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44 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Florida v. Bostick
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Black man asked to be searched on a bus. He says yes. Later says he wasn't given Miranda Rights. Cops say they gave him the option to deny the search, but where could he go? Court says the search and seizure weren't unreasonable.
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Technology Searches
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You can fly a helicopter over a house, and if you suspect drug dealing, you can get a warrant.
There's also thermal imaging outside houses, but this has been ruled illegal. |
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Number of criminals due to the war on drugs
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War on drugs started by Nixon in 1972.
Most recently, Obama proposed $26 billion to fund his war on drugs. USA has 5% of world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. 41,000 people in jail for drugs in 1980, now over half a million people in jail for it. Most of these arrests are for weed. In 2007, 7 million people were in jail/probation/parole for weed. |
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Governor Rockefeller
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Liberal Republican.
Governor of New York In 1973 pushed for really tough drug laws. Believed current rehab programs didn't work and decided along with other governors that jail was a better deterrent. |
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Three Strike System
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Set up in California in early 1980's.
Three felonies = Jail for life |
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CRACK! YAY!
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Newsweek did a story on this new drug, where it was believed to be more addictive and harmful than cocaine.
5 grams of crack = 5 years in jail, while 500 grams of cocaine also = 5 years in jail. Crack was the drug of choice among blacks. |
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Bush's Strategy in Election 2000
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Hold the lead and run out the clock.
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Gore's Strategy in Election 2000
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Get a mechanical recount one way or another and find the votes needed to win.
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Florida Law about Elections
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Automatic machine recount if election is close.
Loser can challenge in case there was a miscount. |
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The Election of 2000 in Florida
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Gore thought there was a miscount in the four most democratic counties.
The Secretary of State of Florida will decide who wins the state, and that's Kathleen Harris - who was also one of the Bush Campaign's co-chairs. If the electoral college can't do it, the House of Reps will, and that's a sure thing for Bush. How do we determine hanging chads? Florida Constitution tells us to determine the intent of the voter, but what if chad is hanging on by 3/4 corners? Florida SC delayed certification of vote until November 26. Gave no standards whatsoever to the local officials on how they should determine the intent of the voter. Shortly after 5PM November 26, Harris names Bush the winner. This was good timing since the SC had set up time for arguments of Harris v. Palm Beach County December 1. By the time of oral argument, Bush was certified president, so there was nothing the SC could do - Powe thought this was very silly. SC demands Florida SC to explain their reasoning, but instead they order a recount on DECEMBER 8! They drain certification of all it's meaning - take away Harris' power. The Florida SC couldn't tell people how to determine the intent because then they'd be changing the law after the election which wasn't allowed under federal law. |
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Stay in the Election of 2000
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Bush went to SC and asked them to stay the decision for the recount. They do.
A stay requires: A likelihood that the person asking for the stay will prevail when the decision is decided; The stay is necessary to prevent an irreparable injury to the party requesting it. |
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Bush v. Gore Decision
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Relies on Warren court precedents to find an equal protection violation in the recount - though they excluded equal protection.
Also said the legislature had the exclusive right to determine how electors are determined. Stevens in dissent said the people lost faith in the judge to protect the law. |
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Bush Appointments
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O'Connor - Roberts wasn't a woman, so they tried Marine Mahoney (reps didn't like her stand on affirmative action), then Harriet Meyers (she didn't know Constitutional law), then when they didn't work out they went with Alito. Solid conservative vote along with Scalia and Thomas.
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US v. Miller
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For the first 150 years there was no second amendment legislation.
Congress could ban sawed off shotguns because they’re not militia weapons Essentially tied gun ownership to militias only. |
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DC v. Heller
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Involved a DC law that prohibited the ownership of handguns.
Legalized ownership of individualized weapons. Scalia's dissent seemed to say that almost all weapons could be prohibited outside military. |
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McDonald v. Chicago
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Applied Heller to the states.
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Evolution of the NRA
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Originally stood for two things: hunting and gun safety.
1977 - Wayne LaPierre leads a coup and the gun rights NRA is born. They created a new HQ across the Potomac and were now interested in people having guns and protecting gun manufacturers. They created a parallel universe of Constitutional rights where any restriction on any gun is unConstitutional. |
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Buckley v. Valeo
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Set modern parameters of funding for campaigns.
Said donations to candidates could be limited to prevent corruption. Court also ruled that Congress couldn't regulate the amount a candidate could spend. Held that disclosure was Constitutional |
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Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce
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The Michigan Campaign Finance Act, which prohibited corporations from using treasury money to support or oppose candidates in elections, did not violate the First or the Fourteenth Amendment.
Used important language: - The resources of a corp. are not indicative of popular support for its opinions. - A state can avoid the detriments of the corruptions of wealth that are accumulated by companies. - The court seemed concern about companies' abilities to distort views. |
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McConnell v. Federal Election Committee
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Holding was not all political speech is protected by the First Amendment from government infringement.
Upheld the McCain-Feingold Bill which limited the way money could be spent on campaigns. |
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McCain-Feingold Act
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1) A ban on unrestricted ("soft money") donations made directly to political parties (often by corporations, unions, or wealthy individuals) and on the solicitation of those donations by elected officials.
2) Limits on the advertising that unions, corporations, and non-profit organizations can engage in up to 60 days prior to an election. 3) Restrictions on political parties' use of their funds for advertising on behalf of candidates (in the form of "issue ads" or "coordinated expenditures"). 4) Made a distinction between media corporations and regular corporations. |
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Seven Points in McConnell v. FEC
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Written by Stevens.
1. Money doesn’t equal political speech 2. Corporations are not we the people 3. There’s no discrimination among viewpoints – we’re not trying to discriminate between dems and reps 4. Elections are different – an election is a much more regulated environment. There are some places where less speech is appropriate. 5. The legislature knows best – points to the fact that there were 100,000 pages of record and testimony about reform, so congress studied the matter and we owe them deference 6. Objected to a free-floating first amendment – seems to mean no corporations 7. The appearance of corruption is a compelling state interest – it is sufficient that there be no appearance of corruption |
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Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee
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Anthony Kennedy writes the opinion - he's more suspect to support first amendment claim than anyone else.
Now Alito has replaced O'Connor. Kennedy makes four points: 1) He uses the first amendment and applies the term banned 29 times. Congress cannot ban speech. 2) A corporation is the same as a media corporation; any law that bans one must ban the other. - If the act covers the press, that’s clearly unconstitutional, but if we accept the press, then we’re making a distinction that isn’t possible. 3) He joins the issue back with Stevens: what's in the record of the 100,000 pages? There's no evidence of corruption. 4) The Austin v. Chamber of Commerce decision is overruled. The job of the government is not to prevent distortion of a view. |
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Problems with Austin v. MCC
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How does the court know there’s little support for the companies ideals? Shouldn’t elections show that?
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Montana Campaign Finance Law
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The law limited corporate independent expenditures. Based on Montana's history, this was needed.
The SC struck it down 5-4 citing Citizens United. Because Citizens said there was no corruption at federal level, there couldn't be at the state level either. |
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Arizona Free Enterprise Clubs v. Bennett
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Arizona finance law says that after the primaries a candidate will be matched in his funding by the state to his privately-funded opponent.
SC strikes down this law. 1. This is weird because this would have given the first amendment remedy – let’s have more speech 2. The SC held that it imposed a penalty on someone for using their first amendment rights 3. The more a candidate spends, the more he’s penalized by the state 4.If you know your speech may be rebutted by other speech, you’ll be chilled in your speech if you know the other party has a chance to respond – so this leads to less speech. 5. The aim of this law was to level the playing field – and this has been proven not to be the job of the government. They see this law as providing for more speech. |
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Pedia
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Wanted to explode a dirty bomb in Chicago – Ashcroft claimed this.
This made him an enemy combatant even if he was a citizen They put him in isolation in a navy brig. He began to lose his mind being in solitary confinement. The admin then found out he didn’t plan on exploding a dirty bomb So then they decided he was going to do something with gas in apartment buildings After a while they realized he wouldn’t do that either, and he became a problem because he was guilty of something and no one knew what Eventually he was convicted of attempting to try to kill people overseas It was stunning that the admin could arrest someone and hold him possibly forever without anyone knowing |
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Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
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A Guantanamo prisoner was applying for writ.
The court came up 8-Thomas. O'Connor wrote the principal opinion and said the military could authorize detention, but not forever. She said detainees had to have some way to show they were being wrongly detained. Souter and Ginsberg wrote that Congress should be involved. Stevens and Scalia wrote the government has two choices: try them as criminals or suspend writ of habeus corpus (you can only do that during a time of war). Because of this case, the administration created combat status review tribunals which looked at why they were detained and whether it was lawful. |
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Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
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He was Osama's chauffeur.
