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Rhines v. South Dakota: Supreme Court refuses to hear case about anti-gay jury.
The facts of Rhines are both grisly and bizarre. In 1992, Donnivan Schaeffer caught Rhines robbing the doughnut shop where he worked. Rhines promptly stabbed Schaeffer with a hunting knife, killing him; he later confessed to the crime. Prosecutors tried him for first-degree murder, and asked all but one of the jurors whether they would harbor bias against him due to his homosexuality. Ten jurors said no; one said that homosexuality was “sinful” but that Rhines’ orientation wouldn’t affect her decision in the case.
During trial, prosecutors brought witnesses who testified—arguably gratuitously—about Rhines’ sexuality. One noted that she had seen her husband “cuddling” with Rhines and that Rhines said he hated her because her husband loved her instead of him. Another testified that he had a sexual relationship with Rhines. The jury found Rhines guilty and proceeded to decide whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
That’s where deliberations went truly off the rails. The jury sent the trial judge a note posing several questions about the consequences of life without parole. Multiple questions seemed to indicate that jurors were concerned that Rhines, as a gay man, would enjoy himself too much in prison. Would Rhines, they wondered, be able to “mix with the general inmate population”? Could he “brag about his crime” to “young men”? Could he “marry or have conjugal visits”? Would he ever “have a cellmate”? After the judge responded that he could not answer these questions, the jury sentenced him to death.
Later, several jurors issued sworn declarations confirming that deliberations were tainted by anti-gay bias. One juror stated that other jurors “knew that [Rhines] was a homosexual and thought that he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison.” Another remembered hearing a juror say that “if he’s gay we’d be sending him where he wants to go.” And a third juror said that there “was lots of discussion of homosexuality” and “a lot of disgust” over Rhines’ orientation.
In his appeal, Rhines argued that these declarations are a smoking gun that prove his sentence violated the Sixth and 14th Amendment’s guarantee of an “impartial jury” in “all criminal prosecutions.” But there was a problem: Like many states, South Dakota has a “no impeachment” rule that bars defendants from impeaching jury verdicts with evidence of statements made during deliberations. The juror declarations, shocking as they are, clearly fall under this rule. So state law prohibits Rhines from using them to attack his sentence.
The Supreme Court, however gave Rhines a glimmer of hope in the form of 2017’s Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado. In that landmark decision, the court held that the “no impeachment” rule must give way when “a juror comes forward with compelling evidence that another juror made clear and explicit statements indicating that racial animus was a significant motivating factor in his or her vote to convict.” If racial animus is bad enough to override the “no-impeachment” rule, Rhines argued, shouldn’t anti-gay animus be, too? After all, state-sponsored anti-gay animus is also unconstitutional. The principle laid down in Peña-Rodriguez with regard to race, Rhines insisted, should logically extend to sexual orientation, as well.
But the Supreme Court, it seems, has no appetite to consider that question. Its hesitation to expand Peña-Rodriguez to gay defendants is regrettable but understandable. The justices grappled with precisely this question during oral arguments in Peña-Rodriguez Chief Justice John Roberts asked Jeffrey Fisher, who represented the defendant, why his argument was limited to race and did not extend to sexual orientation. Fisher responded, in short, that racism is uniquely evil, so the court can create “race-specific rules” in the jury context; “we do not,” he said, “leave any stones unturned when it comes to race.” He added, though, that the justices might later extend the rule to sex and beyond.
The court has not yet had an opportunity to take up Fisher’s offer and extend Peña-Rodriguez to sex. Perhaps that’s for the best; after issuing a major decision that unsettles precedent, the justices prefer to sit back and watch it percolate in the lower courts before revisiting and revising it. Their refusal to hear Rhines, which was apparently unanimous, suggests the court isn’t ready to clamp down further on bias in the jury room. That’s terrible news for Rhines, and for other gay people who face homophobic juries. But it doesn’t forestall a future court from returning to Peña-Rodriguez and broadening it to protect gay defendants.
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Rhines v. South Dakota: Supreme Court refuses to hear case about anti-gay jury.
‘I think I was being sent a message’: U.S. warned U.N. official about report on poverty in America - The Washington Post
"Philip G. Alston arrived in Washington last fall on a mission from the U.N. Human Rights Council to document poverty in America. At his first meeting, Alston said he was told by a senior State Department official that his findings may influence the United States' membership in the human rights body.
“A senior official said to me my report could be a factor in whether the U.S. decided or not to stay in the council,” said Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, who declined to name the official. “I think I was being sent a message.”
Two other people at the meeting, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Alston's account. State Department spokesman Noel C. Clay declined to comment on the meeting, which was held Dec. 1 at State.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced this week that the United States would withdraw from the Human Rights Council, citing what she called its bias against Israel. Haley also threatened a U.S. departure in 2017, saying the council whitewashed dictators' abuses. Conservatives have for years pushed for the United States to withdraw from the body, which investigates allegations of human rights abuses in U.N. member states."
‘I think I was being sent a message’: U.S. warned U.N. official about report on poverty in America - The Washington Post
Supreme Court Rules that Warrants Generally Are Required to Collect Cellphone Data - The New York Times
Finally some good news.
"The question for the justices was whether prosecutors violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches, by collecting vast amounts of data from cellphone companies showing Mr. Carpenter’s movements.
In a pair of recent decisions, the Supreme Court expressed discomfort with allowing unlimited government access to digital data. It limited the ability of the police to use GPS devices to track suspects’ movements, and it required a warrant to search cellphones.
Technology companies including Apple, Facebook and Google filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to continue to bring Fourth Amendment law into the modern era. ‘No constitutional doctrine should presume,’ the brief said, ‘that consumers assume the risk of warrantless government surveillance simply by using technologies that are beneficial and increasingly integrated into modern life.’
Older Supreme Court decisions offered little protection for information about businesses’ customers. In 1979, for instance, in Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that a robbery suspect had no reasonable expectation that his right to privacy extended to the numbers dialed from his landline phone. The court reasoned that the suspect had voluntarily turned over that information to a third party: the phone company.
Relying on the Smith decision’s ‘third-party doctrine,’ federal appeals courts have said that government investigators seeking data from cellphone companies showing users’ movements do not require a warrant.
A federal law, the Stored Communications Act, does require prosecutors to go to court to obtain tracking data, but the showing they must make under the law is not probable cause, the standard for a warrant. Instead, they must demonstrate only that there were ‘specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe’ that the records sought ‘are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.’
The court’s decision in the case, Carpenter v. United States, No. 16-402, applied the Fourth Amendment, drafted in the 18th century, to a world in which people’s movements are continually recorded by devices in their pockets and cars, by toll plazas and by transit systems.
Trump’s family-separation policy is unconstitutional. It’s time for the courts to award damages.
"Now that President Trump has issued an executive order that may perhaps end his administration’s policy of family separation, there are still many outstanding questions: What happens to new families entering the United States? Will there be a Separation 2.0, just like there was a Travel Ban 2.0? And most distressingly, what happens to the children who have already been separated from their parents?
While there aren’t clear answers to these questions, there are some clear answers about the legal rights of those parents seeking to reunite with their children. This policy was unconstitutional, and the parents can seek damages and injunctive relief, meaning a court can block a new separation policy and order the federal government to move heaven and earth to reunite these families. Trump officials had emphasized zero tolerance and deterrence to rationalize this brutal policy. Now it is time for courts to have zero tolerance for this administration’s constitutional violations and to award damages to deter future violations."
(Via.). Trump’s family-separation policy is unconstitutional. It’s time for the courts to award damages.: