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Moncrieffe
v. Holder (2012) is a case concerning an “aggravated Felony”. Angel Arias and Pamela Karla describe the
question presented in this case as “whether the a conviction under a state law
that includes but is not limited to possession of a small amount of marijuana …
would be a felony under federal law”.
Chaidez
v. U.S. (2012), is a case in which Ms. Chaidez, a lawful permanent resident
in U.S. who played a minor rule in a scheme involving insurance fraud. The
question raised in this case is whether the protections against
constitutionally deficient assistance of counsel applied in the Supreme Court’s
Padilla v. Kentucky ruling apply
retroactively.
Bailey
v. U.S. (2012), this case, brought by Chunon L. Bailey concerning his Fourth
Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, raises the question of
whether police officer may detain individual incident to the execution of a
search warrant when the individual has left the immediate vicinity of the premises
before the warrant is executed.
Florida
v. Jardines (2012) is an
interesting as well as an important legal case. The constitutional question
raises in this case is whether a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment
by taking a dog that had been trained to smell drugs to the door of a house.
Johnson
v. Williams (2012, this case raises a question of whether removal of the trial
court’s juror violated her Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.
American Bar Association emphasizes
that there are two important constitution questions in Tibbals v. Carter (2012). First is the question of whether capital
prisoners possess a “right to competence” in federal habeas proceedings under Rees v. Veyton, 384 U.S. 312 (1966). And
also the question of whether a federal district court can order an indefinite
stay of a federal habeas proceeding under Rees.
Ryan
v. Gonzales (2012) basically has a similar, if not the same, issue with Tibbals v. Carter (2012). The case
raises a constitutional question of whether death row inmates who have been
found incompetent are entitled to a stay of their federal habeas corpus
proceedings.
Kirtsaeng
v. John Wiley & Sons (2012), is a case on copyright infringement.. The
legal question raises from this case is whether copyrighted works made and
purchased abroad then be bought and sold within the U.S. without the copyright
owner’s permission is constitutional.
Vance
v. Ball State University (2012), the case, involves a former substitute
server at the Ball State University’s Dining Services. This case, later make
its way to the Supreme Court, raises a question of whether the “supervisor”
liability rule established by Faragher v.
City of Boca Raton and Burlington
Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth applies to harassment by those whom the
employer vests with authority to direct and oversee their victim’s daily work.
Dorsey
v. U.S. and Hill v. U.S. (2012) was a case about the retroactivity of Fair
Sentencing Act’s new enactment. In this case, the Supreme Court Justices
confronted the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision in which held that
the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) does not apply when the underlying criminal
conduct occurred before enactment, even if the sentencing occurred after
enactment.
In Dept. of
Health and Human Services v. Florida (2012)¸ the issue was mainly about
health care law. In this case, the Supreme Court Justices confronted the Eight
Court of Appeal’s decision in which held that the individual mandate in health
care in unconstitutional. However, the court also held that even if the
individual mandate was unconstitutional, the rest of the health care law could
still go into effect, a legal concept known as “severability.”
Florence
v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Burlington (2012) was a case concerning the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights. In this case, the Supreme Court confronted the Third Circuit
Court of Appeal’s holding in which held that jail’s interest in safety and
security outweighed the privacy interests of detainees – even those accused of
minor crimes.
Douglas
v. Independent Living Center (2012), in
this case Supreme Court Justices confronted the Ninth Circuit’s holding in
which held that Independent Living had shown that it was likely to succeed on
its Supremacy Clause claim, and that Assembly Bill 5 was likely to harm access
to health care (Law Cornell 2).
In U.S. v. Jones (2012), the Supreme Court confronted the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit’s holding in which overturned defendant’s
conviction, holding that the police action was a search because it violated
defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy (Wikipedia).
U.S.
v. Alvarez (2012), in this case the
Supreme Court Justices confronted the Ninth Circuit decision which held that
the Stolen Valor Act was unconstitutional (Wikipedia).
FCC
v. Fox Television (2012), this case
was mainly about the obscene language that used by Fox presenter on its
program. The Supreme Court confronted the Second Circuit holding that Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) cannot punish broadcast station for such
incidents.
Messerschmidt
v. Millender (2012) was a case in which
involved a 73 old woman, Ms. Millender, whose home was searched by officers of
the Los Angele County Sheriff’s. The Supreme Court was confronted the Ninth
Circuit holding that the search warrant was invalid under the Fourth Amendment
because it was over broaden (Borger 1).
Magner
v. Gallagher (2012, in this case,
the Supreme Court Justices was confronted the Eighth Circuit decision held that
Gallagher stated a valid Fair Housing Act (FHA) claim under the disparate
impact theory (Law Cornell University).
In National
Federation of Independent Business, et. al. v. Sebelius, The Supreme Court
held that individual mandate was found constitutional, the Medicaid expansion
penalties, however, on states was rule unconstitutional. The ACA basically
penalizes any state, which does not participate in the expansion program by
cutting their Medicaid funding. Chief Justice Robert found, through equally
strained legal logic, that allowing Congress to do this would be to allow the
federal government to twist state arms in a rather draconian manner (Davis 1).
Chief Justice Roberts graduated from
Harvard Law School. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration and the
George H. W. Bush Administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of
the White House Counsel, before spending 14 years in private law practice.
One began to see Chief Justice
Roberts as an “activist” largely after he single-handedly upheld the Obama’s
administration Healthcare Plan. However, as the Chief Justice himself said in,
referring to Brown v. Board, the
decision overturning school segregation, “I don’t think that constitutes
judicial activism because obviously if the decision is wrong, it should be
overruled. That is not activism. That’s applying the law correctly.”
The Chief Justice’s opinion to
uphold the Obama’s administration healthcare plan was considered historical.
This was not only because the 5-4 opinion was, as described by Wikipedia, a
landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress’s power
to enact most provisions of the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act
(ACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), but also
upheld a requirement for most Americans to have health insurance by 2014.
In the recent discussion of the
Chief Justice’s opinion in this case, a controversial issue has been whether
the Chief Justice has done the right thing. Some criticized his opinion in
upholding Obama’s administration healthcare plan.. My own view is that the
opinion made by Chief Justice’s was right. Though I concede that he tend to be
more conservative in most of his opinion, I still maintain that some changes
need to be done. Although some might object that the Obama’s healthcare plan
was not the problem solver, I would reply that it certainly will not fix
everything that is wrong with the system, but it will move the nation in the
right direction.
The Supreme Court held, in Citizens United v. Federal Elections
Commission (2010), as explained by
Wikipedia, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the
government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations
and unions.
In response to the
Supreme Court’s ruling, President Obama criticized the ruling largely because
he believe that this ruling strikes at the democracy itself, as President Obama
himself says “to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporation
– to spend without limit in our election”.
Marziani explains that
“Super PACs” is the most prominent post-Citizens
United development. Regular PACs have been around for a long time, but
could only accept contributions up to $5.000 from human being. Super PACs,
however, are mutant PACs that can raise, and then spend, unlimited amount of
money from corporations, unions, and individuals.
I would argue that the
Supreme Court’s decision in overturning at least twenty years of its own
precedent portrayed the Court’s ignorance of the truth. The Supreme Court
should have realized that by annihilating the statutes of twenty-two states
that previously prohibited elections spending from corporate general-treasury
funds would hurt the democracy itself.
Works Cited
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