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Jan 21, 2010
The law cannot prohibit someone from speaking out on political issues just because the communication was paid for with corporate or union money. The sections of McCain-Feingold that barred such speech are unconstitutional.
The law can require political speakers to identify themselves, like the familiar disclaimer, "My name is so-and-so and I approved this message."
The decision did not address limits on contributions to candidates, so those presumably stand. Thus, a corporation could take out a TV or newspaper ad saying "Vote for Senator Jones", but they still could not give Senator Jones the money to take out such an ad himself.
Apr 18, 2007
The federal government may ban a specific abortion method, Partial Birth Abortion.
The law in question is not "unconstitionally vague" because it clearly defines what is and is not prohibited, namely, partially delivering a living baby and then killing him is prohibited, while killing the baby in the womb and then removing the body is legal. Also, the law includes a "scienter requirement", that is, it states that the abortionist must be doing this deliberately, and that if, in the course of some other form of abortion, a baby were to accidentally be partially delivered, this would not be a violation of the law.
This is the first time that the court has approved any restriction on abortion that did not include an exception for the "health of the mother". (The court has declared this must include physical health, mental health, and "social health".) The law included a "finding" that Partial Birth Abortion is never necessary to protect a woman's health, that there are other alternatives that are no more dangerous to her. Evidence was presented on both sides of this question, and the court ruled that when the expert testimony is contradictory, the Constitution does not prevent Congress from drawing its own conclusions.
Feb 28, 2006
Anti-abortion protestors are not "racketeers" (i.e. gangsters), as the government defines the term. Attempting to discourage customers from patronizing a business is not extortion. Even though the abortionists claimed that the anti-abortion protestors engaged in some isolated acts of physical violence, "Physical violence unrelated to robbery or extortion falls outside the Hobbs Act’s scope. Congress did not intend to create a freestanding physical violence offense. It did intend to forbid acts or threats of physical violence in furtherance of a plan or purpose to engage in what the Act refers to as robbery or extortion (and related attempts or conspiracies)." (After the original trial, many of the claims of physical violence by anti-abortion protestors were proven to be perjury, and all the rest were shown to be initiated by people not connected to the defendents charged with the crime. The abortionist argued that by staging the protest, the protestors assumed responsibility for anything done by anyone who might come along later. The courts did not rule on this part of the issue as it was declared irrelevant, given that the court had already said that even if the protestors did engage in violence, this may be a crime under state law, but not under the federal laws being used to prosecute them.)
Jan 18, 2006
Just because there are "a very small percentage of cases" where applying a law would be unjust, "invalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief." That is, the courts should not declare an entire law "unconstitutional" simply because there are a tiny number of occasions when it would be unjust.
Specifically, the case involved a New Hampshire law that required abortionists to notify the parents before committing an abortion on a girl under 18. The law included various exceptions, including allowing a judge to declare that the girl is "mature" enough to make this decision without her parents' involvement, or if the girl's life is in danger and there is no time to notify her parents. Planned Parenthood challenged the law on the grounds that there could be medical emergencies involving something less than imminent death, and that the law made no provision for such cases.
Jan 17, 2006
The Food and Drug Administration does not have the authority to prevent a doctor from prescribing drugs that are deliberately intended to cause the patient's death (i.e. "assisted suicide"), when state law permits it. The law that gives the FDA its authority says that it is supposed to be trying to prevent "drug abuse". But in this case the court declared that "drug abuse" means addicition or deliberately getting high, not suicide. That is, you are abusing drugs if you get yourself or someone else addicted, but not if you deliberately kill someone.
Social or political protest is not "extortion" as that term is defined by the law. To be guilty of extortion someone must "obtain property" or attempt to obtain property. Interfering with someone else's ability to use their property as they please is therefore not extortion (though it could be "coercian", which is also a crime).
Syllabus | Opinion | Concur | Dissent
Jun 28, 2000
The law may not place a "substantial obstacle" in the way of a woman seeking an abortion. Therefore, the state may not ban a particular abortion procedure, even though it is rarely used, if the law is worded in such a way that an overzealous prosecutor might attempt to apply it to ban a more common abortion procedure. Even if this never actually happened, doctors might be afraid to perform abortions for fear that it might, and this could make it more difficult for women to obtain abortions.
Also, any law restricting abortion must provide exceptions for the woman's health. Even though in this case all the medical experts who presented evidence agreed that they could not identify any set of circumstances where the procedure under discussion might be more safe for the mother than other procedures, it is still possible that other physicians might disagree, or that new information might come to light in the future.
Courts have generally looked with disfavor on laws that do not have a "scienter" requirement, that is, a requirement that the person involved knows that what he did was a violation of the law. In general courts have followed a "reasonable man" standard, that is, if a reasonable person would understand that his actions violated the law, than the person can be convicted. For abortion regulation, however, this standard is not acceptable, and the determination of whether the law applies to a given set of circumstances must be left entirely up to the person charged with violating the law.
(If this sounds bizarre, believe me, I tried to find another way to put it that would make the decision sound more sensible. Read the decision yourself.)
While the courts have long recognized a legal right to refuse medical treatment, even if this will likely result in the patient's imminent death, there is a great difference between not doing something to save someone's life, and actively doing something to hasten their death.
Appendix A of this decision is a good discussion of some general legal principles in simple layman's terms.
The government is not required to pay for abortions, nor allow them to be performed in government-run hospitals. Laws may restrict abortion after viability. The trimester framework of Roe v. Wade is abandoned as unworkable.
Syllabus | Pleadings | Opinion | Concur #1 | Concur #2 | Dissent | Partial
Denying medical care to a newborn baby because that baby is mentally retarded or otherwise handicapped is not a violation of laws forbidding discrimination against handicapped people, provided that the baby's parents agreed to the denial of care. This applies even if the deliberate intent of the denial of care was to cause the baby's death. Feeding is considered a form of medical care for this purpose.
Syllabus | Opinion | Concur | Dissent #1 | Dissent #2
Syllabus | Opinion | Concur #1 | Concur #2 | Concur #3 | Dissent #1 | Dissent #2
Syllabus | Opinion | Appendices | Dissent
This case has many interesting parallels to Roe v Wade.
Syllabus | Pleadings | Opinion | Concur 1 | Concur 2 | Concur 3 | Dissent
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Updated Jan 25, 2010
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