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May 7, 2024
A little calm before the coming SCOTUS storms?
The Supreme Court has about 8 weeks to issue over 40 opinions in cases argued this Term if it is going to wrap its work before the start of July (as is its yearly custom). That means we could and should expect about five rulings per week, on average, though I expect we will get fewer than that number through May and perhaps a lot more the last few weeks of June. The Court has announces that this Thursday (May 9) will be an opinion day, and suspect we may be three or more opinions on that day.
As the legal world awaits big rulings from SCOTUS in a variety of legal arenas, here I always forcus on the Court's criminal justice work. In that space, I count nearly a dozen notable criminal cases still pending, some constitutional and some statutory. Though a number of these could be blockbusters, there are at least three constitutional cases that I am especially eager to see the Court's opinions. In these three cases, based in part on oral argument, I am already pretty sure which party is likely to prevail, but just how the opinions are written could still prove really interesting:
US v. Rahimi, No. 22-915 [Arg: 11.7.2023]
Erlinger v. US, No. 23-370 [Arg: 3.27.2024]
City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, No. 23-175 [Arg: 4.22.2024]
In all of these cases, dealing with the Second, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, respectively, just how the Court gets to its results could matter a whole lot. In addition, in all these cases, I am also interested in how particular Justices vote and what certain Justices might have to say along the way.
I strongly doubt we will get any of these rulings before the last few weeks of June (though I could imagine Erlinger coming a bit earlier). In the meantime, there are more than a few other criminal cases that could prove important and interesting. Indeed, that Culley v. Marshall, No. 22-585 (argued October 30) and Brown v. US, No. 22-6389 (argued November 27) have not yet been resolved has me wondering if intriguing opinions are in the works.
Any thoughts on these cases or others yu may be watching for, dear readers?
May 7, 2024 at 10:17 AM | Permalink
Comments
Two others that I am following closely are Smith v. Arizona and Diaz v. United States.
Smith is another Confrontation Clause case involving lab work and experts. Many states (mine included) allow "independent" experts to review the data generated by the "original" expert which can be quite useful as lab analysts and medical examiners move or otherwise become unavailable before trial. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court took this case when it was an unpublished opinion from an intermediate state appellate court shows that this issue is still a major concern for the Supreme Court (especially since the last case on this issue ended as a 4-1-4 split). The argument shows that the issue might not be a Confrontation Clause issue but rather a question of whether it is enough (as the rules of evidence suggest) that the data relied upon by the new expert is the type of evidence that experts in the field usually rely on without any showing of the reliability of the data.
Diaz involves the federal rule of evidence (followed by many states) barring an expert from giving an opinion whether a defendant has the necessary men rea. In this case, the expert testimony did not directly comment on mens rea and only created an inference that the defendant has the mens rea. The specific evidence in this case concerned how drug smuggling operations work, but the issue more frequently comes up in (and the rule arose from) diminished capacity and NGRI cases. As such, those of us who try cases in which there are mental health issues are looking to see how the Supreme Court interprets the rule for guidance on how to handle the mental health defenses.
Posted by: tmm | May 7, 2024 11:15:34 AM
On the three main cases mentioned,
Rahimi is going to show how workable the Bruen test is in practice. I am expecting that the Supreme Court will have a significant split of opinion on how to apply it which will probably result in the majority opinion refining the test somewhat.
Erlinger should prove interesting. The feds are not the only jurisdiction to require multiple priors for a recidivist enhancement and to require some time separation between the priors. Creating a right to a jury trial on that issue would cause a lot of problems (like how do you voir dire on it without prejudicing the defense).
Grant's Pass is going to come down to how the majority frames the case. If the majority focuses on the ordinance without considering how it applies in practice, there is no issue. If the majority assumes that there is no other place for the defendant to stay, then the ordinance appears to criminalize the status of being homeless which raises significant issues. My expectation is that this will be the split between the majority (assuming that potential defendants have other places where they can stay) and the dissent (assuming that there is not enough space in homeless shelters to house potential defendants).
Posted by: tmm | May 7, 2024 11:23:26 AM
I actually do believe that Smith should be a defense win. How could the quality of the lab work be questioned without the person who actually did that work in court? (Not that I expect such questioning to be fruitful most of the time but the route still needs to be available).
Posted by: Soronel Haetir | May 7, 2024 12:07:26 PM
Very astute comments, tmm, and I share your sense that Smith and Diaz could be two decisions with the broadest real-world echoes for criminal trial work.
Posted by: Doug B | May 7, 2024 12:54:18 PM
