Constitutional Law Prof Blog

District Judge Finds Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Office Engaged in Unconstitutional Racial Profiling

In a 142 page opinion and order in Melendres v. Arpaio, United States District Judge G. Murray Snow found that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office [MCSO] led by Sheriff Arpaio unconstitutionally relied upon "Mexican ancestry" in stopping and detaining persons in its jurisdiction.

Recall that Sheriff Arpaio is a controversial figure who has styled himself as America's "toughest sheriff" and whose policies such as shackling pregnant inmates giving birth and forcing male inmates to "wear pink" have been subject to constitutional challenge.

In the Melendres class action lawsuit, the district judge listed the issues as:

• whether, and to what extent, the Fourth Amendment permits the MCSO to question, investigate, and/or detain Latino occupants of motor vehicles it suspects of being in the country without authorization when it has no basis to bring state charges against such persons;
• whether the MCSO uses race as a factor, and, if so, to what extent it is permissible under the Fourth Amendment to use race as a factor in forming either reasonable suspicion or probable cause to detain a person for being present without authorization;
•  whether the MCSO uses race as a factor, and if so, to what extent it is permissible under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in making law enforcement decisions that affect Latino occupants of motor vehicles in Maricopa County;
•  whether the MCSO prolongs traffic stops to investigate the status of vehicle occupants beyond the time permitted by the Fourth Amendment; and
• whether being in this country without authorization provides sufficient reasonable suspicion or probable cause under the Fourth Amendment that a person is violating or conspiring to violate Arizona law related to immigration status.

The judge's extensive discussion of the trial and his findings of fact provide a detailed portrait of the MCSO's attempts to enforce immigration laws, including  its "LEAR" policy (Law Enforcement Agency Response in conjunction with federal immigration authorities), "saturation patrols,"  and mixed messages about the permissibility of the consideration of race or "Mexican ancestry." The opinion details the often rocky relationship between MCSO and federal ICE regarding immigration enforcement. 

Ultimately, Judge Snow concluded that that the MCSO's stated prohibition of "racial profiling" was limited to an exclusive reliance on race but allowed race to be a factor and did not strive to be race-neutral.  In keeping with this policy, the MCSO routinely relied upon race as a factor according to Judge Snow.  Such policies and practices violate both the Fourth Amendment and the Equal protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Judge entered a permanent injunction prohibiting MCSO from:

• detaining, holding or arresting Latino occupants of vehicles in Maricopa County based on a reasonable belief, without more, that such persons are in the country without authorization,
•  following or enforcing its LEAR policy against any Latino occupant of a vehicle in Maricopa County;
•  using race or Latino ancestry as a factor in determining to stop any vehicle in Maricopa County with a Latino occupant;
• using race or Latino ancestry as a factor in making law enforcement decisions with respect to whether any Latino occupant of a vehicle in Maricopa County may be in the country without authorization;
• detaining Latino occupants of vehicles stopped for traffic violations for a period longer than reasonably necessary to resolve the traffic violation in the absence of reasonable suspicion that any of them have committed or are committing a violation of federal or state criminal law;
•  detaining, holding or arresting Latino occupants of a vehicle in Maricopa County for violations of the Arizona Human Smuggling Act without a reasonable basis for believing that, under all the circumstances, the necessary elements of the crime are present;
• detaining, arresting or holding persons based on a reasonable suspicion that they are conspiring with their employer to violate the Arizona Employer Sanctions Act.

Judge Snow encouraged the parties to engage in further negotiations toward a settlement for implementing the injunction and included references to other settlements.  However, Sheriff Arpaio has reportedly already proclaimed his intention to appeal.

RR

 

President Obama on Drones, Guantanamo

President Obama spoke out today on his administration's use of drone attacks and argued (again) for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in a speech that looked to wind down the war on terror.  Politico reports here.

President Obama's speech came the same day as the administration released a "fact sheet" on U.S. policy standards and procedures for drone strikes and other hostile actions against terrorist suspects outside the United States and areas of active hostilities.  According to the document, there's a preference for capture (and other reasonable alternatives) over killing, but still the document sets out standards for the use of lethal force:

First, there must be a legal basis for using lethal force, whether it is against a senior operational leader of a terrorist organization or the forces that organization is using or intends to use to conduct terrorist attacks.

