Justices rule for small Arizona church in sign-law dispute
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled last Thursday for an Arizona church in a dispute over a town's sign law in a decision that three justices said could threaten municipal sign regulations across the country.
The court unanimously agreed to strike down a law in Gilbert that set tougher rules for signs that direct people to Sunday church services than for signs for political candidates and real estate agents.
But the justices divided over why the law violated the rights of the Good News Community Church.
Gilbert's attorney said the ruling will make it exceptionally hard for cities across the nation to regulate signs, and it will be a special problem for Arizona because of a state law specifically allowing political signs.
"All municipalities throughout the country and especially in Arizona are going to have to review this matter," said Gilbert Town Attorney Michael Hamblin. "Arguably, the contention is if you allow political signs in the right of way for these periods of time then you can't make distinctions for other types of signs."
But the attorney for the church, David Cortman of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, said the fears of cities were overblown.
"I think it's an overstatement - I don't think the sky is falling, nor will it," Cortman said. "Towns and municipalities have many different ways to regulate signs in a constitutional fashion."
The church complained that the law forced the church to put up smaller signs than those for political candidates, real estate agents and others. The church's signs also could be in place for short periods of time.
Lower federal courts upheld the town's sign ordinance, saying the distinction it drew between different kinds of temporary signs was not based on what a sign said.
Justice Clarence Thomas rejected that argument in his majority opinion for six of the nine justices. Thomas said political signs are "given more favorable treatment than messages announcing an assembly of like-minded individuals. That is a paradigmatic example of content-based discrimination."
Under the rigorous review the court gives to laws that treat speakers differently because of content, the law must fall, Thomas said.
Justice Elena Kagan said she fears that all sign ordinances now will have to face the same strict review and many "are now in jeopardy" because of last Thursday's decision.
There was a narrower way to decide the case in the church's favor, Kagan said. The town's defense of its sign ordinance was marked by the "absence of any sensible basis" for distinguishing between signs and did not pass "even the laugh test," she said.
Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Kagan's opinion.
"I think Justice Kagan got it right," said Charles Thompson, executive director and general counsel for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. "It's likely to make the courts a super sign board. We're going to be seeing the federal courts litigating questions over whether a sign falls within the narrow exception."
Thomas said the decision would not prevent cities and towns from regulating signs to take account of safety and aesthetic concerns.
The Good News Community Church is led by Pastor Clyde Reed and serves roughly 30 adults and up to 10 children, but lacks its own building. The church and Reed sued Gilbert for treating religious groups more severely than others, alleging violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedoms.
The sign ordinance struck down last Thursday allowed directional signs, like the ones put up by the church inviting people to Sunday worship, to be no larger than 6 square feet. They had to be placed in public areas no more than 12 hours before an event and removed within an hour of its end.
Signs for political candidates, by contrast, can be up to 32 square feet and stay in place for several months.
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Associated Press reporter Bob Christie contributed from Phoenix
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Court grants reprieve to death-row inmate
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has barred Louisiana from executing a convicted killer, saying his mental disability precludes capital punishment.
The ruling comes in a 5-4 decision last Thursday.
Kevan Brumfield was convicted in the shooting death of off-duty Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers in 1993.
A federal judge ruled that Brumfield was mentally disabled and therefore was protected from execution under a Supreme Court decision in 2002.
But the federal appeals court in New Orleans reversed the judge's ruling.
Brumfield and Henri Broadway of Baton Rouge were convicted and sentenced to death for ambushing Smothers on Jan. 7, 1993 as she was driving a grocery store manager to make a bank deposit.
The mother of six children, including Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame football player Warrick Dunn, the 36-year-old Smothers was working as an off-duty security officer at the time of the incident.
Dunn was an 18-year-old senior at Baton Rouge's Catholic High, where he was a standout player, when his mother was killed. He went on to play at Florida State and then for 12 years in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons.
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Conviction in death penalty case reinstated
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court last Thursday reinstated the conviction and death sentence of a California man convicted of murder - even though a lower court made mistakes when it considered whether prosecutors illegally excluded blacks and Hispanics from the jury.
