SCOTUS New Term Starts Today
The first day of the new term for the Supreme Court starts today. This should be a fairly interesting term. While the majority of the media is focusing on sentencing guidelines; because of my con law background and interests, I am much more interested in the two cases dealing with Federalism and the one case dealing with emminet domain. Here is a synopsis of the three:
The justices’ continuing re-examination of the boundaries between national and state authority can sometimes appear rather abstract and academic, but not this year. The court’s two federalism cases are both likely to generate interest and attention. In one, the Bush administration is defending federal narcotics enforcement authority over the medical use of marijuana in states that have authorized use of the drug for that purpose.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that enforcement would most likely be beyond the federal government’s jurisdiction, given that marijuana used in the program is grown locally and noncommercially and does not cross state lines. The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, No. 03-1454.
In the second case, the states of New York and Michigan are defending their prohibitions against the shipment of wine from out-of-state wineries directly to consumers. New York’s law was upheld and Michigan’s struck down by separate federal appeals courts. The question in both Granholm v. Heald, No. 03-1116, the Michigan case, and Swedenburg v. Kelley, No. 03-1274, from New York, is whether the laws are supported by the states’ 21st Amendment authority to regulate alcohol sales or whether, to the contrary, they impose unconstitutional barriers against interstate commerce.
In a case from New London, Conn., the court will examine the power of eminent domain and decide whether the government can take private property and turn it over to a private developer for a project intended to increase the local tax base. The question in Kelo v. City of New London, No. 04-108, is whether this is the kind of “public use” for which the Constitution authorizes eminent domain.
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October 4th, 2004
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