Supreme Court Review - Recent Landmark Cases, Updated 02182017

Supreme Court Review - Recent Landmark Cases

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Supreme Court Review - Recent Landmark Cases

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

U.S. Const. amend. I.

Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)

Citizens United, a non-profit group, produced a filmed called "Hillary: The Movie" where it was critical of Hillary Clinton and expressed doubt as to whether she would make a good president. The group sought an injunction against the FEC to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film.

BCRA applies a variety of restrictions to "electioneering communications." Section 203 of the BCRA prevents corporations or labor unions from funding such communication from their general treasuries.

Sections 201 and 311 required the disclosure of donors to such communication and a disclaimer when the communication is not authorized by the candidate it intends to support.

Citizens United argued that Section 203 violates the First Amendment on its face and when applied to The Movie and its related advertisements, and that Sections 201 and 203 are also unconstitutional as applied

Issues ? (1) Can the government prohibit independent political expenditures by corporations, and (2) can the government require such corporations to disclose those expenditures?

In a 5-4 vote, the court held that that government has no legitimate interest to prohibit independent political expenditures by corporations, but it can require disclosures of such expenditures.

The Supreme Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and portions of McConnell v. FEC. (In the prior cases, the Court had held that political speech may be banned based on the speaker's corporate identity.)

By a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines, the majority held that under the First Amendment The corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited.

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The majority maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.

The majority also held that the BCRA's disclosure requirements as applied to The Movie were constitutional, reasoning that disclosure is justified by a "governmental interest" in providing the "electorate with information" about election-related spending resources.

McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. ___ (2014) In 2002, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), which established two sets of limits to campaign contributions. The base limit placed restrictions on how much money a contributor--defined broadly as individuals, partnerships, and other organizations--may give to specified categories of recipients. The aggregate limit restricted how much money an individual may donate in a two-year election cycle. The limits were periodically recalibrated to factor in inflation.

Shaun McCutcheon is an Alabama resident who is eligible to vote. In the 2011-2012 election cycle, he donated to the Republican National Committee, other Republican committees, as well as individual candidates. He wished to donate more in amounts that would be permissible under the base limit but would violate the aggregate limit.

McCutcheon and the other plaintiffs sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing that the aggregate limit violated the First Amendment by failing to serve a "cognizable government interest" and being prohibitively low.

The district court held that the aggregate limit served government interests by preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption and was set at a reasonable limit.

Is the two-year aggregate campaign contribution limit constitutional under the First Amendment?

Decision: 5 votes for McCutcheon, 4 vote(s) against

No. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion for the four-justice plurality. The plurality held that the aggregate limit did little to address the concerns that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was meant to address and at the same time limited participation in the democratic process. Because the aggregate limit fails to meet the stated objective of preventing corruption, it does not survive the "rigorous" standard of review laid out by previous precedent dealing with campaign contributions from a First Amendment perspective and is therefore unconstitutional. The aggregate limit also prevents a donor from contributing beyond a specific amount to more than a certain number of candidates, which may force him to choose which interests he can seek to advance in a given election. The plurality held that the collective interest in combating corruption can only be pursued as long as it does not unnecessarily curtail an individual's freedom of speech, and in this case the aggregate limit is not sufficiently closely tailored to accomplish this goal. The plurality also noted that there are many

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other means by which the government may fight election corruption without setting an aggregate limit on campaign contributions.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that the Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo, a previous case dealing with limits on campaign contributions, should be overruled because it denigrates the core values of the First Amendment. Because the reasoning in Buckley v. Valeo could not sufficiently justify using a standard lower than strict scrutiny to examine limits on campaign contributions, Justice Thomas wrote that Buckley should be overruled and the BCRA should be subject to strict scrutiny.

In his dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the plurality's opinion misconstrues the nature of competing constitutional issues and destroys campaign finance laws, which causes great harm to the democratic process. Justice Breyer argued that the plurality's opinion was based on a definition of corruption that is too narrow to be effective. He went on to state the reasoning that the aggregate limit is faulty is because there is no substantial mismatch between Congress' goal of combating corruption and the means established to achieve it. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan joined in the dissent.

Second Amendment

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

U.S. Const. amend. II.

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)

5-4 decision. Scalia wrote the majority opinion, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito.

According to District of Columbia Ordinance,

? it was a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, ? the registration of handguns was prohibited, ? no person could carry a handgun without a license (the chief of police could issue

licenses for 1?year periods), ? residents had to keep their lawfully owned firearms, such as registered long guns,

"unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device" unless they were located in a place of business or are being used for lawful recreational activities.

See D.C.Code ?? 7?2501.01(12), 7?2502.01(a), 7?2502.02(a)(4), 7?2507.02.1 (2001).

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Constitutional interpretation ? "we are guided by the principle that `[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.'"

Possible interpretations of 2nd Amendment: ? it protects only the right to possess and carry a firearm in connection with militia

service. ? it protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a

militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

The Second Amendment is divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause.

Prefatory Clause: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ...."

Operative Clause: ".... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, `A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed.'" Id. at 577.

"We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people's arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents."

The handgun ban and the trigger lock requirement operates as a prohibition on an entire class of arm, and is unconstitutional under any standard of scrutiny

FOURTH AMENDMENT

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. Const. amend. IV.

Maryland v. King, 133 S.Ct. 1958 (2013)

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