Justices reject early challenge to Trump steel tariffs
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is rejecting an early challenge to President Donald Trump's authority to impose tariffs on imported steel based on national security concerns.
The justices did not comment on Monday in leaving in place a decision by the Court of International Trade that ruled against steel importers and other users of imported steel who challenged the 25% tariff on steel that Trump imposed in 2018.
The importers argue that Trump does not have unbounded authority under the Constitution to regulate trade. They say that job belongs to Congress.
The legal challenge is at an early stage, before a federal appeals court has weighed in. The case could return to the Supreme Court later.
Court sides with business, government in information fight
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court sided with businesses and the U.S. government Monday in a ruling about the public's access to information, telling a South Dakota newspaper it can't get the data it was seeking.
Open government and reporters groups described the ruling against the Argus Leader newspaper as a setback, but it was not clear how big its impact will ultimately be.
The paper was seeking to learn how much money goes annually to every store nationwide that participates in the government's $65 billion-a-year food assistance program, previously known as food stamps.
Reporters at the paper, which is owned by USA Today publisher Gannett, asked the federal government in 2011 to provide information about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Officials initially declined to provide all the information reporters were seeking. In response, the paper sued, arguing that the store-level data the government declined to provide is public and shows citizens how the government is spending their tax money.
The government lost in a lower court and decided not to appeal. But a supermarket trade association, the Virginia-based Food Marketing Institute, stepped in to continue the fight with the backing of the Trump administration, arguing that the information is confidential and should not be disclosed.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for a six-member majority of the court that at "least where commercial or financial information is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy," the information should not be disclosed. He said the SNAP data qualified.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissent joined by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor that he feared "the majority's reading will deprive the public of information for reasons no better than convenience, skittishness, or bureaucratic inertia."
The Food Marketing Institute said in a statement that it believes the ruling will "protect private financial information today and in the future."
Maribel Wadsworth, president of the USA Today Network, said in a statement that the decision "effectively gives businesses relying on taxpayer dollars the ability to decide for themselves what data the public will see about how that money is spent." She called it a "step backward for openness."
The case has to do with the Freedom of Information Act. The act gives citizens, including reporters, access to federal agencies' records with certain exceptions. A section of the law tells officials to withhold "confidential" ''commercial or financial information" that is obtained from third parties and in the government's possession. The question for the court was when information provided to a federal agency qualifies as confidential.
Previously, lower courts had said that information couldn't be found to be confidential unless disclosing it was likely to cause "substantial" competitive harm. The Supreme Court rejected that reading.
The Associated Press was among dozens of media organizations that signed a legal brief supporting the Argus Leader.
The case is Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 18-481.
'Scandalous' part of trademark law struck down
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court struck down a section of federal law Monday that prevented businesses from registering trademarks seen as scandalous or immoral, handing a victory to California fashion brand FUCT.
The high court ruled that the century-old provision is an unconstitutional restriction on speech. Between 2005 and 2015, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ultimately refused about 150 trademark applications a year as a result of the provision. Those who were turned away could still use the words they were seeking to register, but they didn't get the benefits that come with trademark registration. Going after counterfeiters was also difficult as a result.
The Trump administration had defended the provision, arguing that it encouraged trademarks that are appropriate for all audiences.
The high court's ruling means that the people and companies behind applications that previously failed as a result of the scandalous or immoral provision can re-submit them for approval. And new trademark applications cannot be refused on the grounds they are scandalous or immoral.
Justice Elena Kagan said in reading her majority opinion that the most fundamental principle of free speech law is that the government can't penalize or discriminate against expression based on the ideas or viewpoints they convey. She said Lanham Act's ban on "immoral or scandalous" trademarks does just that.
In an opinion for herself and five colleagues, both conservatives and liberals, Kagan called the law's immoral or scandalous provision "substantially overbroad."
"There are a great many immoral and scandalous ideas in the world (even more than there are swearwords), and the Lanham Act covers them all. It therefore violates the First Amendment," she wrote.
Kagan's opinion suggested that a narrower law covering just lewd, sexually explicit or profane trademarks might be acceptable.
The justices' ruling was in some ways expected because of one the court made two years ago. In 2017, the justices unanimously invalidated a related provision of federal law that told officials not to register disparaging trademarks, finding that restriction violated the First Amendment. In that case, an Asian-American rock band sued after the government refused to register its band name, "The Slants," because it was seen as offensive to Asians.
The case the justices ruled in Monday involves Los Angeles-based FUCT, which began selling clothing in 1991. Federal officials refused to register the brand's name, calling it "highly offensive" and "vulgar." Attorney John R. Sommer, who represented Erik Brunetti, the artist behind the brand, said his client was pleased with the decision. He said he expected FUCT to be a registered trademark within the next six months.
The court's decision could result in an uptick in requests to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register trademarks that would have previously been considered scandalous or immoral.
But Barton Beebe, a New York University law professor who has studied the provision the justices struck down and co-authored a Supreme Court brief in the case, said he thinks that's unlikely. Beebe said he doesn't believe there's a large, pent-up demand for trademark registration by people refused it previously under the provision.
A spokesman for the patent office, Paul Fucito, said the office is reviewing the decision.
The case is Iancu v. Brunetti, 18-302.
Justices order court records unsealed in execution
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered court filings unsealed related to a recent execution in Alabama.
Justices granted a request from NPR and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to make the court filings public without having portions blacked out. The filings related to Christopher Lee Price's request for a stay prior to his May execution . Attorneys for Price argued that the state's lethal injection method is unconstitutionally painful.
The briefs filed in the case before the U.S. Supreme Court were heavily redacted as Alabama sought to keep its execution protocol "confidential."
NPR asked that unredacted versions of the briefs be made public. Justices agreed.
Alabama did not oppose the request, according a court filing, since a federal appellate court recently ruled in another case that Alabama can't keep its lethal injection protocol secret.
Lawyers for the state wrote that the prison system maintains security concerns over the release of some execution procedures, but "accepts that its protocol likely will be disclosed."
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March sided with The Associated Press and other news outlets seeking Alabama's lethal injection protocol and other records related to an aborted 2018 execution. The state sought a full hearing before the full Circuit but that was denied.
Price, 46, was executed May 30 for killing a country preacher during a 1991 robbery.
Representatives of the Alabama attorney general's Office did not have an immediate comment on Monday's decision.
None of the documents have been made public yet.
Published: Wed, Jun 26, 2019