Second, the United States will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.  It is simply not the case that all terrorists pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons; if a terrorist does not pose such a threat, the United States will not use lethal force.

Third, the following criteria must be met before lethal action may be taken:

1. Near certainty that the terrorist target is present;

2. Near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed;

3. An assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the operation;

4. An assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the country where action is contemplated cannot or will not effectively address the threat to U.S. persons; and

5. An assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effectively address the threat to the U.S. person.

Finally, whenever the United States uses force in foreign territories, international legal principles, including respect for sovereignty and the law of armed conflict, impose important constraints on the ability of the United States to act unilaterally--and on the way in which the United States can use force.  The United States respects national sovereignty and international law.

The "fact sheet" makes some changes in emphasis and language, but seems to basically leave in place the substance of the three-part test outlined earlier this year in the White Paper.  The "fact sheet" emphasizes rule-of-law principles and broad government decisionmaking and oversight over hostilities, but it does not specifically address or define "imminence" or the process by which the administration will designate a person a target.  (Recall that the White Paper looked specifically at the question when lethal force could be used against a U.S. citizen who is a senior leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force; the "fact sheet" sweeps in a broader class of potential targets.  Recall, too, that the White Paper defined imminence rather broadly, and it counterbalanced a target's interest in life with the U.S. interest in forestalling attacks on other Americans, under Mathews v. Eldridge.)  The upshot: only time will tell whether the Fact Sheet represents a real change in the way the administration actually executes drone attacks.  

SDS

Marcia Coyle on the Roberts Court

Marcia Coyle, Chief Washington Correspondent for the National Law Journal, was kind enough to talk with me last week about her new book, The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution. 

The book tells the full stories (including the fascinating back-stories) of four landmark and defining cases for the early Roberts Court--on race in schools (Parents Involved), guns (Heller), money in elections (Citizens United), and health care (the ACA cases)--and argues that these cases are at the center of a struggle for the Constitution in this new and evolving Court.  

Here's the audio, about 30 minutes:

 

Coyle Interview

SDS

Third Circuit Invalidates President Obama's NLRB Recess Appointment

A divided three-judge panel of the Third Circuit last week invalidated President Obama's recess appointment of Craig Becker as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.  The ruling, National Labor Relations Board v. New Vista Nursing and Rehabilitation, marks the second time a federal appeals court invalidated President Obama's "intrasession" recess appointments.  The first came earlier this year from the D.C. Circuit, in the Noel Canning case.  We posted on that case when it came down, and more recently when the government filed for cert. review at the Supreme Court.

The Third Circuit, like the D.C. Circuit before it, ruled that "the Recess of the Senate" in the Recess Appointments Clause refers only to the period between sessions of the Senate, or intersession breaks, and not breaks while the Senate is in session, or intrasession breaks.  Because President Obama appointed Becker while the Senate was holding pro forma sessions every three or four days--during intrasession breaks--the court said that Becker's appointment was invalid.  And because Becker's appointment was invalid, the NLRB lacked a quorum to issue a bargaining order to a New Jersey nursing facility that was at the center of the dispute.

Judge Greenaway, Jr., wrote a lengthy dissent, stating that "[t]he Majority's rationale undoes an appointments process that has successfully operated within our separation of powers regime for over 220 years."

As we said, the government has already filed its cert. petition in the Noel Canning case.  Now with this ruling, the Court is all but certain to take the question up and issue a final ruling on "intrasession" recess appointments.

SDS

AP CEO Gary Pruitt Explains Why Justice Probe Violates First Amendment

Associated Press CEO (and former First Amendment lawyer for McClatchy newspapers) Gary Pruitt gave his first television interview today to Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation and blasted the Justice Department seizure of AP phone records as violating the First Amendment.

