Lethal Injection Case - A man convicted of murder and ...



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Deciding to Decide Activity

The purpose of this activity is to help you become more familiar with the criteria for understanding why the Supreme Court decides to grant certiorari in a particular case.

Case One: Drug Sweep in School Parking Lot Certiorari:________

In the spring semester of 2002, Scott County School District instituted a policy that allowed suspicion-less campus-wide drug sweeps with drug-sniffing dogs to be conducted at local schools. At Austin High School in Austin, Indiana, one such search turned up a handgun in a student’s car. The student was charged with possession of a firearm on school property. At trial, the defendant moved to suppress the handgun, arguing that it was found as a result of an illegal search. The court denied the motion and both the court of appeals and Indiana Supreme Court affirmed that decision. The petitioner argues that the Supreme Court needs to decide whether the Fourth Amendment allows suspicion-less drug sweeps such as this at school. The respondent argues that lower courts agree that suspicion-less, warrantless searches on school grounds are reasonable. No court has held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits this type of drug sweep at school.

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Two: Video Voyeurism Certiorari:________

A man in Mississippi was convicted of five counts of video voyeurism (The use of any camera, videotape, or any other image recording device for the purpose of observing, viewing, photographing, filming, or videotaping a person where that person has not consented to the observing, viewing, photographing, filming, or videotaping and it is for a lewd or lascivious purpose), which state law makes a felony, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison plus five years probation. State police had observed him, on five separate occasions, videotaping a woman in her apartment from his car. The woman was clothed and the door of her apartment was open. He repeatedly zoomed in on her chest and crotch. The state statute for video voyeurism requires that the video taping be committed with lewd intent, without the victim’s permission, and in a location where a person would intend to be in a state of undress and have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

On appeal through the Mississippi state courts, the man argued that the woman was not in a location where a person would intend to be in a state of undress, since her door was open. The state supreme court upheld his conviction, finding the fact that the woman was in a private dwelling sufficiently met the “location” test of the statute. The man appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the courts below had misinterpreted the statute, and as such, violated his right to due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Three: Public Money for Computers in Religious Schools Certiorari:________

A federal law allowed for the allocation of federal aid to provide computer equipment in public and private schools for “secular, neutral and non-ideological” programs. In Jefferson Parrish, Louisiana, about 30% of the funding allocated under this law went to private schools, many of them religiously affiliated. Several public school parents sued, arguing that the federal law allocating funds for educational materials to private schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit ruled that this provision did violate the First Amendment because it was an impermissible governmental aid to religious schools. The Ninth Circuit, in analyzing the same issue in a different case, said that there was no violation of the First Amendment. A recent Supreme Court decision already decided that it was ok for public school teachers to offer remedial courses in parochial school classrooms. The Solicitor General of the U.S. filed a brief asking the Court to grant certiorari.

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Four: School Dress Codes Certiorari:________

Nicholas Boroff, a 17 year old public high school student in Ohio, was sent home from school on consecutive days for wearing a t-shirt depicting shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Manson was often criticized as being satanic and presenting himself as the “anti-Christ.” The shirt was not obscene, but school officials said that he could not wear it at school because it presented immoral, satanic, and offensive images, which conflicted with Christian beliefs that were widely held by students and officials at the school. Officials told Boroff that he could return to school if he did not wear a Marilyn Manson t-shirt. The prior school year, Boroff often wore Marilyn Manson t-shirts to school, and it caused no disruption. The school continues to let students wear t-shirts depicting other rock and roll groups, many of which are quite similar to Marilyn Manson. Additionally, some students are allowed to have small Marilyn Manson patches on their backpacks and are not sent home or asked to remove them.

Boroff’s mother sued the school district for violating her son’s First Amendment right to free speech. The district court ruled in favor of the school district and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this decision. The U.S. Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the First Amendment forbids public school officials from banning a student from wearing a t-shirt with a message which is contrary to the religious beliefs held by the majority of the students. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling is in conflict with the rulings of the Third and Fourth Circuits on this same issue.

