The Supreme Court today threw out a murder conviction where the police obtained a confession following an illegal arrest. The case is Kaupp v. Texas and you can read the full opinion here. The state had claimed the defendant was merely being detained, not arrested. The Court found otherwise.

Even “an initially consensual encounter . . . can be transformed into a seizure or detention within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” (“[A]t some point in the investigative process, police procedures can qualitatively and quantitatively be so intrusive with respect to a suspect’s freedom of movement and privacy interests as to trigger the full protection of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments”). It cannot seriously be suggested that when the detectives began to question Kaupp, a reasonable person in his situation would have thought he was sitting in the interview room as a matter of choice, free to change his mind and go home to bed.

MADD won't be happy with this decision, but it makes sense to us: A jury has acquitted a Woodstock woman of driving under the influence of alcohol after the defense established, through the testimony of forensic chemist James Woodford, that the DUI test was gender biased .

The jury in Lisa Bufton's drunken driving case acquitted her last month after her attorney argued the breath analysis instrument used by Georgia law enforcement personnel gives falsely high readings when used on women. The Cherokee County jurors said the Intoxilyzer 5000 should be "further evaluated for gender bias."

The Supreme Court today issued an adverse ruling in Demore v. Kim on the issue of immigrants facing deportation hearings .

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a law requiring that legal immigrants who commit certain crimes in this country be detained in prison while awaiting deportation hearings.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court sided with the U.S. Justice Department and rejected a constitutional challenge to a 1996 law that provides for mandatory detention of criminal immigrants while authorities attempt to deport them.

"We hold that Congress, justifiably concerned that deportable criminal aliens who are not detained continue to engage in crime and fail to appear for their removal hearings in large numbers, may require that (such) persons ... be detained," Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the majority in the 20-page opinion .

Do Not Enter:

On Wednesday, a Richmond, Va., public housing project will be at the center of a national debate on the scope of the First Amendment and the government's power to regulate behavior on land it owns. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments over a strict visitation policy at the development that city officials say is necessary to stamp out crime. Opponents say it violates rights to free speech, free association and due process.

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued a ruling favorable to habeas petitioners. The case is Massaro v. U.S. The text of the opinion is here.

An ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim may be brought in a collateral proceeding under §2255, whether or not the petitioner could have raised the claim on direct appeal. Requiring a criminal defendant to bring ineffective-assistance claims on direct appeal does not promote the procedural default rule’s objectives: conserving judicial resources and respecting the law’s important interest in the finality of judgments. Applying that rule to ineffective-assistance claims would create a risk that defendants would feel compelled to raise the issue before there has been an opportunity fully to develop the claim’s factual predicate, and would raise the issue for the first time in a forum not best suited to assess those facts, even if the record contains some indication of deficiencies in counsel’s performance. A §2255 motion is preferable to direct appeal for deciding an ineffective- assistance claim.

The Court specifically held it was not limiting ineffective claims to habeas petitions as the issue was not before it--in cases where the ineffectiveness can be determined solely from the record, defendants can still raise it on direct appeal. Sounds like a win-win to us.

The Supreme Court Monday agreed to revisit the issue of Miranda warnings in a Colorado case, U.S. v. Patane. The 10th Circuit opinion is here.

Update: The issue is whether physical evidence derived from unmirandized statements, such as guns or drugs, can be used in court.

The Supreme Court granted cert today on three issues in 02-8286, Banks v. Cockrell --the case of Texas death row inmate Delma Banks. From a press release received from National Coaltion Against the Death Penalty:

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday announced it will hear a case involving Delma Banks Jr., who sits on Texas' death row despite questions about prosecutorial misconduct, biased jury selection and ineffective legal counsel.
Banks was convicted and sentenced to death in connection with the murder of Richard Whitehead of Texarkana after prosecutors struck all black prospective jurors from the jury pool and withheld critical exculpatory evidence from the defense. NCADP Executive Director Steven W. Hawkins said Banks has never received an opportunity to present in court evidence that prosecutors failed to inform defense counsel that one of its key witnesses was a paid informant and that another key witness received a reduced sentence after testifying against Banks.

A divided Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday invalidated a Michigan program that required welfare applicants and recipients to submit to drug tests.

Under the Michigan program, people applying for welfare through the state's Family Independence Agency would be tested for illegal drug use, and 20 percent of those receiving welfare assistance would be randomly tested every six months.

....The ACLU sued on behalf of all Michigan welfare recipients, and U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts issued a restraining order to stop the testing, saying it likely violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Roberts' decision in October, saying the program was based on a legitimate need to protect the children of recipients and the public. But on Wednesday, the full court changed course and affirmed Roberts' ruling.

The ACLU hails the ruling.

It was a long time coming, but this ruling affirms that being poor is not a crime. Low-income parents should not be required to choose between providing for their children and relinquishing their privacy rights," said Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan and an attorney in the case. ....In the five weeks that the program was in effect, the drug tests were positive in only eight percent of the cases, a percentage that is consistent with drug use in the general population. Of 268 people tested, only 21 tested positive for drugs and all but three were for marijuana.

Michigan is the only state that had such a program.

A California Appellate Court has ruled that possession of marijuana paraphernalia is not illegal under state law. Text of the ruling, In re Johnnie O., may be found here.

The ruling does not pertain to sales, Also, possession of paraphernalia for the ingestion of synthetic THC is technically illegal under the state law. [via email from NORML]

Nathan Newman examines yesterday's Supreme Court ruling limiting punitive damages and its recent ruling upholding three strikes laws, and concludes that pro-corporate bias is what really lies behind the Court's "judicial restraint" policy.

So it's unreasonable to significantly decrease shareholder profits for an insurance company that commits fraud, but it's "reasonable and proportionate" to essentially obliterate a life of someone stealing $153 worth of goods?

My general legal position is pretty much one of judicial restraint-- it's up to the political branches to define the limits of punishment, not the courts who have no greater philosophical wisdom than those enacting either fraud or criminal statutes.

But this kind of contrasting justice for corporations versus the poor in our rightwing-dominated courts just shows the pro-corporate bias that really lies behind all the "judicial restraint" rhetoric from so much of the conservative side.

Update: Sam Heldman at Ignatz is livid over the opinion for the same reasons. Calpundit agrees.

The Supreme Court Monday upheld a state ban on cross-burning.

A divided Supreme Court upheld a state ban on cross burning, ruling Monday that the history of racial intimidation attached to this symbol outweighs the free speech protection of Ku Klux Klansmen or others who might it. A burning cross is an instrument of terror, and government should have the power to stamp out or punish its use, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote.

SCOTUS has the details and links.

This just in from NORML :

COURT SAYS MOM'S USE OF POT NOT REASON TO REMOVE KIDS

Akron, OH- Smoking marijuana daily does not make a woman an unfit parent and her four children should not have been removed by a county agency, an appeals court has ruled.

Teresa Scott is a single working mother who paid her rent and provided loving care to her children, her lawyer said, but when she admitted she smoked marijuana, the Summit County Children Services Board removed the children in August 2001. The agency's decision was upheld in the county's Juvenile Court.

The 9th Ohio District Court of Appeals overruled that decision, 2-1, on Monday.

"While this court certainly does not condone a parent's use of an illegal substance or abuse of a legal substance, parents have a fundamental right to raise their children," said appeals Judges Donna Carr and William Batchelder.

"Without some evidence that Teresa's supervision of her children or the environment of her children has been affected in some negative way by her use of marijuana, there is not clear and convincing evidence" the children should be removed.