Court issues six decisions, grants one new case
on Jun 13, 2005 at 10:01 am
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Thomas Joe Miller-El, a Texas death row inmate at the center of a celebrated case over the use of peremptory strikes to eliminate black jurors, is entitled to a new trial or release. The ruling is a searing denunciation of the role that race played in Miller-El’s trial for a 1985 murder of a hotel employee in Arlington, Texas.
In a 6-3 ruling written by Justice David H. Souter, the Court rejected Texas’ claims that the strikes were not done to discriminate against those jurors. “The prosecutors’ chosen race-neutral reasons for the strikes do not hold up and are so far at odds with the evidence that pretext is the fair conclusion,” the Court said. State court rulings allowing the strikes, it added, were “wrong to a clear and convincing degree.” This was the Court’s second ruling in Miller-El’s case in the past two years. (Miller-El v. Dretke, 03-9659.)
One of the Justices in the majority, Stephen G. Breyer, argued in a separate opinion that the time had come to examine whether to scuttle peremptory challenges altogether. He said it appeared that the Court’s decisions on the issue had not succeeded in eradicating racial bias in the peremptory system, so the question of its constitutionality should be reconsidered. No other Justice joined that opinion.
In a second decision interpreting the Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky limiting peremptory challenges that might have been based on race, the Court rejected a California Supreme Court requirement that such a bias can be shown only if it is more likely than not that the strike can be explained only by racial factors. (Johnson v. California, 04-6964.)
The Court, in a unanimous decision, gave drug researchers expanded legal right to do animal studies — so-called “pre-clinical studies” — on an existing patented drug as they seek to develop a generic version for later marketing. Its decision gave a generous interpretation to a patent infringement “safe harbor” provision for researchers, saying Congress intended to provide “a wide berth for the use of patented drugs in activities” related to the process of getting federal approval to market drugs. (Merck KGaA v. Integra Lifesciences, 03-1237.)
In a unanimous criminal law ruling, the Court refused to impose stricter procedural limits on decisions by state officials to place a prisoner in a “super-maximum security” prison. (Wilkinson v. Austin, 04-495.)
In orders on new cases, the Court agreed to decide whether a national bank is to be treated as a citizen of every state where it operates branch banks, and thus has less access to federal courts when sued in those states. (Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt, 04-1186; Justice Clarence Thomas took no part in the order.)
In significant denials in new cases, the Court refused to hear on an expedited basis Jose Padilla’s challenge to his status as an “enemy combatant” in the war on terrorism — a case that also is pending in the Fourth Circuit (Padilla v. Hanft, 04-1342) — and it turned aside six separate petitions on the new rules on media ownership issued by the Federal Communications Commission, and set aside by a federal Circuit Court a year ago. (Media General v. FCC, 04-1020, and five others.)
The Court also refused to review a new test of its federalism views, a challenge to the Endangered Species Act when it is used to protect a species of insects found in only one state and having no commercial value. (GDF Realty Investments v. Norton, 03-1619.)
Continuing to issue final decisions in pending cases, the Court clarified the right to remove cases from state to federal court when the dispute involves a quiet title action. The Court said that such a transfer of a state case is allowed, if the outcome turns on the meaning of a federal law — in this case, a law that defines the kind of notice the Internal Revenue Service must give before it seizes property to satisfy a tax debt. The Court allowed removal of a Michigan property dispute, saying that the national interest in providing a federal forum for federal tax litigation justified opening the federal court to this dispute, even though the quiet title action could not have been brought in federal court in the first instance. (Grable & Sons v. Darue Engineering, 04-603.)
It also ruled that the voluntariness of a guilty plea can be shown if the defense lawyer or the individual on trial shows that the lawyer had explained the elements of the charge to the defendant. (Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 04-637.)
