Texas Gerrymandering, Consular Notice, and Prison Magazine Cases Decided: Insanity Defense and Gitmo Coming Tomorrow
In a particularly interesting case at the intersection of criminal law and international law, the Supreme Court decided today that violations of a part of the Vienna Convention do not result in suppression of evidence. The majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts in Sanchez-Llammas v. Oregon is here.
Second, in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, a.k.a. the Tom DeLay Texas gerrymandering case, the Court proved the old adage that complex voting rights cases lead to very long opinions; here, a total of 132 pages of fun. The end result seems to be, in a nutshell: Still no recognizable constitutional limitations on partisan gerrymadering, but some relief for the petitioners under the Voting Rights Act. For analysis, I’m guessing that Rick Hasen will have something up soon.
Finally, in Beard v. Banks, the Court concldued that based on the record before it, a Pennsylvania prison policy denying especially dangerous inmates access to newspapers and magazines did not violate the First Amendment. Breyer wrote the plurality opinion joined by Roberts, Kennedy, and Souter; Justices Scalia and Thomas concurred.
Howard is saying that Hamdan and Clark v. Arizona are set to finish up the Term tomorrow; SCOTUSblog has Tom Goldstein’s predictions based on assignment burdens here.
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