Last year the Supreme Court of Hawaii, relying on the Congressional apology, ruled that a proposed land transfer on Maui could not proceed until the claims of Native Hawaiians were resolved. The ruling affected not just the parcel immediately at issue but a total of some 1.2 million acres, almost a third of all the land in the state.
The land was ceded to the United States after the monarchy’s overthrow and was returned to Hawaii in 1959 when it was admitted as a state. In 1993, Congress adopted a joint resolution apologizing for the overthrow. The resolution, in vague introductory language, noted that “the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims” to the land and that they had “deep feelings and attachment” to it.
The State Supreme Court relied on that and similar language to find that the Maui land in dispute could not be transferred to a state housing agency without a disclaimer preserving the potential claims of Native Hawaiians. The court said the Congressional resolution dictated that result.
Writing for a unanimous United States Supreme Court in the case, Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, No. 07-1372, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. rejected that interpretation of the resolution. Introductory “whereas” clauses cannot bear much weight and must be read narrowly, Justice Alito wrote.
And, he said, had the resolution meant what the state court believed it did, it would “raise grave constitutional concerns if it purported to ‘cloud’ Hawaii’s title to its sovereign lands more than three decades after the state’s admission to the Union.”
The Supreme Court ruled only on the impact of the resolution. It sent the case back to the State Supreme Court for consideration of property rights under state law and what a brief from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a state-created body representing Native Hawaiians, called “broader moral and political claims for compensation for the wrongs of the past.”
Jury Challenges
The court ruled unanimously that a judge’s mistake in failing to exclude a juror did not require automatic reversal of a conviction.
Michael Rivera, who murdered a 16-year-old after mistaking him for a member of a rival gang, challenged his conviction because the judge had denied his request to exclude a potential juror by using a peremptory strike — the kind that does not ordinarily require giving a reason.
The Illinois Supreme Court agreed that the trial judge had erred in seating the juror. But it said there was no evidence that the juror had been biased or the jury’s verdict tainted. It therefore upheld the conviction, a ruling affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Rivera v. Illinois, No. 07-9995.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that the Constitution does not require a state to provide defendants peremptory challenges at all. It follows, Justice Ginsburg wrote, that “if a defendant is tried before a qualified jury composed of individuals not challengeable for cause, the loss of a peremptory challenge due to a state court’s good-faith error is not a matter of federal constitutional concern.”