问题 & 趋势
GW法律预览一些等待最高法院审查的顶级案件
2023年9月28日
从左至右:主持人Mark Joseph Stern, 金伯利·阿特金斯·斯托尔, 艾伦•莫里森, 和艾米丽·哈蒙德.
为了纪念宪法日, the George Washington University Law School held a Supreme Court preview on September 19, 吸引了一群人，使模拟法庭的容忍度不堪重负, a sign of both students’ engagement and the contentious nature of the High Court and its docket.
Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew opened the event with quotes from two Supreme Court justices about the Constitution. 她引用了大法官瑟古德·马歇尔的话, 谁说我们的政府“从一开始就有缺陷”, 需要几项修改, 内战, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, 尊重个人自由和人权, 我们认为这是最基本的.” Matthew contrasted that with Justice William Rehnquist’s statement that “It is almost impossible … to conclude that [the founders] intended the Constitution itself to suggest answers to the manifold problems that they knew would confront succeeding generations.”
马修指出，宪法本身只有4条,543个单词, 这是所有主要国家中最短的此类文件. 尽管它很简短, the Constitution presents major issues that the Supreme Court will address in the upcoming October term.
金伯利·阿特金斯·斯托尔，资深观点作家和专栏作家 波士顿环球报他是MSNBC的撰稿人，也是Politicon播客的联合主持人 妯娌讨论 亚历山大·v. 南卡罗莱纳州全国有色人种协进会会议这是一起涉及不公正划分选区的案件. 从历史上看, gerrymandering cases have had limited impact because the facts tend to be case-specific, Stohr说.
“There usually isn’t a broad, overarching impact from these rulings,” Stohr added. “他们实际上只适用于他们所谈论的地区, 但越来越多的这些案例变得越来越重要.”
In 亚历山大, the central issue is whether race was the predominant factor in South Carolina’s redistricting scheme, which effectively moved tens of thousands of Black voters to a different district. The lower court held that the move was racially motivated in violation of the 14th Amendment. 在上诉, the defendants said they only intended political gerrymandering and that the lower court denied them the presumption of good faith.
“The biggest takeaway in this case is that it’s the Supreme Court’s first real opportunity to articulate the difference between a racial gerrymander and a political gerrymander,斯托尔说.
艾伦•莫里森, GW Law’s Lerner 家庭 Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law, has argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court and teaches civil procedure and constitutional law. He briefed the audience on a series of cases relating to social media platforms, including 穆迪v. NetChoice,有限责任公司. The issues are whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from requiring social media companies to host third-party communications and from regulating how they do so, and whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from requiring social media companies to notify users when they censor the user’s speech.
佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州也通过了类似的法案, 但不完全相同, laws prohibiting social media platforms from censoring certain speech following decisions that social media companies had unfairly prevented conservative advertisers from purchasing ads, 据称侵犯了宪法第一修正案赋予他们的权利.
Morrison said that the tension in these cases arises from the platforms’ own First Amendment right to moderate content they publish. 而美国.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck down the Florida law as unconstitutional, 第五巡回法院支持德克萨斯州的法律, 将社交媒体公司比作公共汽车等“公共交通工具”, 铁路, 和酒店.
乔治华盛顿大学法学院格伦·厄尔·韦斯顿研究教授艾米丽·哈蒙德对此进行了评论 Loper Bright Enterprises v .. Raimondo, in which a group of commercial fishermen sued the National Marine Fisheries Service after it promulgated a rule requiring the fishing industry to fund at-sea monitoring programs.
Hammond said that the lower court approached the issue with a standard 雪佛龙公司 分析, 但“持不同意见的人处理这个问题的方式不同, 说法定沉默应该是明确的.“现在的问题是最高法院是否应该推翻这一裁决 雪佛龙公司, or at least clarify whether the statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute constitutes an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.
主持人马克·约瑟夫·斯特恩，资深作家 Slate杂志,覆盖 美国诉. 拉希米, in which an individual subject to a domestic violence restraining order was prohibited from possessing a firearm, 据称侵犯了他的第二修正案权利.
拉希米 was involved in five shootings in a one-month period and was found in possession of a number of firearms. 当时, 拉希米 was subject to a civil protection order relating to allegations of domestic violence by his ex-girlfriend. 该命令明确禁止拉希米拥有枪支. In its 分析, the Fifth Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in 纽约州步枪 & 手枪协会. v. 并, requiring, in essence, a historical twin law in order to uphold contemporary firearm restrictions.
Stern said that the court could not find any historical analogies for firearm possession restrictions arising from domestic violence charges because “in that period, 家庭暴力是合法的.”
“妇女不是平等的公民. Women were not deemed to have independent rights apart from their husbands, 很少, 如果有任何, 一些国家将暴力虐待妻子或孩子定为犯罪,斯特恩说.
斯特恩的特点 拉希米 作为一长串雇佣案例中的第一个 并的 解释框架, 说在它的逻辑下，情况是正确的, but that its review would force more moderate justices like John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh to contend with its strictly originalist framework.
“Will they say, yeah, women were not people in 1791, so they don’t get these protections today? 我认为，从这个意义上说，这个案子有强烈的共鸣 多布斯, where the Supreme Court said women didn’t have reproductive rights in 1868, so they don’t have a constitutional right to reproductive autonomy today,斯特恩补充道.
