Is Senator Gravel’s alleged arrangement with Beacon Press protected by the Speech and Debate Clause? No Opinion of the Court (White) The Speech and Debate clause of the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect members of Congress from any prosecution that disrupts the legislative process. Therefore, Gravel is justified in his claim that he is protected under it. The aides of a member of Congress are perceived by the Court to be “alter egos” of the member itself. Thus, the Court holds that, by the indistinguishable nature of the characteristics and duties of the members and their aides, the protection provided by the Speech and Debate Clause should be extended to the aides.
The Supreme Court stated that the statue did not meet the states goal of preventing breaches of peace because there was already a Texas statute which prohibited all breaches of the peace. The Supreme Court ruled that the Texas statute was inconsistent with the first amendment and they got rid of the statute. 7.) Difference between case law and statutory law? Focus on how case law and statutory laws are created, the
The Act was ruled unconstitutional because it requires federal estate tax to be paid by folks in same-sex marriages. Currently if the spouse in an opposite-sex marriage dies, no federal estate tax needs to be paid. The court also stated that the Act discriminates based on sexual orientation and violates equal protection under the Constitution. Republicans are contesting a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled the Defense of Marriage Act discriminates based on the denial of health benefits to same-sex spouses. In defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, Republicans claim the goals are to “maintain consistency in allocating federal benefits and encourage relationships “that most frequently result in the begetting and raising of children.”” NYTIMES.
Croson Defendant(s): City of Richmond Prior Proceedings: J.A. Croson sued the city in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia challenging the City of Richmond's ordinance under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which states that, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The District Court upheld the ordinance, however, when Croson appealed to the Fourth District Circuit Court, the court first affirmed the lower court's decision. Then when the decision was sent to the state's Supreme Court for further review, the Court was in favor of Croson. Facts of the case: In 1983, the City of Richmond, Virginia, with response to affirmative action ideals, created a local ordinance that required non-minority-owned contractors receiving city construction contracts to “set-aside” 30% of the subcontracting work for minority contractors. This was based on the fact that, for five years prior to the “set-aside” program, less than 1% of city construction contracts were awarded to minority contractors, despite there being a 50% minority population in Richmond, along with other factors.
They asked the court to declare Chicago law banning handguns unconstitutional. Chicago’s law does not expressly prohibit handgun ownership, but Justice Alito argued that it effectively does so. The law requires all owners of firearms to apply for a permit. Most handguns are excluded from the list of approvable firearms, therefore making it nearly impossible for any resident to own a handgun. Both the petitioners were ruled against by the United States District Court Judge and the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
These two court cases are the same by dealing with the Fourteenth Amendment. On the case of Loving & Virginia, they violated the Fourteenth Amendment by denying the freedom of choice to marry and not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations; the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state. Virginia violated the Equal Protection and the Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case, the Court affirmed that the core concept of common human dignity protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution precludes government intrusion into the deeply personal realms of consensual adult expressions of intimacy and one's choice of an intimate partner. Another similarity was that they both had to deal with marriages.
The Supreme Court ended up ruling that Phelps and his protesters were cleared and covered by the first amendment right (“Snyder vs. Phelps”). The Supreme Court’s decision was wrong because they should not be protected by the first amendment, the time, place and manner of their protest was inappropriate, Fred Phelps and Westboro violates Kant’s reversibility criterion. The first reason why Supreme Court was wrong is because Fred Phelps broke the first amendment. According to dictionary.com, the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from interfering with freedom of religion, speech, assembly, or petition. However United States Supreme Court has recognized that the right to speak is not equal at all times and in all
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first endeavor to address an extensive variety of biased practices since the US Supreme Court proclaimed the Reconstruction-period Civil Rights Act of 1875 illegal. The prior Act was focused around the Fourteenth Amendment in Section 1 and 5 which abridges that all persons merit level with assurance of the laws; and the Congress should have force to implement, by fitting enactment, the procurements of this article (Deveaux, 2013). Cases prior to this case found that the Congress fail to offer the power under the Fourteenth Amendment to implement social liberties enactment against business and people, and because of this circumstance, private organizations are permitted to prohibit African-American people from access to open offices and different organizations. The choice in Civil Rights Cases seemed to strip the Legislative limb of a method for tending to disparities. In 1964, Congress attempted an alternate strategy, composition hostile to separation enactment that connected to non-government substances by summoning its powers under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
The source of the exclusionary rule comes from the Supreme Court's 1914 verdict in the case of Weeks vs. U.S. The exclusionary rule basically says that illegally collected evidence will not be permitted in court. The rule was first used in the 1961 case of Mapp vs. Ohio. The exclusionary rule comes from the Fourth Amendment's safeguard against illegal searches and seizure of evidence or belongings. The exclusionary rule has typically been utilized to stop prosecutors and law enforcement from unlawfully collecting evidence.
The Defendants argued that a federal common-law cause of action to abate GHG emissions does not exist, that the claims raised political questions unfit for adjudication by the courts, that Congress has displaced any possible federal common-law cause of action seeking regulations of GHG emissions, and that Plaintiffs did not have standing to sue on account of global warming.15 Relying on Baker v. Carr, the district court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ suits as presenting non-justiciable political questions.16 In Baker, the United States Supreme Court described the test of whether a case is justiciable, in light of the separation of powers doctrine, as “whether the duty asserted can be judicially identified and its breach judicially determined, and whether protection for the right asserted can be judicially molded.”17 Courts recognized six factors as