 

Pruitt's complaints grow out of the Justice Department secret subpoena for phone records of 20 AP phone lines as part of the Department's investigation into an AP article that reported that the CIA foiled a terrorist plot to bomb a US airliner.  The Department obtained the records directly from the phone company, without prior notice to AP.

Pruitt argued that the Department's efforts swept far too broadly and violated its own rules relating to phone records.  

Pruitt's appearance follows his May 13, 2013, letter to AG Holder, objecting to the Department's investigation.  Deputy AG James Cole wrote back on May 14, 2013, arguing that the Department's subpoenas were sufficiently narrow.

Glenn Greenwald wrote about the issue last week in the Guardian (with links to others raising objections).  The Washington Post just posted a story on aggressive government tactics in leak investigations, focusing on the Stephen Jin-Woo Kim case.

SDS

Tsesis on the History of the Declaration of Independence

Prof. Alex Tsesis (Loyola Chicago) joined me on Thursday for a talk on his book For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence (Oxford 2012).  This was a terrific read; I highly recommend it.  

But first listen to him talk about it.  Here's the audio of our chat (about 20 minutes):

Tsesis Interview May 16

SDS

Senate Judiciary Approves Srinivasan for D.C. Circuit

The Senate Judiciary Committee today unanimously approved Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan for a slot on the D.C. Circuit.  WaPo reports here.  We previously posted here, with links to backgrounds and profiles.

SDS

Federal Complaint for Unconstitutional Sex Assignment Surgery on Infant

The surgical "assignment" of sex/gender to an infant born with "ambiguous" genitals is a problem that has garnered much attention.

The Constitutional Court of Colombia issued a series of opinions beginning in 1995, analyzed in a 2004 law review article by Kate Haas, Who Will Make Room for the Intersexed?, that recognize a constitutional right of children, albeit limited, with regard to the surgery.  A ground-breaking symposium issue of Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender in 2005 engages with many of the legal issues and proposed solutions, often recognizing the limits of constitutional remedies in the United States given that the surgeries are usually the result of private action.

But a complaint filed this week, M.C. v. Aaronson, by the Southern Poverty Center claims a violation of both substantive and procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment by South Carolina doctors who performed genital surgery on a child in state custody (foster care).  M.C., now 8 years old, brings the case through his adoptive parents. 

The substantive due process claim is a relatively obvious one, building on established United States Supreme Court cases finding a right to be free of coerced medical procedures including Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (1990).  The right is a bit muddled, however, given that the highly discredited 1927 case of Buck v. Bell has never been actually overruled; the declaration that castration was as unconstitutional penalty for a crime in Skinner v. Oklahoma rested on equal protection grounds. 

The procedural due process claim is more novel, contending that the minor was entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing before the surgery.  Such a hearing would presumably be of the type that Erin Lloyd recommended for all minors (whether in state custody or not) in her article From the Hospital to the Courtroom: A Statutory Proposal for Recognizing and Protecting the Legal Rights of Intersex Children in the Cardozo Journal of Gender and Law Symposium issue. 

An accompanying lawsuit filed in state court alleges medical malpractice and failure to obtain informed consent, raising the same underlying facts and many of the same issues, but under state law.

Southern Poverty Center has produced a video featuring the parents and outlining the facts of the case:

 

 This is definitely a case to watch.

RR
[image via]

The New Yorker, Anonymity, and Confidential Sources

What if the reporters' confidential sources were unknown even to the reporter?  Might this solve the problems that the Court struggled with more than 40 years ago in Branzburg v. Hayes?

The New Yorker has introduced a technological attempt to insulate the source and the reporter.  As The New Yorker explains its new concept, called "Strongbox" :

as it’s set up, even we won’t be able to figure out where files sent to us come from. If anyone asks us, we won’t be able to tell them.

A fuller explanation in the article by Kevin Poulson begins: "Aaron Swartz was not yet a legend when, almost two years ago, I asked him to build an open-source, anonymous in-box.

Of course, the government's technological abilities have also progressed since the grand jury inquiry of Branzburg.

RR

 

Force-Feeding at Guantanamo

The ACLU and 19 other organizations sent a letter this week to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel opposing the military's force-feeding hunger-striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay.  According to the ACLU, 29 detainees are currently being force-fed.  We previously posted on a ruling by New York's high court upholding the practice of force-feeing in New York prisons.

