Professors Shed Light on Supreme Court Cases
Three law professors recently shared expert commentary on high-profile cases being considered this term by the Supreme Court of the United States, while a fourth moderated the faculty panel. As part of a Constitution Day celebration, hosted by the law students’ chapter of the American Constitution Society, Professors
Magarian discussed the campaign finance case of Federal Election Commission (FEC) v. Citizens United. At issue is the government’s ability to regulate the financial role of private corporations in campaigns. Magarian said the case is a re-visitation of two previous Supreme Court decisions, Buckley v. Valeo and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. In Buckley, the court decided that while the government has the authority to regulate campaign contributions, the First Amendment prohibits dictating how those contributions are spent. In Austin, the court ruled that while corporations are prohibited from directly funding campaigns using their general funds, businesses can make contributions from a segregated fund as part of a separate entity.
In Citizens United, Magarian says, “the stakes are extremely high” as the Citizens United political organization is seeking to have a recent provision of the bipartisan Campaign Reform Act struck down. “If the court overrules Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and says, in effect, the government may not regulate or restrict corporate expenditures to political campaigns, then a 60-year-old body of federal law, as well as a whole series of state laws, is basically going to be out the window,” he noted. “Corporations are going to be empowered to spend essentially unlimited amounts of money in the course of influencing electoral campaigns.
“It is important to realize that this case represents the coalescence of apparently a five-justice majority that may have an appetite to go further in dismantling federal, and ultimately state, campaign finance regulations,” he added. Although Magarian believes the Austin decision is “one of the best Supreme Court decisions of the last 50 years,” he predicts that it may be overturned due to concerns over protecting First Amendment rights.
Quinn, who co-directs the law school’s Civil Justice Clinic, discussed the juvenile rights case, Graham v. Florida. The case involves a young man who received life without parole following a violation of probation for a robbery conviction. During his original conviction, he, as a minor, had pleaded guilty in adult court. His attorneys are appealing, arguing that his sentence of life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment. Quinn said the case relies on a 2005Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons. In that case, the court ruled that the death penalty could be considered cruel and unusual punishment for minors. She also referred to a life without parole case that will be heard on the same day as Graham involving another minor, Joe Sullivan who has multiple sclerosis.
The defense’s strategy in Graham is to extend the scope of the earlier death penalty case to include life without parole. “The question is: Is this a disproportionate sentence?” Quinn said. “The majority of the court has historically been looking at a number of factors, including: what are the penological aims, are they being met by the sentence here, what is happening in other cases with similarly situated defendants, and is the statute here being used in ways that are out of line with what other state jurisdictions have done as they relate to the standards of decency?” She added that the case hinges on “what is the measure of an evolving standard of decency, who decides what that means, … and where do we draw the line?” Quinn noted that she isn’t certain how the case will pan out, but her hope is that the United States will follow the international trend of eliminating the use of such punishments for juveniles.
Baker presented the final case, Bilski v. Doll. This billion-dollar patent case revolves around whether business methods can be patented—and, in this case, whether the method of how to price derivatives is patentable. “Only the Federal Circuit decides patent cases so when the Supreme Court takes a patent case, usually the thinking is that they are going to reverse it,” Baker said. “But when the Supreme Court takes patent cases, normally it is very difficult to figure out what they actually decided. … The court distinguishes cases that, as a technology matter, are indistinguishable. The question is: Should the Supreme Court get into this at all? What the patent community wants are clear rules, and it is questionable whether the Supreme Court will give you clear rules.”
Baker said that the majority of the en banc panel in Bilski held that a patent should be issued only for new devices or for a significant change or transformation of an existing product. The worry of the en banc court was business method patents—processes, which they thought, do not need a patent inducement to get produced. He added that “at the end of the day, it is not clear that we will be any better off after the Supreme Court decides this case. It is important to note that this is not just a right or a left thing, but a patent thing.”
The panel closed with a discussion of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, including how her presence, as the first Democratic appointee in 15 years, could affect the three Supreme Court cases. Quinn hopes that Sotomayor will take a positive stance toward juveniles. Baker suspects that she will defer to more experienced judges on patent issues. Magarian said he wasn’t sure what to expect, but that her rulings could recall the liberal leanings of Justices Brennan and Marshall.
By Brent Mueller and Ann Nicholson
