Constitutional Law Prof Blog

Watchdog Organization Can't Challenge IRS Rule Granting Nonprofit Status to Political Orgs

Steven D. Schwinn, The John Marshall Law School

Judge John D. Bates (D.D.C.) yesterday dismissed a case brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, challenging the IRS rule that allows donors to certain political organizations to remain under the radar. 

The ruling means that CREW's effort in this court to get the IRS to rewrite its rule on 501(c)(4) organizations fails, and that unless and until the IRS rewrites its rule, 501(c)(4) organizations can continue engaging up to 49% of their activity in political spending while keeping their donors hidden from public view.

The case, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. IRS, challenged the IRS rule implementing Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.  That provision grants a tax exemption for organizations "not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare."  (Emphasis added.)  But the IRS rule implementing that provision applies to organizations that are "primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.  An organization embraced within this section is one which is operated primarily for the purpose of bringing about civic betterments and social improvements."

In short: The statutory "operated exclusively" became a regulatory "primarily engaged," giving 501(c)(4)s considerably more latitude to engage in electioneering.

That matters, because 501(c)(4) status allows organizations to spend money in politics while at the same time shielding the names of donors.  Some 501(c)(4)s have taken the position, based on the IRS rule, that they qualify for tax exemption if they engage 49% of less in political donations.  That's a lot of political donations--and a lot of shielding of donors--especially when the statute requires them to be "operated exclusively" for social welfare purposes.

So CREW sued, arguing that the IRS regulation let 501(c)(4)s get away with way more political spending, and shielding, than the Internal Revenue Code allowed.

But Judge Bates dismissed the case for lack of standing.  He ruled that CREW could not establish informational injury, because its injury--lack of information on donors--was hypohetical and speculative.  In particular, Judge Bates wrote that it wasn't the IRS regulation that prevented CREW from getting information on donors, but instead the organizations' decision on how to organize.  In other words, if the IRS rewrote its regulation to conform to the Internal Revenue Code, 501(c)(4)s might drop their tax-exempt status or reorganize under another tax-exempt provision to maintain donor confidentiality; but they wouldn't necessarily reorganize as 527s (which would require donor disclosure).  Judge Bates wrote that this also prevented CREW from showing causation and redressability.

Judge Bates also ruled that CREW did not have standing based on programmatic injury--the injury to its ability to collect donor information and fulfill its watchdog mission.  That's because CREW's injury isn't "fairly traceable" to the IRS decision not to rewrite its rule--there are other intervening causes of CREW's injury.

Ninth Circuit Upholds School Ban of American Flag Shirt

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

In its opinion in Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, the Ninth Circuit rejected a claim by students that their constitutional rights were violated when school officials banned their American flag clothing during a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Affirming the district judge, the panel applied Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) to the First Amendment claims, distinguishing Tinker:

In contrast to Tinker, in which there was “no evidence whatever of petitioners’ interference, actual or nascent, with the schools’ work or of collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone,” id., there was evidence of nascent and escalating violence at Live Oak. On the morning of May 5, 2010, each of the three students was confronted about their clothing by other students, one of whom approached student M.D. and asked, “Why are you wearing that? Do you not like Mexicans[?]” Before the brunch break, [Principal] Rodriguez learned of the threat of a physical altercation. During the break, Rodriguez was warned about impending violence by a second student. The warnings of violence came, as the district court noted, “in [the] context of ongoing racial tension and gang violence within the school, and after a near-violent altercation had erupted during the prior Cinco de Mayo over the display of an American flag.” Threats issued in the aftermath of the incident were so real that the parents of the students involved in this suit kept them home from school two days later.

Moreover, the school did not "embargo all flag-related clothing," but "distinguished among the students based on the perceived threat level" and allowed "two students to return to class when it became clear that their shirts were unlikely to make them targets of violence."

The court also rejected the students' equal protection claim, which seemed to rest upon viewpoint discrimination, and indeed the court again relied upon Tinker.  The court further rejected the facial due process challenge to the school dress code, which prohibited clothing that “indicate[s] gang affiliation, create[s] a safety hazard, or disrupt[s] school activities," finding that it need not be more specific:

It would be unreasonable to require a dress code to anticipate every scenario that might pose a safety risk to students or that might substantially disrupt school activities. Dress codes are not, nor should they be, a school version of the Code of Federal Regulations. It would be equally unreasonable to hold that school officials could not, at a minimum, rely upon the language Tinker gives them.

While school dress codes and their application can raise grave constitutional concerns, the context as the court explains it here seems to warrant the tailored of school officials, American flag or not.

[image: American Flag clothing patch from "Easy Rider" via]

Daily Video: A Camera and Protest in the United States Supreme Court

Here's the video:

 

 

 

Commentary available from Reuters  and NYT.

Our discussion of the oral arguments in McCutcheon and its relationship to Citizens United is here.

How Can States Measure Mental Retardation when Imposing the Death Penalty?

Steven D. Schwinn, The John Marshall Law School

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday in Hall v. Florida, the case testing whether Florida's method of determining mental retardation solely by reference to an IQ number (at or below 70) violates the Court's ruling in Atkins that states may not impose the death penalty on the mentally retarded.  Here's a portion of my preview of the case, from the ABA Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases, with permission:

FACTS

Freddie Lee Hall was tried and convicted for the 1978 murder of Karol Hurst. He was sentenced to death. (Hall’s co-defendant, Mack Ruffin, also convicted of murder in a separate trial, was sentenced to life in prison.) Hall’s conviction and sentence were upheld on direct appeal by the Florida Supreme Court.

Hall later filed a motion in the Florida courts to vacate his sentence based on mitigating evidence of his mental retardation and the brutal abuse he suffered as a child. (Hall filed this motion after the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 in Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, that capital defendants must be permitted to present non-statutory mitigating evidence in the penalty phase of a capital trial.) The Florida Supreme Court vacated Hall’s death sentence and remanded for a new sentencing proceeding.

At the resentencing hearing in December 1990, Hall presented uncontroverted evidence of his mental retardation. Hall’s family members testified to his childhood mental disabilities, including difficulties understanding, thinking, and communicating. His school records indicated that his teachers repeatedly identified him as “mentally retarded.” Hall’s former attorneys testified that because of his mental disabilities and problems with communications, Hall could not even assist with his own defense. And evidence from clinicians concluded that Hall was “extremely impaired psychiatrically, neurologically and intellectually,” that he showed signs of “serious brain impairment,” and that he “is probably incapable of even the most . . . basic living skills which incorporate math and reading.” One test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised, or “WAIS-R,” administered by a graduate student, put Hall’s IQ at 80. Another test, the Revised Beta Examination, scored Hall at 60 (the lowest possible score), in the range of mental retardation. (Earlier tests, a Beta Test and a Kent Test, put Hall’s IQ at 76 and 79, respectively. But these tests are not considered as reliable as the Wechsler test. Indeed, Florida does not permit the use of the Kent or Beta tests to determine mental retardation at sentencing in capital cases.) Based on this last test and other evaluations, one doctor concluded that Hall was “mentally retarded” and that the mental retardation was “longstanding.”