The military's standard operating procedures (SOP) on fasting and force-feeding changed just recently (published on Al Jazeera), loosening protections against force-feeding.  (The earlier SOP is here.)  Most notably, the recent changes to the SOP charge the military commander of the base, not a medical doctor, with determining who is a hunger striker.

Here's the ACLU's legal case against force-feeding, from this week's coalition letter to Secretary Hagel:

Force-feeding as used in Guantanamo violates Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which bar cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment.  It also could violate the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" of prisoners "regardless of nationality or physical location."  Indeed, a 2006 joint report submitted by five independent human rights experts of the United Nations Human Rights Council (formerly the U.N. Commission on Human Rights) found that the method of force-feeding then used in Guantanamo, and which appears to remain in effect today, amounted to torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States ratified in 1994.  The report asserted that doctors and other health professionals authorizing and participating in force-feeding prisoners were violating the right to health and other human rights, including those guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States ratified in 1992.  Those concerns were reiterated this month by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and three UN Special Rapporteurs.

While the letter focuses on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, there may be other problems with force-feeding, too.  For example, force-feeding may infringe on hunger-striking detainees' free speech.  But First Amendment claims by hunger-strikers in regular detention in the U.S. have not been successful; Guantanamo Bay detainees would almost certainly face even steeper First Amendment challenges in the courts.  There's also the right to refuse medical treatment.  As Michael Dorf (DorfonLaw.org) argues at jurist.org, "five Justices in [Cruzan v. Dir. Missouri Dep''t of Health] did say that they thought that competent adults have the right to refuse forced feeding, even if death will result."  But that runs up against Washington v. Harper, holding that prison officials could override a prisoner's objection to forcibly being administered medication, assuming it's in the prisoner's medical interest.

Anyway, as Dorf points out, some Guantanamo detainees might have a hard time even bringing a case.  Judge Kessler (D.D.C) dismissed a detainee force-feeding case in 2009, based on the jurisdiction-stripping provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  That provision says,

Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

The difference here is that some of the hunger-strikers now have been cleared for release--the U.S. just can't find a place to send them.  Those detainees are not "determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or [are] awaiting such determination," and are not barred by 2241(e)(2) from bringing suit.

SDS

Daily Read: First Amendment Institutions by Paul Horwitz

ConLawProf Paul Horwitz's new book, First Amendment Institutions seeks to develop the conversation about reorienting First Amendment doctrine towards institutionalism. 

Most ConLawProfs would agree that First Amendment doctrine suffers from incoherence, but fewer may agree that institutionalism is the solution, and even those who do favor institutionalism may differ on their selection of the institutions deserving deference.

But for anyone teaching or writing in the First Amendment, Horwitz's book deserves a place on a serious summer reading list.  My longer review appears in Law and Politics Book Review.

RR

Court Says Plaintiff Can Bring State Suit for Illegal Sale of His Car

The Supreme Court ruled today in Dan's City Used Cars, Inc. v. Pelkey that federal law does not preempt a plaintiff's state law claim against a towing company for the illegal sale of his car.  The ruling affirms the New Hampshire Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the plaintiff and settles a split among state high courts on the question.  Otherwise, the ruling doesn't break any new ground, and it's not a particular surprise.

The case arose when Dan's City towed Pelkey's car from his landlord's parking lot and later traded it away without compensating Pelkey.  (Pelkey was suffering with a serious medical condition for which he was later hospitalized, and thus left his car in the parking lot during a snow--a towing offense under the landlord's rules.)  Pelkey sued for wrongful sale (but not wrongful towing) under state law.  The lower state court said that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, FAAAA, preempted Pelkey's suit and dismissed the case.  (The FAAAA applies to motor carriers.)  The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed, and this appeal followed.

The FAAAA preemption clause says,

[A] State . . . may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier . . . with respect to the transportation of property.

