiary hearing before a jury. The jury renders an “advisory sentence.” Notwithstanding that recommendation, the judge must independently find and weigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances before entering a sentence of life or death. A jury convicted Hurst of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty. On remand, the jury again recommended death; the judge again found the facts necessary to sentence Hurst to death. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed, rejecting Hurst’s argument that his sentence violated the Sixth Amendment under the 2015 Supreme Court holding, Ring v. Arizona, that an Arizona sentencing scheme was unconstitutional for allowing a judge, rather than the jury, to find the facts necessary to sentence a defendant to death. The Supreme Court reversed, finding that Florida’s sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment. Any fact that “expose[s] the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict” is an “element” that must be submitted to a jury. That Florida provides an advisory jury is immaterial. The judge’s role is central and singular under Florida law. View "Hurst v. Florida" on Justia Law

In 1997, Louisville police found the bodies of Malone and Warfield in their apartment. Malone had been stabbed. Warfield, then pregnant, had been strangled and scissors stuck out from her neck. Crime scene DNA matched Wheeler’s. During voir dire, Juror 638 gave equivocal answers about the death penalty, saying “I’m not sure that I have formed an opinion ... I believe there are arguments on both sides.” Asked about his ability to consider all available penalties, he noted he had “never been confronted with that situation in a, in a real-life sense of having to make that kind of determination.” “So it’s difficult … to judge how I would I guess act.” He agreed that he was “not absolutely certain whether [he] could realistically consider” the death penalty and described himself as “a bit more contemplative on the issue of taking a life and, uh, whether or not we have the right to take that life.” Later, however, he stated that he could consider all the penalty options. The court granted a prosecution motion to strike Juror 638 for cause based on his inconsistent replies. Wheeler was convicted and sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the judge “appropriately struck for cause those jurors that could not impose the death penalty.” After exhausting state postconviction procedures, Wheeler unsuccessfully sought habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2254). The Sixth Circuit reversed, granting relief as to Wheeler’s sentence. The Supreme Court reversed. The Kentucky Supreme Court was not unreasonable in its application of clearly established federal law in concluding that Juror 638's exclusion did not violate the Sixth Amendment. View "White v. Wheeler" on Justia Law