The trial court nevertheless again condemned Hall to death, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed. He later sought postconviction relief. This was denied, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed.

In 2001, Florida enacted a statute, § 921.137, that prohibited the execution of persons with mental retardation. The law defined mental retardation as “significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the period from conception to age 18.” The law further defined “significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning” as “performance that is two or more standard deviations from the mean score on a standardized intelligence test specified in the [relevant Florida] rules.”

The next year, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), that the “mentally retarded should be categorically excluded from execution.” The Court explained that the “diminished capacities” of persons with mental retardation “to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others” undermined the traditional justifications for the death penalty and made it more likely that persons with mental retardation would be wrongfully convicted and executed.

In 2004, Hall filed a claim under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.203, which established a process for Atkins claims, arguing that his death sentence violated Atkins. A hearing was held on Hall’s motion in 2009. Hall presented evidence similar to that in his previous case. In particular, Dr. Greg Pritchard testified that he administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III, or “WAIS-III,” on which Hall scored 71. Dr. Pritchard also considered the results of a WAIS-IV test administered by Dr. Joseph Sesta in 2008, on which Hall scored 72, and a WAIS-III test administered by Dr. Bill Mosman in 2001, on which Hall scored 69. The trial court excluded Dr. Mosman’s report, however, because Dr. Mosman died, and Hall’s attorney was unable to provide the state with the raw data underlying the report. Dr. Harry Krop testified that Hall’s IQ was 73 on the WAIS-R.

The trial court denied Hall’s motion on the ground that Hall was unable to demonstrate “an I.Q. score of 70 or lower.” The trial court set that particular threshold because the Florida Supreme Court interpreted § 921.127 two years earlier, in Cherry v. State, 959 So.2d 702 (Fla. 2007), to mean that only persons with an IQ of 70 or under qualified as mentally retarded. (The condemned prisoner in Cherry had an IQ of 72. The Florida Supreme Court denied relief.)  The Florida Supreme Court, relying on its holding in Cherry, affirmed. This appeal followed.

CASE ANALYSIS

The Supreme Court ruled in Atkins that a state violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment when it executes a mentally retarded person. But the case did not define mental retardation. As a result, states have developed their own approaches to defining mental retardation. Florida’s approach, under the state Supreme Court ruling in Cherry, defines mental retardation rigidly, as an IQ test score of 70 or below.

The parties in this case argue whether Florida’s approach violates Atkins. More particularly, they argue whether executing a person, like Hall, who has IQ test scores above 70 but nevertheless has severe and well documented deficiencies in his intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, violates the Supreme Court’s prohibition on executing the mentally retarded.

Hall argues first that Atkins forbids the execution of persons meeting the clinical definition of mental retardation. According to Hall, that definition does not set a rigid cutoff; instead, it incorporates three prongs: (1) “significantly subaverage” intellectual functioning; (2) limitations in adaptive functioning; and (3) onset before age 18. Hall says that the Court in Atkins recognized this, because it cited two clinical sources that contained definitions that incorporated these three prongs, and because it repeatedly described IQ, again citing these and other clinical sources, as only a rough measure of mental retardation. (Hall, and the Court, refer to the definitions of mental retardation promulgated by the American Association on Mental Retardation, or the AAMR, now the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, or the AAIDD, and the American Psychiatric Association, or APA.) Hall contends that Florida’s rigid cutoff for mental retardation impermissibly redefines the clinical definition of mental retardation under Atkins. (Hall notes that the plain language of § 921.137 can be squared with Atkins. It is the Florida Supreme Court’s rigid interpretation of § 921.137 that violates Atkins.)

Next, Hall argues that Florida’s rigid approach does not comport with the commonly accepted clinical definition of mental retardation. In particular, Hall claims that Florida’s rigid approach fails to take into account the standard error of measurement, or SEM. As Hall explains, “in Florida, an obtained IQ test score of 71—notwithstanding that it is clinically indistinguishable from a score of 70, in light of the inherent measurement error in the test—bars a defendant from presenting any evidence of limitations in adaptive functioning.” This is so, even though that evidence may be compelling, and even though psychiatrists may have diagnosed the defendant as having mental retardation. Hall points (again) to the nearly identical definitions promulgated by the AAIDD and the APA, both of which account for measurement error within a range of plus- or minus-five points. Hall says that an obtained IQ score plus or minus one SEM yields a confidence interval equating to a 66 percent probability that a person’s true IQ test score falls within that range. (If a person’s score is 70, with a SEM of 2.5 points, there is about a two-thirds chance that the person’s actual IQ is between 67.5 and 72.5.) He claims that the definitions promulgated by the AAIDD and the APA both account for the SEM and the resulting confidence interval. He says that they also look to guidelines on intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, in addition to IQ scores, and require clinical judgment to determine mental retardation. Hall contends that both the AAIDD and the APA reject a specific cutoff score as the measure for mental retardation.

Hall says that Florida’s rigid approach is inconsistent with these commonly accepted clinical definitions. Moreover, he contends that other death-penalty states have rejected Florida’s rigid approach, and that Florida is in a small minority of states that have adopted a rigid cutoff without consideration of the SEM. He claims that Florida’s rigid approach will result in an unacceptable risk of executions of individuals who are mentally retarded.

Finally, Hall argues that there is no genuine dispute that under accepted clinical standards, he is mentally retarded. Hall says that all of his scores, save his score of 80, an outlier, are in the 95 percent confidence interval for a “true” score of 70, or two standard deviations below the mean IQ score. He contends that while those scores alone are insufficient to yield a diagnosis of mental retardation, they would prompt any competent clinician to investigate his adaptive behavior. And based upon that investigation—through all the evidence of his poor intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior submitted at earlier hearings—Hall says that he is mentally retarded.