Holding was that the military commission to try Plaintiff is illegal and lacking the protections required under the Geneva Conventions and United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. Stevens said the uniform code of military justice applies to combatants. His opinion had the statement that the executive is bound by the rule of law, which made it sound like the Bush admin was acting like they weren't bound by law. Basically the SC said the military tribunals had not been approved by Congress. |
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Military Commissions Act
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After Hamdan, the Bush admin asked Congress to pass this, which allowed them to use any evidence from torture up until the end of 2005 and to eliminate judicial review except for single verdict appeal which would separate true from not fact.
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Algerian Terrorist Case
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Held that foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention in United States courts.
Said that the administration's stand that tribunals were a substitute for writ was unconstitutional. |
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After Algerian Terrorist Case
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We tried to deport uyghur prisoners to Palao, but they know China will buy them back and kill them, so they don't want to go.
Over half of the detainees in Guantanamo are set to be released, but refuse to go because they know they will be killed in their home countries. |
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Worries about trying terrorists in federal courts
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Guilty will go free - probably won't happen since Americans don't like psychos.
We may not be able to use the evidence we have on them if we got it through torture. A trial before a federal judge and jury will turn into a spectacle, and a trial on American soil is more dignified than they deserve. |
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With two exceptions, Obama is Bush
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He wanted to close Guantanamo.
He uses A FREAKING TON OF DRONES. - He used one to kill an American in Yemen! - Admin has never given the legal reasoning behind so much drone usage up in OUR GRILL - How much drone usage should we have? - Are we making terr'ists wit' our droning? |
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The Four SC Pillars for Death Penalty
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Guidance – guide jury on how to decide for DP; they can’t just kill who they want, there have to be guidelines
Individualization – want jury to respond to mitigating evidence Proportionality – the only thing proportional to death penalty is murder – find crimes and people that weren’t eligible for death (retards, kids, rape) Heightened Reliability 1. Catch-all 2. Basically the idea that we want a system where when someone gets death penalty, they’re more likely to be guilty than someone found guilty that doesn’t get DP |
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Example of Guidance for Death Penalty
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Most states just made it where you had to commit murder and one other thing to deserve death.
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Example of Individualization for Death Penalty
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Texas statute after Fuhrman asked two questions: was it deliberate, and will he be a danger in the future?
The SC responded and said defendants needed a chance to ask for mercy. |
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Example of Proportionality for Death Penalty
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Coker v. Georgia - said no rape deserved death.
1989 - Is death excessive for juveniles and retarded? The SC said there were too many states practicing this for it to be wrong, basically. |
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Example of Heightened Reliability for Death Penalty
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In Florida there was a practice of some sealed records being seen by prosecution and not defense. - SC said this isn't right.
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McCleskey v. Kemp
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Study showed that minorities were less likely to get the death penalty because whites killed whites and minorities kill minorities and only white deaths get death penalty.
The SC said there's no eighth amendment basis - if there was it would derail the justice system (we'd have to get rid of all punishment since it might be biased). |
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History of Death Penalty after Fuhrman
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Death sentences reached their all time high in 1995 when we killed over 300 people. There’s a sense of defeat by people, and they’re resigned to their fate, it seems. There’s a perception that there’s a lot more scrutiny by the courts over the DP even though there wasn’t really.
Crime rates then start going down, and we also start to see 13 people on Illinois’ death row who are actually innocent. Sent a shockwave through the political system, where there was evidence that the system wasn’t nearly as error proof as people had hoped. Also there’s the invention of life without possibility of parole. There were no death penalty lawyers back in Fuhrman’s day, either. It’s typical now to have 7-9 year separation between sentencing and death to make sure everything’s right. Today, it’s more expensive to keep someone on death row than just put them in jail. The court began to measure the Constitutionality of the death penalty against the regulatory measures they’d prescribed. So over the years and years of regulation, several of the justices who were on board with regulatory project began to think that it was impossible to fairly regulate it. |
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Executing the Mentally Disabled
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2002 - Since 1989 15 states had forbid this so now the SC forbid it.
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Executing Juveniles
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2005 - Went from 13 states forbidding it to 18.
Kennedy wrote an opinion showed the scientific evidence that showed juveniles less likely to think through their actions The US was alone in not killing minors. |
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Where is Death Penalty now?
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Executions went from 93 to 44 or 45 in the last couple
of years. Death penalty is in the pattern of restriction or repeal. In the last six years six states have taken down their DP statutes Many opponents are saying we can use the funds we save from not having a death penalty towards solving unsolved crimes. |
