Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company The New
York Times
October 7, 2002, Monday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column
5; National Desk
LENGTH: 1322
words
HEADLINE:Crucial Issues
Wait in Wings For the Justices
BYLINE: By
LINDA GREENHOUSE
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6
BODY: The Supreme
Court that opens its new term on Monday is in many respects a court in
waiting.
The court has already accepted 45 cases for
decision -- more than half the number of cases it will decide during the entire
nine-month term, and enough to fill the justices' argument calendar into
February. These cases are likely to produce important decisions on criminal law,
immigration, federalism, copyright law, hate speech and health care, among other
topics.
But waiting in the wings is an even more
important battery of cases. Opponents of affirmative action have asked the court
to hear their challenge to the University of Michigan's consideration of race in
admission to its law school and undergraduate program.
A broadly based First Amendment challenge to the advertising and
contribution limits in the new campaign finance law, to be heard in early
December before a special three-judge federal court, is on an unusually fast
track and could reach the Supreme Court's docket early in 2003. Cases growing
out of the war on terrorism, now making their way through the lower courts,
could give the justices a chance to decide important questions on the limits of
government power -- to conduct secret deportation proceedings, in one case, and
to hold American citizens without charges or access to a lawyer or judge, in the
cases of Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, designated as "enemy combatants."
Looming over the entire term, William H. Rehnquist's 17th
as chief justice, is another question: how long the nine members of an unusually
stable court, about to take the bench for their ninth collective First Monday in
October, will continue to serve together. Not since the interval from 1811 to
1823 has the Supreme Court gone so long without turnover. Any retirement
announcement next spring or summer would be a galvanizing event that could
dominate the domestic political calendar for months.
Here is a look at some of the more important cases on the new term's
docket.
CRIMINAL LAW -- On Nov. 5, the court will
examine California's three-strikes law, the most harsh in the country, and
decide whether the law's mandatory 25-years-to-life sentences amount to cruel
and unusual punishment when the third strike is a minor property offense. In
Lockyer v. Andrade, No. 01-1127, the defendant stole videotapes worth $153.54
from two Kmarts. In Ewing v. California, No. 01-6978, the defendant stole three
golf clubs from a pro shop.
On Nov. 13, the court will
hear two challenges to Megan's Laws, under which all 50 states publicize the
whereabouts of convicted sex offenders after their release from prison. In a
case from Alaska, Smith v. Doe, No. 01-729, the question is whether the state's
1994 law operates as an unconstitutional ex post facto law when applied to those
whose crimes preceded its enactment. In Connecticut Department of Public Safety
v. Doe, No. 01-1231, the issue is whether listing all offenders in a registry
violates the due process guarantee when the list makes no distinction among
those who are more or less likely to commit new offenses.
United States v. Recio, No. 01-1184 (Nov. 12), is a government appeal
on a question of conspiracy law that takes on added importance in the current
climate. The question is whether a conspiracy should be deemed to have ended
when the government frustrates its objective -- by intercepting a shipment of
narcotics, for example, as in this case. The government's view is that
participants can still be prosecuted in a conspiracy even if by the time of
their arrest, the conspiracy could not have been carried out.
Chavez v. Martinez, No. 01-1444, (no argument date yet) raises another
timely question: whether police interrogation can be unduly coercive, under the
Fifth Amendment's prohibition against compelled self-incrimination, when the
resulting statements are never introduced in court.
A
case touching on federal gun control policy is United States v. Bean, No. 01-704
(Oct. 16). The question is whether federal judges have jurisdiction to lift the
"firearms disability" that makes it unlawful for someone convicted of a felony
to own or carry a gun.
A 16-year-old lawsuit over
blockades and other obstructive tactics used by protesters at abortion clinics
raises the question of whether the federal laws against racketeering and
extortion can be invoked to stop and punish disruptive protests. The National
Organization for Women brought the suit on behalf of clinics in 1986 and
survived an earlier Supreme Court challenge. The new case is Scheidler v.
N.O.W., No. 01-1118 (no date).
COPYRIGHT -- The
most important intellectual property case in years challenges the 1998 law that
extended the terms of new and existing copyrights by 20 years, to 95 years for
corporations and the author's life plus 70 years for individuals. The plaintiffs
in Eldred v. Ashcroft, No. 01-608 (Oct. 9), are advocates for the "public
domain" who argue that the extension subverted the Constitution's authorization
of a copyright monopoly for "limited times."
HATE
SPEECH -- Virginia is defending its 50-year-old law that makes it a crime to
burn a cross "with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons."
The Virginia Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional on the ground that
under the First Amendment, the government may make intimidation a crime but not
by singling out the "distinctive message" of a burning cross. The case, Virginia
v. Black, No. 01-1107 (no date), gives the court its first chance in 10 years to
consider regulation of hate speech.
FEDERALISM --
The court's battle over the balance between state and federal powers continues
with a case that challenges Congress's authority to require states to give their
employees unpaid leave to deal with family medical emergencies. In Nevada
Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, No. 01-1368 (no date), Nevada argues
that Congress exceeded its authority under the 14th Amendment when it tried to
open the states to suits by their employees under this provision of the Family
and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The case has wider implications for civil rights
legislation.
IMMIGRATION -- In Demore v. Kim, No.
01-1491 (no date), the court will decide the constitutionality of the mandatory
detention provision of a 1996 immigration law. The law requires immigrants who
are facing deportation for any of a long list of offenses to be held without a
chance for release on bond even if they present no risk of flight. Three federal
appeals courts have rejected the government's defense of the law.
PUNITIVE DAMAGES -- Businesses are paying close
attention to an appeal by the State Farm insurance company from a decision of
the Utah Supreme Court that upheld a $145 million punitive damages award, 145
times the compensatory damages awarded to the plaintiffs on their claim that the
company acted in bad faith. Besides challenging the award as disproportionate,
State Farm v. Campbell, No. 01-1289 (no date), also questions the state court's
consideration of out-of-state evidence involving other State Farm customers who
were not before the court.
HEALTH CARE -- For the
second straight term, the court will review a state's effort to regulate aspects
of managed care. Kentucky Association of Health Plans v. Miller, No. 00-1471 (no
date) is a challenge to Kentucky's "any willing provider" law under which any
qualified doctor has the right to become a participating provider in a health
plan. Half the states have such laws, and the question is whether they are
preempted by federal law.
In Pharmaceutical Research
and Manufacturers of America v. Concannon, No. 01-188 (no date), the court will
hear the drug industry's challenge to a Maine law that tries to use the federal
Medicaid law as leverage to force drug manufacturers and wholesalers to sell to
their products in the state at discounted prices.
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: William H. Rehnquist, left, chief justice of the
United States, greeted Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington yesterday
after the celebration of an annual Mass for top government officials in
Washington. (Associated Press)(pg. A14)