In an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, the unanimous Supreme Court held that Pelkey's suit wasn't "with respect to the transportation of property," because it was based on the allegedly wrongful sale of his car after it was transported--that is, post-towing.  The Court said that this result is consistent with congressional purposes is enacting the FAAAA preemption clause.

SDS

Divided Sixth Circuit Panel Upholds Michigan's Public Act 53 Regulating Public School Union Dues Collection

A Sixth Circuit panel today upheld the constitutionality of Michigan's Public Act 53 in its opinion in Bailey v. Callaghan. 

Michigan’s Public Act 53, enacted in 2012, governs public school employee union dues.  It provides:

A public school employer’s use of public school resources to assist a labor organization in collecting dues or service fees from wages of public school employees is a prohibited contribution to the administration of a labor organization.

As the panel explained, "Thus, under the Act, unions must collect their own membership dues from public-school employees, rather than have the schools collect those dues for them via payroll deductions." 

The panel reversed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction, holding that the challengers' First Amendment and Equal Protection claims were "without merit."

On the First Amendment claim, the panel held that the case was squarely controlled by the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Ysursa v. Pocatello Educational Ass'n, and the distinctions urged by the challengers were inapposite.  Its summary exiled the dispute from First Amendment terrain:

So Public Act 53 does not restrict speech; it does not discriminate against or even mention viewpoint; and it has nothing to do with a forum of any kind. Instead, the Act merely directs one kind of public employer to use its resources for its core mission rather than for the collection of union dues. That is not a First Amendment concern.

The Equal Protection argument was dispatched with even less fanfare:

The question here is whether there is any conceivable legitimate interest in support of this classification. We hold that there is: the Legislature could have concluded that it is more important for the public schools to conserve their limited resources for their core mission than it is for other state and local employers. The plaintiffs’ equal-protection claim therefore fails.

Dissenting, Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch begins by noting that the "majority spills little ink" - - - the opinion is 5 pages - - - and then proceeds with a more robust analysis of the First Amendment challenge.  She takes seriously the viewpoint discrimination argument given the Michigan legislature's specific statement that the purpose of Act 53 was to put a "check on union power."  This type of viewpoint discrimination means that Ysursa does not control, and in fact "Ysursa expressly acknowledges the long-standing prohibition on viewpoint discrimination in the provision of government subsidies," although the Court held that because that law applied to all employers, there was no viewpoint discrimination. Instead, she relies on Citizens United to contend:

To the extent Act 53’s purpose is to cripple the school unions’ ability to raise funds for political speech because Michigan’s legislature finds that speech undesirable, it is plainly impermissible. Political speech, of course, is a core First Amendment activity that “must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.” Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 130 S. Ct. 876, 898 (2010). And “restrictions distinguishing among different speakers, allowing speech by some but not others,” run afoul of the First Amendment precisely because they are “all too often simply a means to control content.” Id. at 898–99.

This doctrinal prohibition applies not only to laws that directly burden speech, but also to those that diminish the amount of speech by making it more difficult or expensive to speak. See, e.g., Citizens United, 130 S. Ct. at 897.

It does seem that Judge Stranch's dissent has the better argument, and definitely the more developed one. 

RR
[image: Central School Iron River Michigan, circa 1909, via]

Daily Read: Larry Catá Backer on Chinese Constitutionalism

What is Chinese constitutionalism?  Larry Catá Backer's new article, Towards a Robust Theory of the Chinese Constitutional State: Between Formalism and Legitimacy in Jiang Shigong’s Constitutionalism, available on ssrn, not only provides answers to that query, but develops the topic in sophisticated and important ways.  As Backer (pictured right) notes, 

The Chinese constitutional system does not imitate those of other developed states, because it political ideology is grounded in Marxist Leninism which suggests a different relationship between the state, the people and the manner of exercising political and economic power, which over the course of nearly a century suggested what Western theorists generally viewed as the anti-constitutionalism of Soviet Stalinism and its variants.