Splitting along ideological lines, the justices ruled 5-4 that Hector Ayala wasn't entitled to argue that prosecutors systematically excluded minority jurors during his 1989 trial for a triple murder during a drug robbery in San Diego.
During the trial, Ayala's attorney complained that prosecutors excused all seven potential jurors who were black or Hispanic. The trial judge then asked prosecutors to justify their actions, but he accepted their explanations at a private hearing at which Ayala's lawyers were not present.
A divided California Supreme Court found there were trial errors but said they were harmless. A federal court also rejected Ayala's challenge. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Ayala was denied a fair trial because he wasn't given a chance to challenge the state's justifications.
The Supreme Court ruled that the 9th Circuit should have deferred to state court findings that any error committed by the trial court was harmless.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said Ayala could not show he was "actually prejudiced" by the trial court's error. Even if Ayala's lawyers had attended the hearing, Alito said, they would not have been able to convince the trial court to reject the prosecutor's explanations anyway.
He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said it "strains credulity" to suggest that a court dealing with a complex capital case would consider all the relevant facts to make a decision "without the presence of defense counsel to help bring it to their attention."
She said the exclusion of Ayala's lawyers prevented him from making his strongest argument and impeded his ability to raise the issue on appeal.
Sotomayor was joined in dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
Kennedy wrote separately to note that Ayala has been held in solitary confinement for most of his 25 years in custody. He used the case as a springboard to raise concerns he has made previously about the growing trend of keeping inmates in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day.
Kennedy said research shows that "years on end of near-total isolation exacts a terrible price" and suggested that courts may be required in the future to decide whether there are better alternatives. Quoting Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Kennedy said: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
In a brief retort, Thomas said "the accommodations in which Ayala is housed are a far sight more spacious than those in which his victims, Ernesto Dominguez Mendez, Marcos Antonio Zamora and Jose Luis Rositas, now rest."
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Use of child abuse evidence allowed
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Statements that children make to teachers about possible abuse can be used as evidence, even if the child does not testify in court, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously last Thursday.
The ruling is expected to make it easier for prosecutors to convict people accused of domestic violence. The justices said that defendants don't have a constitutional right to cross-examine child accusers unless their statements to school officials were made for the primary purpose of creating evidence for prosecution.
The case involves Darius Clark, a Cleveland man convicted of beating his girlfriend's 3-year-old son. Clark says the trial court denied him the constitutional right to confront his accuser when it said the boy didn't have to testify, but still considered statements he made to preschool teachers describing abuse.
The Supreme Court reversed a lower court and upheld Clark's conviction.
The court's ruling resolves a split among lower courts about the role played by teachers, social workers and others who have a legal duty to report suspected child abuse that they notice in the course of their work. Ohio's highest court had ruled that the duty to report abuse effectively turned teachers into agents of the state for law enforcement purposes, even though no police were initially involved.
Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said the fact that teachers have a legal duty to report child abuse suspicions to authorities does not transform a conversation between a concerned teacher and a student into a law enforcement mission aimed at gathering evidence for prosecution.
"Their questions and (the child's) answers were primarily aimed at identifying and ending the threat," Alito said. It was nothing like "formalized station-house questioning" or police interrogation.
Alito added that it is "extremely unlikely" that a 3-year-old child would intend his statements as a substitute for trial testimony.
The case began in 2010 when preschool teachers at a Head Start program asked the boy about bruises and welts they saw around his left eye. Asked who caused the injuries, the boy said "Dee," referring to Clark.
Clark was later indicted, and the court allowed the teachers to testify at trial about statements the boy made identifying Clark. The boy was deemed "incompetent" to testify. Clark was convicted of felonious assault and child endangering.
A state appeals court overturned Clark's conviction and the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed, ruling that teachers who are legally bound to report possible cases of abuse are in the same position as law enforcement officials when they question children.
Rejecting that view, Alito said the teachers' "pressing concern was to protect (the child) and remove him from harm's way."
Forty-two states filed a brief supporting Ohio. They argue that excluding from evidence the statements children make to teachers, counselors and others who must report abuse will only protect abusers and impair the ability of states to protect children.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers submitted a brief arguing that children are susceptible to suggestion and giving unreliable testimony. The group said defendants have a constitutional right to cross examine witnesses, even when they are children.
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Justices rule for Texas in dispute over license plate
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court last Thursday upheld Texas' refusal to issue a license plate bearing the Confederate battle flag, rejecting a free-speech challenge.
The court said in a 5-4 ruling that Texas can limit the content of license plates because they are state property and not the equivalent of bumper stickers.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans had sought a Texas plate bearing its logo with the battle flag. A state board rejected it over concerns that the license plate would offend many Texans.
Justice Stephen Breyer said the state's decision to reject the group's plate did not violate its free speech rights. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and the court's other three liberal justices joined Breyer's opinion.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that states can't force drivers to display license plates that contain messages with which the drivers disagree, Breyer said. "And just as Texas cannot require SCV (the Sons of Confederate Veterans) to convey 'the state's ideological message,'" Breyer said, quoting from that earlier ruling, "SCV cannot force Texas to include a Confederate battle flag on its specialty license plates."
The state can prohibit some messages even though there are now nearly 450 specialty plates to choose from, he said. Those plates include "Choose Life" to the Boy Scouts and hamburger chains.
The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued over the state's decision not to authorize its proposed license plate with its logo bearing the battle flag, similar to plates issued by eight other states that were members of the Confederacy and by the state of Maryland.
A panel of federal appeals court judges ruled that the board's decision violated the group's First Amendment rights. "We understand that some members of the public find the Confederate flag offensive. But that fact does not justify the board's decision," Judge Edward Prado of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans wrote.
Texas' main argument to the Supreme Court is that the license plate is not like a bumper sticker slapped on the car by its driver. Instead, the state said, license plates are government property, and so what appears on them is not private individuals' speech but the government's. The First Amendment applies when governments try to regulate the speech of others, but not when governments are doing the talking.
Justice Samuel Alito said in dissent that the decision "threatens private speech that the government finds displeasing."
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia also dissented.
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Synthetic drug sellers must know substance illegal, court rules
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A unanimous Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that people accused of selling synthetic drugs can't be convicted unless prosecutors show they knew the substance was prohibited by law.
The ruling could make it tougher for prosecutors to convict people selling a new wave of drugs designed by rogue chemists to produce a high, but with slight chemical modifications that keep them off state and federal banned drug lists.
The justices sided with Stephen McFadden, a New York City man convicted of supplying bath salts to a store in Charlottesville, Virginia, in plastic bags or vials with names like "Speed," ''No Speed" and "The New Up."
McFadden was convicted in 2013 of violating the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act, which punishes those who knowingly or intentionally sell a controlled substance or analogue - a knock-off that has a "substantially similar" chemical structure and mimics the effect of a banned substance.
A federal appeals court ruled it was enough for a jury to find that McFadden intended the bath salts for human consumption. But McFadden argued that the government had to prove he knew the bath salts were similar in both chemical structure and effect to a controlled substance.
Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said prosecutors must prove either that a defendant knew the substance was a "controlled substance" banned under federal drug laws or that he knew it was an "analog" with a chemical structure substantially similar to that of a banned drug.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeals court to determine whether the incorrect jury instruction was harmless, meaning that McFadden's conviction could still be upheld.
Prosecutors had pointed to telephone recordings of McFadden's conversations with the store owner in Virginia in which he discussed which of his products was the "most powerful" and gave the most "intense" feeling. He also compared the effects to meth and cocaine.
McFadden's lawyers say the law was designed to target clandestine chemists who design the analogues, not street-level distributors who don't understand the chemical makeup of the substance and may not realize what they are selling is substantially similar to controlled substances.
Justice Department lawyers argued that the law was meant to curb the flow of illegal drugs and knock-offs. They say McFadden's reading of the law would unfairly hinder law enforcement's ability to go after distributors.
Published: Mon, Jun 22, 2015