The state argues first that Atkins left states substantial leeway in enforcing the ban on executing the mentally retarded. The state says that Atkins did not prescribe any particular diagnostic criteria or definition of mental retardation and, in particular, did not hold that states must apply the AAMR or APA definitions. Indeed, the state claims that Atkins relied on a national consensus against executing the mentally retarded that included Florida’s § 921.137 and other states with varied definitions of mental retardation. In other words, the state says that Atkins recognized a national consensus against executing the mentally retarded, but not a national consensus around a definition of mental retardation. Florida claims that the Court in Atkins relied on its own judgment about the mentally retarded and why they cannot be executed, not on a particular medical definition of mental retardation; instead, it left that to the states.

The state argues next that the Court should not eliminate the states’ roles in enforcing Atkins. The state claims that the Court has traditionally deferred to the states in defining mental conditions for the purposes of criminal law. Moreover, the state says that deference is particularly appropriate here, where diagnostic criteria for mental retardation (including criteria for evaluating intellectual functioning, adaptive functioning, and even the age of onset) have changed so much over time and are constantly evolving. In particular, the state points to the changing ways that authorities have relied on IQ. Given these differences, the state says that a person could be labeled mentally retarded under one definition but not under another. The state claims that it would be particularly inappropriate for the Court to force the states to agree with any one particular authority under these circumstances. The state also suggests that the APA, the AAIDD, and similar groups seek to limit the application of the death penalty. According to the state, if the Court requires states to adhere to (evolving) clinical criteria developed by these groups, then these groups “would have unavoidable incentives to adopt even more expansive definitions of mental retardation” in order to serve their political purpose, to limit the application of the death penalty.

Third, the state argues that its approach is appropriate under Atkins. The state says that its definition generally conforms to the clinical definitions. It claims that its approach requires a finding on all three prongs (intellectual functioning, adaptive functioning, and age-of-onset), and that its IQ threshold is a long-settled way of determining mental retardation. It contends that consideration of the SEM is appropriate for some purposes (like education, or determining eligibility for services), but not here, where Hall introduced numerous and varying test scores that fell above 70. The state says that a defendant can still introduce other mitigating evidence that satisfies some non-statutory definitions of mental retardation.

The state contends that there is no national consensus on how to use the SEM, or how to consider clinical criteria. Still, it says that its approach is consistent with other states. It claims that Hall’s approach would undermine its important interests in finality (because Hall’s approach would necessarily lead to subsequent challenges based on constantly evolving clinical definitions) and an objective determination of mental retardation.

Finally, the state argues that Hall is not mentally retarded. The state says that Hall’s crime—involving a multi-step plan that was cold, calculated, and premeditated—shows that he was not mentally retarded when he committed the crime. It also says that Hall’s medical evidence (including the results of his IQ tests) fail to show that his mental state was attributable to mental retardation. Instead, it says, Hall’s evidence suggests that his mental state was attributable to his difficult childhood, abusive mother, and poverty.

SIGNIFICANCE

According to an amicus brief filed by nine other states in support of Florida, ten states use “an obtained IQ test score above 70 [as] a conclusive, bright-line cutoff (without using the SEM) in evaluating the intellectual function prong of mental retardation.” Two other states have adopted bright-line cutoffs above 75. A number of other states either do not use a rigid cutoff, or allow application of the SEM in evaluating IQ scores. A number of other states have not firmly determined their approaches. (Thirty-two states in all still have the death penalty, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org. The amicus brief for Arizona and eight other states contains an appendix with a summary of state laws and rulings on determining mental retardation and another appendix with each state’s burden of proof.)

As a result, Hall potentially directly affects ten, or maybe twelve, states—those with rigid cutoffs for determining mental retardation. If the Court rules for Hall, those states will have to adjust their determination criteria to take into account the SEM, and possibly other factors. (The Question Presented asks only whether a state must consider the SEM. Still, there is nothing preventing the Court from saying more about the definition of mental retardation. It seems unlikely that the Court will prescribe a particular comprehensive definition or approach, though. Instead, if it rules for Hall, it will likely continue to give the states substantial room to craft their own definitions, within the broad boundaries of its ruling.)

On the other hand, if the Court rules for Florida, those states may obviously retain their rigid definitions. In that case, there is a possibility, although it seems quite slim, that other states that currently consider the SEM or other factors may simplify their own definitions and follow Florida’s approach.

 

Pro Publica on Voting Changes Since Shelby County

Steven D. Schwinn, The John Marshall Law School

Pro Publica has a concise list of state-by-state changes to voting laws since the Supreme Court's ruling last summer in Shelby County.  The page includes an interactive map that shows how previously covered jurisdictions have taken advantage of their lack of coverage to impose tighter voting requirements.

Recall that the Supreme Court ruled last summer in Shelby County that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the coverage formula for the preclearance provision (in Section 5), exceeded congressional authority.  Chief Justice Roberts wrote that "things had changed" since Congress enacted the VRA in 1965, but that the preclearance coverage formula hadn't kept pace.  Moreover, he wrote that a coverage formula that treats states differently, as Sections 4 and 5 did, violated a newly minted principle of equal state sovereignty.

In the immediate wake of the ruling, previously covered jurisdictions like Texas and North Carolina moved swiftly to enact more restrictive voting requirements that were previously denied preclearance--bold, in-your-face moves that illustrated the impact of the Court's ruling.  Since that time, more jurisdictions, many of them previously covered jurisdictions, have similarly tightened voting requirements in ways that will likely have disparate impacts on poor and racial minority communities.

Ninth Circuit Orders "Innocence of Muslims" Video Taken Down

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The intersection of First Amendment and copyright is not always well-marked and it is certainly murky in the Ninth Circuit's divided opinion in Garcia v. Google, involving the controversial "Innocence of Muslims" video posted on YouTube (owned by Google, Inc.). 

Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski sets the scene:

While answering a casting call for a low-budget amateur film doesn’t often lead to stardom, it also rarely turns an aspiring actress into the subject of a fatwa. But that’s exactly what happened to Cindy Lee Garcia when she agreed to act in a film with the working title “Desert Warrior.”

The film’s writer and producer, Mark Basseley Youssef—who also goes by the names Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Sam Bacile—cast Garcia in a minor role. Garcia was given the four pages of the script in which her character appeared and paid approximately $500 for three and a half days of filming. “Desert Warrior” never materialized. Instead, Garcia’s scene was used in an anti-Islamic film titled “Innocence of Muslims.” Garcia first saw “Innocence of Muslims” after it was uploaded to YouTube.com and she discovered that her brief performance had been partially dubbed over so that she appeared to be asking, “Is your Mohammed a child molester?”

These, of course, are fighting words to many faithful Muslims and, after the film aired on Egyptian television, there were protests that generated worldwide news coverage. An Egyptian cleric issued a fatwa, calling for the killing of everyone involved with the film, and Garcia soon began receiving death threats. She responded by taking a number of security precautions and asking that Google remove the video from YouTube.