But Backer is not content with such simplistic dismissals.  Instead, exploring the arguments of Chinese LawProf Jiang Shigong (pictured left), Backer traces different strands of Chinese constitutionalism within the context of Chinese culture and society and their possibilities for development.  Backer notes that the "critical distinction for Jiang between Chinese and Western constitutionalism lies in the willingness to fold a Party-State system within notions of substantive constitutionalism—not just in terms of legitimacy but also in terms of providing a foundation for building a governmental apparatus that provides for its people in a way functionally equivalent to that in Western democracies."

For ConLaw comparativists, Backer's article is essential reading: it situates Chinese constitutionalism in global contexts and more importantly, evaluates its various aspects in comparison to each other.  For ConLawProfs who may not consider themselves comparativists, Backer's article may be even more essential.  Backer's exploration is theoretically sophisticated, nuanced, and guaranteed to enrich any reader's thinking about the role of any constitution in any nation, including the United States.

RR

D.C. Circuit Strikes NLRB Notice-of-Rights Rule

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit struck the enforcement mechanisms for the NLRB rule requiring employers to post a notice of employee rights.  The ruling yesterday in National Association of Manufacturers v. NLRB means that the NLRB rule is invalid.

The case strikes a blow at the NLRB effort to educate employees on their workplace rights, in an era where union membership is way down (7.3% of the private workforce) and where more and more workers enter the workplace without knowledge of their rights.

The case arose after the NLRB promulgated a rule that required employers to post a notice of employee rights in the workplace.  Violation of the rule came with an unfair labor practice under Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA.  (It also came with a suspension of the running of the six-month period for filing any unfair labor practice charge, and it constituted evidence of unlawful motive in a case in which motive is an issue.)

The rule says,

[a]ll employers subject to the NLRA must post notices to employees, in conspicuous places, informing them of their NLRA rights, together with Board contact information and information concerning basic enforcement procedures . . . .

29 C.F.R. Sec. 104.202(a).  (Here's the single-page version of the notice poster.)  But the plaintiffs argued that this violated the NLRA and free speech.  The court agreed, concluding that the rule violated Section 8(a), which says:

The expressing of any views, arguments, or opinion, or the dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic, or visual form, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice under any of the provisions of this [Act], if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.

The court said that "[a]lthough Section 8(a) precludes the Board from finding noncoercive employer speech to be an unfair labor practice, or evidence of an unfair labor practice, the Board's rule does both."  

The court rejected the NLRB's argument that the required post is the Board's speech, not the employer's speech.  Comparing Section 8(a) to First Amendment law, the court said that it didn't matter: dissemination of messages gets the same free speech treatment as creation of messages.

The court also rejected the NLRB's argument based on UAW-Labor Employment & Training Corp. v. Chao, (D.C. Cir. 2003), which upheld President Bush's executive order requiring government contractors to post notice at their workplaces informing employees of their rights not to be forced to join a union or to pay union dues for nonrepresentational activities.  (The plaintiffs in that case argued only that President Bush's EO was preempted by the NLRA; they lodged no First Amendment claim.)  The difference, according to the court: there was no prospect in UAW of a contractor's being charged with an unfair labor practice for failing to post the required notice.  

(Two members of the panel, Judges Henderson and Brown, would have gone farther and ruled that the NLRB lacked authority to pomulgate the posting rule.)

The court addressed the preliminary issue whether the NLRB had a quorum when it promulgated the rule, in light of its recent ruling in Noel Canning v. NLRB that President Obama's recess appointments were invalid.  But the court held that the NLRB had a quorum when the rule was filed with the Office of the Federal Register (the relevant time), even if it didn't have a quorum when the rule was published.

SDS

Louisiana Supreme Court Strikes State School Voucher Program

The Louisiana Supreme Court today ruled that the state's school voucher program violates the state constitution.  In particular, the court ruled that the voucher program tapped the constitutionally protected per pupil state fund for public education and that the legislature passed the funding mechanism in violation of state constitutional procedural requirements.

The ruling deals a fatal blow to this funding mechanism for the state's voucher program.  But the state could probably create a voucher program and fund it through a different budget mechanism (e.g., a regular line item, instead of the state's specifically reserved per pupil fund for public education).  The ruling thus puts the ball back in the governor's and legislature's court--to create a new mechanism for the voucher program, and to come up with the money to fund it.  (Here's Governor Jindal's statement in reaction to the ruling.)  Even if this happens, the ruling underscores the constitutional protection for separately allocated per pupil fund for public education in the state.