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Five – Same Sex Marriage Certiorari:________

A group that opposes gay marriage asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to take up a challenge to Nevada's ban on same-sex unions. The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage said the case crystalizes the fundamental question of whether the legal definition of marriage should be changed from a man and a woman to the union of any two people.

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund vowed last week to appeal to the 9th Circuit a federal judge's ruling in Reno that Nevada has a "legitimate state interest" in prohibiting the recognition of same-sex couples. "The fundamental marriage issue is whether ... the legal definition of marriage (should) be changed from the union of a man and a woman to the union of any two persons," the coalition filing read.

In its 127-page filing, the coalition called the Nevada case the clearest among several gay marriage cases the high court could consider because it hinges on that "fundamental" question and isn't encumbered by side issues. "This case has developed most comprehensively and thoroughly the societal interests justifying preservation of marriage's man-woman meaning," according to the document.

The Nevada lawsuit, Sevcik v. Sandoval, was filed in April on behalf of eight Nevada couples. It said a 2002 state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by denying same-sex couples in Nevada the same rights that other married couples enjoy. Lambda Legal attorney Tara Borelli has said letting domestic partners register their legal status but not marry brands them as "second-class citizens."

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Six – Affirmative Action Certiorari:________

When the Law School denied admission to Barbara Grutter, a female Michigan resident with a 3.8 GPA and 161 LSAT score,[1] she filed this suit, alleging that respondents had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; that she was rejected because the Law School uses race as a "predominant" factor, giving applicants belonging to certain minority groups a significantly greater chance of admission than students with similar credentials from disfavored racial groups; and that respondents had no compelling interest to justify that use of race. Lee Bollinger, the President of the University of Michigan, was the named defendant of this case.

The University argued that there was a compelling state interest to ensure a "critical mass" of students from minority groups, particularly African Americans and Hispanics, is realized within the student body. They argued that this aims to "ensure that these minority students do not feel isolated or like spokespersons for their race; to provide adequate opportunities for the type of interaction upon which the educational benefits of diversity depend; and to challenge all students to think critically and reexamine stereotypes."

The District Court found the Law School's use of race as an admissions factor unlawful. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke was binding precedent establishing diversity as a compelling state interest, and that the Law School’s use of race was narrowly tailored because race was merely a “potential ‘plus’ factor” and because the Law School’s program was virtually identical to the Harvard admissions program described approvingly by Justice Powell and appended to his Bakke opinion.

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

Case Seven- Immigration Reform? Certiorari:________

What to do about illegal immigrants is a matter of national policy and a problem stalled in deep disagreement.  The Senate has passed a broad reform bill that the president would have signed, but that measure died in the House of Representatives.  Twice — once in June 2012, and again in November 2014 — the president and his aides used what they believe were existing powers of the executive branch to draft programs that would postpone deportation of many of these immigrants, allowing them to remain at least for a few years, to get jobs, and to qualify for some public benefits.  

The 2012 program has been in operation, but the 2014 program — potentially affecting more than four million immigrants — has never gone into effect, because twenty-six states, led by Texas, sued the federal government in a federal trial court in Brownsville, Texas, and the 2014 program and some changes in the 2012 program have been blocked since last February.

The case has never gone to a full trial in the federal court in Brownsville, because the Obama administration appealed to the Supreme Court to challenge temporary orders of that Texas judge and of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit barring enforcement until a trial could be held.  Appeals are often allowed to test such orders, even if they are only temporary.

Questions raised by this case are; first, do state governments have a right to sue the federal government to challenge how it enforces — or fails to enforce — a federal law? Second, does the 2014 program and the expansion of the 2012 program go beyond the powers that Congress has given to the president and his aides under federal immigration laws — or, in other words, did President Obama need Congress’s new approval before going ahead with the new programs? And third, are the programs illegal under federal law because the general public was not given a chance to react to them before they were adopted?

What is the best argument for granting cert?

What is the best argument for denying cert?

Will the Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case?

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