The copyright issue seems to be whether an actor can copyright her performance and how issues such as fraud and work-for-hire fit into such an analysis.  Yet even if Garcia prevails in her copyright claim, a First Amendment issue arises with the relief - - - a preliminary injunction.  The majority gives short shrift to Google's First Amendment argument raising such an argument:

The problem with Google’s position is that it rests entirely on the assertion that Garcia’s proposed injunction is an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect copyright infringement. Cf. Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 219–220 (2003). Because Garcia has demonstrated a likelihood of success on her claim that “Innocence of Muslims” infringes her copyright, Google’s argument fails. The balance of equities therefore clearly favors Garcia and, to the extent the public interest is implicated at all, it, too, tips in Garcia’s direction.

(Recall that the Court in Eldred upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and found copyright generally consistent with the First Amendment).

Dissenting, Judge N.R. Smith argued that the First Amendment should be weighed heavily as the public interest militating against a preliminary injunction - - - but only because he believes there is no statutory claim for copyright infringement:

The public’s interest in a robust First Amendment cannot be questioned. See Sammartano v. First Judicial Dist. Court, 303 F.3d 959, 974 (9th Cir. 2002). Opposite this vital public interest is Garcia’s allegation of copyright infringement. Properly enforcing the Copyright Act is also an important public interest. See Small v. Avanti Health Sys., LLC, 661 F.3d 1180, 1197 (9th Cir. 2011). Indeed, if Google were actually infringing Garcia’s copyright, the First Amendment could not shelter it. See Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 219–20 (2003).

But the case at bar does not present copyright infringement per se. Instead (in an unprecedented opinion), the majority concludes that Garcia may have a copyright interest in her acting performance. Maj. op. at 10. As a result, Google’s contention, that issuing a preliminary injunction on these facts may constitute a prior restraint of speech under the First Amendment, identifies an important public interest.

As Judge Kozinski's majority opinion notes, this is "a troubling case."  But while the majority is troubled by the deception of and possible harm to Garcia, others are more troubled by the First Amendment implications of ordering any material removed from YouTube.  YouTube has complied, but has availed itself of the oft-suggested remedy of "more speech" as in the image below:

Supreme Court in Apel: First Amendment is an Issue on Remand?

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The Court issued its opinion today in United States v. Apel, a case involving a protest outside a military facility.  As to whether the protest involved the First Amendment, that issue is still unresolved.  As we noted about the oral argument, mentions of the First Amendment were rebuffed and they play little role in the opinion, which concentrates on the statutory interpretation issue. 

Nevertheless, Justice Ginsburg's concurring opinion, joined by Sotomayor, is worth reading in its entirety:

I agree with the Court’s reading of 18 U. S. C. §1382: The military’s choice “to secure a portion of the Base more closely—be it with a fence, a checkpoint, or a painted green line—does not alter the boundaries of the Base or diminish the jurisdiction of the military commander.”  But a key inquiry remains, for the fence, checkpoint, and painted line, while they do not alter the Base boundaries, may alter the First Amendment calculus.

When the Government permits the public onto part of its property, in either a traditional or designated public forum, its “ability to permissibly restrict expressive conduct is very limited.” United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171, 177 (1983). In such venues, the Government may enforce “reasonable time, place, and manner regulations,” but those regulations must be “content-neutral [and] narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).

The stated interest of the Air Force in keeping Apel out of the area designated for peaceful protest lies in ensuring base security. That interest, however, must be assessed in light of the general public’s (including Apel’s) permission to traverse, at any hour of the day or night, the highway located a few feet from the designated protest area. See Appendix to opinion of the Court, ante (displaying maps of the area). The Air Force also permits open access to the middle school, bus stop, and visitors’ center, all situated in close proximity to the protest area.

As the Air Force has exhibited no “special interes[t] in who walks [or] talks” in these places, Flower v. United States, 407 U. S. 197, 198 (1972) (per curiam), it is questionable whether Apel’s ouster from the protest area can withstand constitutional review. The Court has properly reserved that issue for consideration on remand.  In accord with that reservation, I join the Court’s opinion.

[citations to opinion and briefs omitted].

Does this mean that Apel may have a First Amendment challenge yet?

Federal Judge Declares Texas Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

Judge Orlando Garcia's opinion in DeLeon v. Perry  issuing a preliminary injunction against a state constitutional same-sex marriage ban because it is most likely unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment today marks the sixth time in recent weeks that a federal judge has reached such a conclusion.

Indeed, Judge Garcia's opinion relies upon these previous opinions in Bostic v. Rainey  from the Eastern District of Virginia, Bourke v. Beshear from the Western District of Kentucky;  Bishop v. United States from the Northern District of Oklahoma, Obergefell v. Wymyslo from the Southern District of Ohio, and Kitchen v. Herbert, from the District of Utah, as well as upon the Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. Windsor declaring §3 of DOMA unconstitutional.

Judge Garcia's 38 page opinion begins with an extensive discussion of the parties, the statutory and state constitutional scheme in Texas barring same sex marriage, and even a discussion of the "national debate on same sex marriage beginning with the Hawai'i Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Baehr v. Lewin.   As a preliminary matter, he not only analyzes the standing issue, but also the United States Supreme Court's summary disposition in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810 (1972), which would seem to have been rendered irrelevant by Windsor.

On the merits - - - or more properly, on the "likelihood to succeed on the merits" prong of the preliminary judgment analysis - - - Judge Garcia's analysis is well-crafted and closely reasoned. 

Regarding equal protection, his analysis of the contention that sexual orientation merits heightened scrutiny is well-done, although he ultimately concludes that it is unnecessary to apply heightened scrutiny because "Texas' ban on same-sex marriage fails even under the most deferential rational basis level of review."  He concludes that the two government interests that the State proffers as supporting the same sex marriage ban as failing rational basis review.  First, the state's desire "to increase the likelihood that a mother and a father will be in charge of childrearing" is reinterpreted simply as childrearing.  As such, while the interest may be legitimate, it is not rationally served by banning same-sex marriage.  Second, the state's desire "to encourage stable family environments for responsible procreation" is similarly not served.  Third, Judge Garcia discusses "tradition," that while it was not explicitly advanced by the State, undergirds many of the State's arguments.  Here Judge Garcia finds that the interest is not legitmate.

