Court upholds RLUIPA, rules for Arthur Andersen
on May 31, 2005 at 10:01 am
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Congress’ power to require officials of state and local prisons and jails to find ways to allow inmates to practice their religious beliefs. The Court said it was ruling only on a facial challenge, adding that prison officials could claim later that accommodations of inmates’ religious practices went so far as to undermine safety or discipline among prisoners. The case is Cutter v. Wilkinson (03-9877).
That was one of three decisions announced in pending cases.
The Court, in another unanimous ruling, overturned the criminal conviction of the now nearly defunct auditing giant, Arthur Andersen LLP, because of faulty jury instructions on the destruction of audit documents related to the Enron scandal. The firm was convicted under a witness tampering lsw for “corruptly persuading” staff members to destroy documents before the Securities and Exchange Commission had formally opened an investigation. The case was Andersen v. U.S. (04-368).
In the only new case granted review, the Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of Kansas’ death penalty law. The main question raised by the state of Kansas’ appeal is whether a death sentence is barred if the aggravating and mitigating circumstances are evenly balanced. In addition to that issue, the Court added two procedural questions in the case: does it have jurisdiction to review the Kansas Supreme Court decision, and whether the state court ruling was based on state law and thus immune to Supreme Court review. The case is Kansas v. Marsh (04-1170).
Voting 7-2, the Court struck down as overly broad a court order in a libel case permanently forbidding public comments and picketing against Johnnie L. Cochran, the famous Los Angeles attorney. Cochran has died, but the Court substituted his wife in the case, and thus found that the legal controversy was not moot. The ruling came in the case of Tory v. Cochran (03-1488).
Following up its ruling last week in the “beef checkoff” case, the Court sent back to lower courts cases testing similar agricultural product promotion schemes involving pork (“Pork: The Other White Meat”) and milk (“Got Milk?”), both federal schemes, and a case testing a Louisiana program on marketing of alligator products.