The ruling, Louisiana Federation of Teachers v. State of Lousiana, arose out of state constitutional challenges to the state's recently encacted voucher program.  That program diverted state funds separately allocated for public education (under the "minimum foundation program," or MFP) to private schools "on behalf of each student awarded a scholarship" under the voucher program.  The program came in two parts: Act 2 created the voucher program; and Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 99 approved the MFP line-item but diverted MFP funds to support Act 2 vouchers.

The court ruled that the provisions violated Louisiana Constitution Article VIII, Sec. 13(B), which requires the legislature to "fully fund the current cost to the state" of "a minimum foundation program of education in all public elementary and secondary schools," and the "funds appropriated shall be equitably allocated to parish and city school systems."  According to the court, Section 13(B) requires that MFP funds be used to support public education only, even if some of the students used to calculate the MFP base elected to go to private school.  In short, when Section 13(B) says that MFP funds "shall" be allocated to public schools, it means they shall be allocated only to public schools--and can't be diverted to private schools.

The court also ruled that SCR 99 violated Article III, Sec. 2(A)(3)(a), which says (in relevant part):

No new matter intended to have the effect of law shall be introduced or received by either house after six o'clock in the evening of the twenty-third calendar day.

After some analysis of "the effect of law," the court concluded that SCR 99 violated this provision, because it was introduced in both houses after the twenty-third calendar day of the regular session.  (The court ruled that it also violated a related provision, requiring a 2/3 vote after a certain date.  Ultimately the court noted that in the House it didn't even get a "majority of the members elected," as required by Article III, Sec. 15(G).)  

At the same time, the court ruled that the voucher package didn't violate the constitution's "one-object" rule, requiring each piece of legislation to deal with just one object.  The court said the legislation was indeed quite lengthy, but still it all went to the same general object--promoting school choice.

SDS

Rosen Named CEO of National Constitution Center

The National Constitution Center has named Con Law Prof Jeffrey Rosen (GW) as its new president and CEO.  Rosen succeeds David Eisner, who stepped down in October 2012.

Here's more, from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

SDS

Daily Read: New Book "The Price of Justice" Discusses the Caperton Case

The 2009 sharply divided Supreme Court opinion in Caperton v. Massey Coal is the centerpiece of the new book, The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption by Laurence Leamer.  Recall that the Court in Caperton ruled that due process required judicial recusal of a West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals judge, Justice Brent Benjamin, in a case involving Massey Coal because of the contributions by Massey Coal to Justice Benjamin's campaign.

The starred review from Publisher's Weekly describes the book as

the riveting and compulsively readable tale of the epic battle between Don Blankenship, the man who essentially ran the West Virginia coal industry through his company Massey Energy, and two seemingly ordinary attorneys: Bruce Stanley and David Fawcett. The centerpiece of the story is a West Virginia mine owner whom Blankenship purposefully bankrupted, and on whose behalf Stanley and Fawcett won (in 2002) a $50 million dollar verdict that is still unpaid. In hopes of having the ruling overturned by the West Virginia Supreme Court, Blankenship sought to “buy” a seat on the court by contributing over $3 million to the successful campaign of a conservative judicial candidate. However, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found that Blankenship’s contributions were too much to allow the new West Virginia justice to hear the case. Leamer has produced a Shakespearean tale of greed, corporate irresponsibility, and personal hubris on the one hand, and idealism, commitment to justice, and personal sacrifice on the other. Blankenship is a villain for all time, and Stanley and Fawcett are lawyers who bring honor to their profession.

A good addition to that summer reading list for anyone interested in constitutional law and anyone who might like a reminder that lawyers can, indeed, be heroic.