In his analysis of due process, Judge Garcia, like Judge Allen in Bostic, finds marriage to be a fundamental right.  Judge Garcia marshalls the Supreme Court precedent thusly:

The State does not dispute that the right to marry is one of the fundamental rights protected by the United States Constitution. Oral Arg. Tr. p. 37 (arguing Texas marriage law does not violate Plaintiffs' "fundamental" right to marry). See, e.g., Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 384 (1978) ("[D]ecisions of this Court confirm that the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals."); United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 446 (1973) (concluding the Court has come to regard marriage as fundamental); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967) ( The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."); Skinner v. Okla. ex. rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942) (noting marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man fundamental to our existence and survival); Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190, 205, 211 (1888) (characterizing marriage as "the most important relation in life" and as "the foundation of the family and society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.").

He thus applies strict scrutiny and the same-sex marriage ban fails.

Judge Garcia also considers the failure to recognize an out of state same-sex marriage, as required by Texas law, and subjects this to rational basis, and analogizing to Windsor, finds this also easily fails.The opinion does seemingly address a popular audience, but even here Judge Garcia grounds his rhetoric in precedent:

Today's Court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the United States Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution. Furthermore, Supreme Court precedent prohibits states from passing legislation bom out of animosity against homosexuals (Romer), has extended constitutional protection to the moral and sexual choices of homosexuals (Lawrence), and prohibits the federal government from treating state-sanctioned opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages differently (Windsor).

Judge Garcia stayed his opinion, mindful of the stay in Herbert v. Kitchen. Thus until the Fifth Circuit hears the case - - - or another decision - - - same sex marriages will not be occurring in Texas.

[image: map of Texas circa 1866 via]

Cohabitant Can Consent to Search Over Objection of Absent Occupant

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

The Supreme Court ruled today that a cohabitant of an apartment can validly consent to a search of the apartment, even over the objections of an absent co-occupant.  The ruling in Fernandez v. California means that police can search an apartment (or home), without a warrant, based on the permission of one occupant, even when another occupant objects, so long as the other occupant isn't around.

The case arose when police knocked on an apartment door after hearing screams come from the apartment.  Roxanne Rojas answered; she appeared to be battered and bleeding.  Police asked Rojas to step out of the apartment so that they could conduct a protective sweep.  Fernandez came to the door and objected.

Police suspected that Fernandez assaulted Rojas and arrested him.  They then identified him as the perpetrator in an earlier robbery and took him to the station.

An officer later returned to the apartment, obtained oral permission from Rojas to search it, searched it, and found items linking Fernandez to the robbery. 

Fernandez moved to suppress the items, arguing that he did not give consent to search.  He relied on Georgia v. Randolph (2006), which held that the consent of one occupant is insufficient to allow a warrantless search if another occupant is present and objects to the search.

The Court declined to extend Randolph to this case, where Fernandez was absent.  Justice Alito wrote for the majority:

Our opinion in Randolph took great pains to emphasize that its holding was limited to situations in which the objecting occupant is physically present.  We therefore refuse to extend Randolph to the very different situation in this case, where consent was provided by an abused woman well after her male partner had been removed from the apartment they shared.

Justices Scalia and Thomas concurred, both taking issue with the Randolph rule itself, and Justice Scalia trying to shoehorn in a property law analysis.

Justice Ginsburg, writing for herself and Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented:

Instead of adhering to the warrant requirement, today's decision tells the police that they may dodge it, nevermind ample time to secure the approval of a neutral magistrate.  Suppressing the warrant requirement, the Court shrinks to petite size our holding in [Randolph] that "a physically present inhabitant's express refusal of consent to a police search [of his home] is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant."

Harvard Conference on Religious Accommodation

Harvard Law will host a conference in early April, April 3 to April 5, titled Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights.  It includes a pretty amazing line-up.  Here's the description:

Current controversies over marriage equality, antidiscrimination law, and the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate have raised conflicts between religious claims, on one hand, and LGBT equality and women's rights, on the other.  The conference seeks to deepen our understanding of the competing claims by bringing together nationally recognized scholars in the fields of sexuality, gender, and law and religion.

Click here for more information and registration.

Brennan Center Launches Newsletter on Money in Politics

The Brennan Center at NYU launched its new newsletter Money in Politics last week.  According to the announcement, the newsletter "will highlight the latest news on the role of big money in politics, its potential impact on the 2014 election, and reform efforts nationwide."  Here's the first issue, published on February 20, covering New York's moves toward public financing, super-PAC donations from both sides of the aisle, a federal public financing bill, and various news related to spending and campaign finance reform.

La Verne Symposium on Brown, Cause Lawyering

The University of La Verne College of Law will host a symposium this Friday, February 28, titled Brown v. Board of Education at 60: Cause Lawyering for a New Generation.  Conlaw Prof. F. Michael Higginbotham (U. Baltimore) will deliver the keynote.  Registration and more information is here.

Same-Sex Marriage in Chicago, but not all of Illinois until June 1

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

In her very brief opinion and order in Lee v. Orr, United States District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman found that Illinois' same-sex marriage ban - - - already changed by the legislature but not effective until June 1, 2014 because of state constitutional requirements  - - - was unconstitutional.  

The judge's reasoning was understandably scanty: Not only did the parties' agree that summary judgment was appropriate because there was no disputed issues of fact, but they essentially agreed that there were not disputed issues of law:

There is no dispute here that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and infringes on the plaintiffs’ fundamental right to marry. Indeed, the defendant and intervenor have joined in plaintiffs’ motion, with the caveat the defendant David Orr is bound to follow the law in Illinois.

The sticking points were the remedies.

First, and less sticky, was the timing.  The judge quoted Martin Luther King for her reasoning to extend previous rulings:

the focus in this case shifts from the “we can’t wait” for terminally ill individuals to “why should we wait” for all gay and lesbian couples that want to marry. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: the time is always ripe to do right. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., WHY WE CAN’T WAIT 74 (1964).

 

Second, and stickier, was the place:

The plaintiffs are asking this Court to strike down a state statute, although they have brought suit solely against the Cook County Clerk. . . . Although this Court finds that the marriage ban for same-sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause on its face, this finding can only apply to Cook County based upon the posture of the lawsuit.

Absent additional litigation - - - and different lawyering - - - same-sex marriage in Illinois is available in Chicago now and the rest of the state starting June 1.

[image: map of Chicago, circa 1871, via]

Seventh Circuit Pulls Back Curtain on Notre Dame's Challenge to Contraception Mandate

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

In an opinion dripping with contempt for Notre Dame's litigation strategies and legal theories, the Seventh Circuit today affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction for the university in its challenge against the contraception mandate in Obamacare.  The ruling in Notre Dame v. Sebelius sends the case back to the district court for full proceedings and denies Notre Dame interim relief.

It also pulls back the curtain on Notre Dame's claim, revealing just how far-fetched it is.

The issue in this case--whether the government's accommodation for religious nonprofits to exempt themselves from the contraception mandate itself violates religious freedom--is the same issue in Little Sisters, the case in which the Supreme Court recently allowed a religious nonprofit to sidestep the mandate and the accommodation pending its appeal on the merits to the Tenth Circuit.

Recall that the government crafted an accommodation to the Obamacare requirement that employers provide health-insurance options that include contraception for females.  The accommodation allowed religious nonprofits (like Little Sisters and Notre Dame) to shift the mandate to their insurers or third-party administrators (which then would have to provide contraception options to the insured employees and students free of charge) by completing a short form indicating that they have a religious objection to contraception. 

Notre Dame, Little Sisters, and other religious nonprofits sued, arguing that the accommodation itself violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment.

The Seventh Circuit's ruling addresses only whether Notre Dame qualifies for a preliminary injunction from the accommodation (and mandate) while its case proceeds to the merits.  But in answering that question, the court had to determine whether Notre Dame is likely to succeed on the merits.  And the court said that it wasn't.

Right out of the gate, the court practically mocked the university for asking for something that the court couldn't deliver--because of the university's litigation tactics.  In particular, the court noted that Notre Dame filed its case late, close to the mandate's (and the accommodation's) implementation date, so that it was forced to either file the form for the accommodation or incur fines under the Affordable Care Act.  Notre Dame filed the form, and its administrator notified Notre Dame employees that contraception was available to them.  With the cat out of the bag, the court wondered what relief does Notre Dame want?  Revoking the form would do nothing, because federal law requires the administrator (not Notre Dame) to provide contraception.  But the court can't order the administrator to stop providing contraception, because Notre Dame neglected to join the administrator in the case.

As to the merits, the court was equally dismissive.  In particular, the court rejected Notre Dame's "trigger" theory--that by signing the accommodation form, it triggers, or enables, contraception coverage by a third party, against its religious beliefs.  The court dismissed this out of hand:

The key word is "enable," and it's inaccurate.  Federal law, not the religious organization's signing and mailing the form, requires health-care insurers, along with third-party administrators or self-insured health plans, to cover contraceptive services.  By refusing to fill out the form Notre Dame would subject itself to penalties, but [its insurance company and administrator] would still be required by federal law to provide the services to the university's students and employees unless and until their contractual relations with Notre Dame terminated.

The court wrote further,

The novelty of Notre Dame's claim--not for the exemption, which it has, but for the right to have it without having to ask for it--deserves emphasis. . . .  What makes this case and others like it involving the contraception exemption paradoxical and virtually unprecedented is that the beneficiaries of the religious exemption are claiming that the exemption process itself imposes a substantial burden on their religious faiths. . . . 

The process of claiming one's exemption from the duty to provide contraceptive coverage is the opposite of cumbersome.  It amounts to signing one's name and mailing the signed form to two addresses.  Notre Dame may consider the process a substantial burden, but substantiality--like compelling government interest--is for the court to decide.  Otherwise there would have been no need for Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to prefix "substantial" to "burden."

The court also held that Notre Dame was not likely to succeed on its Establishment Clause claim, that the Act treats religions differently than religious organizations for the purpose of exemption from the contraception mandate. 

The court did find potential merit in Notre Dame's claim that a regulation that forbids a religious nonprofit from interfering with a third-party administrator's arrangements to provide for contraceptive services violates free speech.  But the court said that the parties "failed to place the issue in focus," and so didn't rule on it.

Judge Flaum dissented, arguing that the court should have granted Notre Dame's motion to dismiss the appeal after three Notre Dame students joined the appeal to argue that Notre Dame's religious conviction was not sincere, and that Notre Dame showed a likelihood of success on the merits.

Federal Judge Dismisses Complaint Alleging NYC Police Surveillance of Muslim Communities in New Jersey

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

In a terse ten page opinion today in Hassan v. City of New York, United States District Judge William Martini dismissed a complaint alleging that the New York City Police Department’s surveillance program targeted New Jersey Muslims solely on the basis of religion, thereby violating their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The judge first found that there were not sufficient allegations to satisfy Article III standing.  He  relied upon Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972) to conclude that there was not an injury in fact because, as in Tatum, the allegations of a "subjective chill are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm."

Listening-post at Spyglass, Gibraltar via

The judge also found that the causation requirement of standing was not met because any injury was not caused by the surveillance but by the revelation of the surveillance:

None of the Plaintiffs’ injuries arose until after the Associated Press released unredacted, confidential NYPD documents and articles expressing its own interpretation of those documents. Nowhere in the Complaint do Plaintiffs allege that they suffered harm prior to the unauthorized release of the documents by the Associated Press. This confirms that Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries flow from the Associated Press’s unauthorized disclosure of the documents. The harms are not “fairly traceable” to any act of surveillance.

On the merits of the allegations, the judge applied the Iqbal "plausibility" and discriminatory "purpose" standard, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), and concluded that:

Plaintiffs in this case have not alleged facts from which it can be plausibly inferred that they were targeted solely because of their religion. The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself. While this surveillance Program may have had adverse effects upon the Muslim community after the Associated Press published its articles; the motive for the Program was not solely to discriminate against Muslims, but rather to find Muslim terrorists hiding among ordinary, law-abiding Muslims.

Copies of the complaint and other pleadings are available at the Center for Constitutional Rights. The dismissal is sure to be appealed.

Third Circuit on Pennsylvania's Funeral Director Law: Mostly Constitutional

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

Largely reversing a district judge's opinion that had found various provisions of Pennyslvania's Funeral Director Law unconstitutional on various grounds, the Third Circuit opinion in Heffner v. Murphy upholds the law except for its restriction on the use of trade names as violative of the First Amendment.

One key to the panel's decision is that it surmised that the district judge's conclusions regarding the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's Funeral Director Law (FDL), enacted in 1952, "stem from a view that certain provisions of the FDL are antiquated in light of how funeral homes now operate."  But, the Third Circuit stated, that is not a "constitutional flaw."

"A Funeral" by Anna Archer via

The challenged statutory provisions included ones that:

(1) permit warrantless inspections of funeral establishments by the Board;
(2) limit the number of establishments in which a funeral director may possess an ownership interest;
(3) restrict the capacity of unlicensed individuals and certain entities to hold ownership interests in a funeral establishment;
(4) restrict the number of funeral establishments in which a funeral director may practice his or her profession;
(5) require every funeral establishment to have a licensed full-time supervisor;
(6) require funeral establishments to have a “preparation room”;
(7) prohibit the service of food in a funeral establishment;
(8) prohibit the use of trade names by funeral homes;
(9) govern the trusting of monies advanced pursuant to pre-need contracts for merchandise; and
(10) prohibit the payment of commissions to agents or employees.

The constitutional provisions invoked - - - and found valid by the district judge - - - included the Fourth Amendment, the "dormant" commerce clause, substantive due process, the contract clause, and the First Amendment, with some provisions argued as violating more than one constitutional requirement.

In affirming the district judge's finding that the trade names prohibition violated the First Amendment, the Third Circuit applied the established four part test from Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission regarding commercial speech and found:

The restrictions on commercial speech here are so flawed that they cannot withstand First Amendment scrutiny. Indeed, the District Court correctly identified the pivotal problem concerning the FDL’s proscription at Central Hudson’s third step: by allowing funeral homes to operate under predecessors’ names, the State remains exposed to many of the same threats that it purports to remedy through its ban on the use of trade names.  A funeral director operating a home that has been established in the community, and known under his or her predecessor’s name, does not rely on his or her own personal reputation to attract business; rather, the predecessor’s name and reputation is determinative. Nor does a funeral home operating under a former owner’s name provide transparency or insight into changes in staffing that the Board insists is the legitimate interest that the State’s regulation seeks to further.

 [citation omitted]

ConLawProfs looking for a good review or even a possible exam question, might well take a look at the case.  It also seems that the Pennsylvania legislature might well take a look at its statutory scheme, which though largely constitutional, does seem outdated.

Ninth Circuit Strikes "Good Cause" Requirement for Concealed Carry

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

A divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled last week in Peruta v. County of San Diego that the city's "good cause" requirement for a concealed carry permit, enacted under California's general ban on concealed carry, violated the Second Amendment.

The ruling deepens a split in the circuits on concealed carry.  As the court wrote, "Indeed, we are the fifth circuit court to opine expressly on the issue, joining an existent circuit split. . . .  Our reading of the Second Amendment is akin to the Seventh Circuit's interpretation in Moore . . . and at odds with the aproach of the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits . . . ."

The case involves California's and San Diego's concealed carry permitting requirements.  California law generally bans concealed carry, but allows a person to apply for a concealed carry permit where he or she lives, provided that the person shows "good moral character," completes a training course, and establishes "good cause."  San Diego enacted a policy that defines "good cause" as "a set of circumstances that distinguish the applicant from the mainstream and causes him or her to be placed in harm's way."  Concern for "one's personal safety alone is not considered good cause."

The court surveyed the history and concluded that "the carrying of an operable handgun outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense, though subject to traditional restrictions, constitutes 'bear[ing] Arms' within the meaning of the Second Amendment."

As to the "good cause" requirement: the court ruled that California's scheme--which bans open carry, and restricts concealed carry to all but those who can show a particularized "good cause"--amounts to a destruction of the core right to bear arms for self-defense (as opposed to a mere burden on the right).  The court thus struck the permitting scheme, without specifying a level of scrutiny.  "Heller teaches that a near-total prohibition on keeping arms (Heller) is hardly better than a near-total prohibition on bearing them (this case), and vice versa.  Both go too far."  Op. at 57.

Judge Thomas dissented, arguing that the majority "not only strikes down San Diego County's concealed carry policy, but upends the entire California firearm regulatory scheme."

Federal District Judge Declares Virginia's Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

Judge Arenda Wright Allen's opinion in Bostic v. Rainey concludes that Virginia's statutory and state constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriages or their recognition violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.

Judge Allen's due process analysis begins by declaring that there "can be no serious doubt that in America the right to marry is a rigorously protected fundamental right" and she therefore subjects Virginia's marriage laws to strict scrutiny.  Given this formulation, she easily concludes that the state's proferred interests of tradition, federalism, and  "responsible procreation" coupled with "optimal child rearing" are not satisfactory.  The analysis often reverts to the language of lesser scrutiny, including this explicit statement regarding the procreation/child-rearing interest:

This rationale fails under the applicable strict scrutiny test as well as a rational-basis review. Of course the welfare of our children is a legitimate state interest. However, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples fails to further this interest. Instead, needlessly stigmatizing and humiliating children who are being raised by the loving couples targeted by Virginia’s Marriage Laws betrays that interest.

Judge Allen's equal protection analysis is substantially shorter and makes the articulates the application of rational basis scrutiny even more explicit:

Virginia’s Marriage Laws fail to display a rational relationship to a legitimate purpose, and so must be viewed as constitutionally infirm under even the least onerous level of scrutiny. . . . 

The legitimate purposes proffered by the Proponents for the challenged laws—to promote conformity to the traditions and heritage of a majority of Virginia’s citizens, to perpetuate a generally-recognized deference to the state’s will pertaining to domestic relations laws, and, finally, to endorse "responsible procreation"—share no rational link with Virginia Marriage Laws being challenged. The goal and the result of this legislation is to deprive Virginia’s gay and lesbian citizens of the opportunity and right to choose to celebrate, in marriage, a loving, rewarding, monogamous relationship with a partner to whom they are committed for life. These results occur without furthering any legitimate state purpose.

Judge Allen's opinion may be criticized as being longer on rhetoric than on exemplary legal analysis - - - a charge similar to that leveled against Justice Kennedy's opinion for the Court in United States v. Windsor declaring §3 of DOMA unconstitutional, upon which Judge Allen rightly relies.  Judge Allen's numerous of invocations of Loving v. Virginia - - - including beginning the opinion with an extensive quote from Mildred Loving - - - have special resonance in Virginia.  Yet at times, lofty language veers toward inaccuracy, as when the opinion states that "Our Constitution declares that 'all men' are created equal."  (That's the wording of the Declaration of Independence not the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause).  Others may contest that there can be "no serious doubt" that marriage is a fundamental right. 

Nevertheless, Judge Allen's opinion follows on the heels of four other opinions by federal district judges reaching the same conclusion about their respective state laws and constitutional provisions:  Bourke v. Beshear from the Western District of Kentucky;  Bishop v. United States from the Northern District of Oklahoma, Obergefell v. Wymyslo from the Southern District of Ohio, and Kitchen v. Herbert, from the District of Utah (now stayed). 

Judge Allen stayed the injunction against enforcement of the Virginia same-sex marriage ban, pending resolution by the Fourth Circuit. 

But recall that the Virginia Attorney General has declared that he will not defend Virginia's same-sex marriage ban, a position that might mean that Judge Allen's opinion never reaches the Fourth Circuit as we analyzed here.