RR

New York's Highest Court on the Constitutionality of Force-Feeding Hunger Striking Prisoners

The hunger strike amongst prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has led to force-feeding, a situation prompting the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN to issue a statement reiterating the disapproval of Guantanamo and remind the United States that:

in cases involving people on hunger strikes, the duty of medical personnel to act ethically and the principle of respect for individuals’ autonomy, among other principles, must be respected. Under these principles, it is unjustifiable to engage in forced feeding of individuals contrary to their informed and voluntary refusal of such a measure. Moreover, hunger strikers should be protected from all forms of coercion, even more so when this is done through force and in some cases through physical violence. Health care personnel may not apply undue pressure of any sort on individuals who have opted for the extreme recourse of a hunger strike. Nor is it acceptable to use threats of forced feeding or other types of physical or psychological coercion against individuals who have voluntarily decided to go on a hunger strike.

New York's highest court, in its opinion in Bezio v. Dorsey regarding a state prisoner on a hunger strike reached an opposite conclusion.  The court's majority stated:

The issue before us is whether Dorsey's rights were violated by a judicial order permitting the State to feed him by nasogastric tube after his health devolved to the point that his condition became life-threatening. We answer that question in the negative.

Yet the question of Dorsey's "rights" that were properly before the court occupied the bulk of the majority and dissenting opinions.  The state Department of Corrections and Correctional Services (DOCCS) had originally sought the judicial order relating to Dorsey, a "serial hunger striker," which Dorsey resisted with pragmatic rather than constitutional arguments.  But the state relied heavily on previous New York law - - - including a case involving Mark Chapman, the man convicted of murdering John Lennon - - - to support the constitutionality of forced-feeding. 

Chief Judge Lippman, dissenting (and joined by Judge Rivera) argued that there were too many factual distinctions, including any finding that the prisoner or the institution was actually in danger.

As noted, DOCCS's own consulting psychiatrist stated flatly in his assessment that Mr. Dorsey was not suicidal. He was undoubtedly manipulative [as the doctor had stated], but all civil disobedience is manipulative. Manipulativeness, obviously, is not a sufficient predicate for forced feeding by the State.

While concluding that the issues are not properly before the court, and that the case is moot under state constitutional doctrine, the dissenting judges nevertheless concluded

The right to refuse treatment, we have held, is a kind of liberty interest within the protective ambit of the Due Process Clause of the State Constitution. While the right may be overcome in compelling circumstances justifying the state's resort to its police power and the state may thus intervene to prevent suicide, the individual's basic prerogative to make decisions affecting his or her own personal health and right to be left alone, i.e. to personal privacy, ordinarily will trump even the best intended state intervention.  

For the majority of the court, however, the balance articulated in Turner v. Safley (1987) was easily resolved in favor of the legitimate penological interests of the prison, including the risk of a "significant destabilizing impact on the institution" by an inmate hunger strike, to allow force feeding an inmate.

RR
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Daily Read: Congressional Research Service on Obama's Federal Court Nominees

The general perception that Congress has been recalcitrant regarding President Obama's nominees to the federal bench can be tested against the Congressional Research Service report, President Obama’s First-Term U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations: An Analysis and Comparison with Presidents Since Reagan, authored by Barry J. McMillion.

Regarding Circuit judgeships, the report concludes:

During the first terms of the five most recent Presidents (Reagan to Obama), the 30 confirmed Obama circuit court nominees were tied with 30 Clinton nominees as the fewest number of circuit nominees confirmed. The percentage of circuit nominees confirmed during President Obama’s first term, 71.4%, was the second-lowest, while the percentage confirmed during G.W. Bush’s first term, 67.3%, was the lowest.

For district judges, the report declares:

President Obama’s first term, compared with the first terms of Presidents Reagan to G.W. Bush, had the second-fewest number of district court nominees confirmed (143 compared with 130 for President Reagan) and the second-lowest percentage of district court nominees confirmed (82.7% compared with 76.9% for President G.H.W. Bush).

As to the timeliness of the process, the report states:

President Obama is the only one of the five most recent Presidents for whom, during his first term, both the average and median waiting time from nomination to confirmation for circuit and district court nominees was greater than half a calendar year (i.e., more than 182 days).

 

The 31 page report has many specific details and statistics.  It's definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the federal judiciary.

RR