[image: 1848 map of Virginia via]

Kentucky Federal Judge Rules State's Nonrecognition of Same-Sex Marriages Violates Equal Protection

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

United States District Judge John G. Heyburn's  opinion in Bourke v. Beshear finds that Kentucky's statutory and state constitutional provisions defining marriage as limited to one man and one woman violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause when applied to same-sex spouses married in another state.

The judge's 23 page opinion is crafted for both a nonlegal and legal audience. 

For popular consumption, Judge Heyburn's opinion has passages written in direct prose answering questions he himself has posed and unburdened with extensive citations.  For example, he writes:

For many others, this decision could raise basic questions about our Constitution. For instance, are courts creating new rights? Are judges changing the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment or our Constitution? Why is all this happening so suddenly?

The answer is that the right to equal protection of the laws is not new. History has already shown us that, while the Constitution itself does not change, our understanding of the meaning of its protections and structure evolves.  If this were not so, many practices that we now abhor would still exist.

He discusses religiosity in similar terms, beginning by noting that many Kentuckians believe "what their ministers and scriptures tell them: that a marriage is a sacrament instituted between God and a man and a woman for society’s benefit" and later opining that

The beauty of our Constitution is that it accommodates our individual faith’s definition of marriage while preventing the government from unlawfully treating us differently. This is hardly surprising since it was written by people who came to America to find both freedom of religion and freedom from it.

For its legal audience, Judge Heyburn's opinion contains a rigorous analysis of equal protection doctrine, of the Supreme Court's decision last June in United States v. Windsor, and of the courts applying Windsor. 

Engaging with the Court's opinion in Windsor, authored by Justice Kennedy, Judge Heyburn expresses some frustration with the lack of clear equal protection doctrine, observing that the Court "never clearly explained the applicable standard of review."  Nevertheless, Judge Heyburn used two "principles" of Windsor: that the actual purpose of the law must be considered in light of animus and that the laws must not demean one group by depriving them of the rights provided for others.  Ultimately, Judge Heyburn applies rational basis review and finds that the government interests proferred by Kentucky - - - as well as those advanced in an amicus brief submitted by the Family Trust Foundation of Kentucky - - - are not legitimate interests.

Judge Heyburn also discusses the three federal district judges who have reached similar conclusions in "well-reasoned opinions," citing the opinions in Bishop v. United States from the Northern District of Oklahoma, Obergefell v. Wymyslo from the Southern District of Ohio, and Kitchen v. Herbert, from the District of Utah (now stayed).

To be clear, the effect of the opinion is not to mandate clerks in Kentucky begin offering marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  But it is to require Kentucky to recognize same-sex marriages valid in another state as valid in Kentucky on the same terms as other marriages.

[image: 1921 map of Kentucky via]

Gitmo Detainees May Assert Mistreatment Claims

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled today in Aamer v. Obama that Guantanamo detainees may bring a habeas corpus claim in federal court challenging their forced-feeding by the government, but that that claim is not likely to succeed.

The ruling is notable, because it's the first time a federal appellate court ruled that Guantanamo detainees could bring a habeas claim to challenge their conditions of confinement (as opposed to the fact of their confinement).

The ruling is likely to bring  a host of new habeas claims from detainees at Guantanamo--challenging not just the fact of their detention (the kind we've already seen) but also the conditions of their confinement.  It may also bring a congressional response--to foreclose those claims.

The court also ruled that the detainees' challenge to their forced-feeding was not likely to succeed.

Some background: Congress enacted two provisions in the MCA designed to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees' claims.  The first, at 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2241(e)(1), purports to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees' habeas claims challenging the fact of their detention:

No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

The Supreme Court struck the provision in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), holding that Congress couldn't eliminate habeas jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees without complying with the requirements of the Suspension Clause (which it had not).

The second provision, at 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2241(e)(2), purports to strip courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees' "other" claims challenging the conditions of their confinement:

Except as provided [in section 1005(e) of the DTA], 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 determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

The D.C. Circuit previously confirmed that this latter section continued in force after Boumediene (because Boumediene dealt only with the habeas-stripping Section 2241(e)(1)), and lower court judges have ruled that it bars Guantanamo detainees from bringing habeas claims challenging their conditions of confinement (because those habeas claims were "other" claims challenging the conditions of confinement).

The D.C. Circuit ruled that it does not bar detainees' habeas claims, and that detainees may bring statutory habeas claims challenging the conditions of their confinement.

In answering the question, the court said that the two different parts of Section 2241(e) meant that Congress attempted in the MCA to bar (1) habeas claims and (2) "other" claims (i.e., non-habeas claims).  It said that Section 2241(e)(2), in barring "other" claims, had no impact on habeas claims.  And it said that Boumediene struck Section 2241(e)(1). 

So, if the detainees brought a habeas claim, it would have been covered by Section 2241(e)(1), and because that provision was struck, their habeas claim survives.

The core question, then, is whether habeas (any habeas, at Guantanamo or not) extends not only to the fact of confinement (everyone agrees it does) but also to the conditions of confinement (that's where the parties disagreed).  The court said that the Supreme Court left this question open, and that there is a split among the circuits.  Still, it said that in the D.C. Circuit habeas extends both to fact-of-confinement and to treatment claims:

The availability of habeas for both types of challenges simply reflects the extension of the basic principle that "[h]abeas is at its core a remedy for unlawful executive detention."  Munaf v. Geren.  The illegality of a petitioner's custody may flow from the fact of detention . . . the duration of detention . . . the place of detention . . . or the conditions of detention.  In all such cases, the habeas petitioner's essential claim is that his custody in some way violates the law, and he may employ the writ to remedy such illegality.

Because the detainees' claim was a habeas claim that would have fallen under Section 2241(e)(1), and because Section 2241(e)(2) bars only with "other" (non-habeas) claims and therefore doesn't affect the detainees' habeas claim at all, and because the Supreme Court struck Section 2241(e)(1), the detainees' habeas claim can go forward.

The court noted that Congress has been entirely silent on this--and has not acted to strip courts of jurisdiction over this kind of claim.

Judge Williams dissented, arguing that the detainees' claim does not sound in habeas and therefore is barred under Section 2241(e)(2).

The court also ruled that the detainees failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits of their force-feeding claims.  The court said that there were valid penological interests in force-feeding hunger-striking detainees that outweighed the detainees' liberty interest.  The court also said that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not extend to Guantanamo detainees, who, as nonresident aliens, do not qualify as protected "person[s]" under the RFRA. 

The court affirmed the lower court's denial of a preliminary injunction, sending the case back for more on the merits.