Constitutional question:  Did the Supreme Court intend the Locomotive Inspection Act to preempt all state-law tort claims?

Facts of the case:

George Corson worked for almost 30 years for Railroad Friction Products as a mechanic repairing locomotives in a railroad maintenance facility.  During this time, he was routinely exposed to asbestos dust, which has long been known to be carcinogenic.  In 2005, he was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, the only known cause of which is asbestos.  He filed a lawsuit against Railroad Friction Products in a Pennsylvania court, raising several state-law tort claims against the manufacturers and distributors of the asbestos-containing locomotive products.  Corson claimed that the products were defective and he had never been properly warned about the asbestos.  He died two years after his diagnosis.

In 1911, Congress passed the Boiler Inspection Act, which over time has involved into the Locomotive Inspection Act in place currently.  The Locomotive Inspection Act addresses matters of safety and liability concerning trains and railroads.

In 1926, the Supreme Court ruled on Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad that the Boiler Inspection Act did preempt state laws.

Arguments before the court:

            Railroad Friction Products argues that the Locomotive Inspection Act was supposed to preempt state laws, and Pennsylvania’s laws are intruding on a field that Congress has reserved for federal regulation.  Kurns contends that Congress did not clearly intend to preempt state laws, and that in any case, the LIA only addresses locomotives “in use” on railroad lines, not locomotives at maintenance facilities.  Furthermore, she argues, if the LIA did preempt state laws, workers like Corson would have no way to seek justice.

Prediction:

            I predict that the court will rule that the LIA does preempt state laws.  They have ruled this way in the past, and from the transcripts I read, it seems that most of the people involved seem to think agree that the LIA preempts state laws.  In fact, it might not be possible for RFP to comply with both state and federal laws, and when there is such a conflict, it seems natural for federal laws to “beat” state laws.

Constitutional Question

This case is about the interaction between government at the State level and at the Federal level. For this reason, it has to do with Article 4 and Amendment 10. Because it has to do with fairness of sentencing, it also is related to Amendment 7. Finally, the question is related to power in the judicial branch (the court system) and power in the executive branch (the prison system), and so it is a question of checks and balances.

The specific question is: If someone is charged with a state crime and a federal crime, and the state court has not yet determined a sentence, can the federal court order the federal sentence to be served consecutively to the not-yet-imposed state sentence?

Facts of the Case

In 2006, Monroe Setser, of Texas, was sentenced to five years of probation for possession of methamphetamine. A year later, he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of possession of 50 or more grams of methamphetamine, with intent to distribute. The crime was also an offense in the state of Texas, and so the federal court knew that Setser's possession charge could lead to a state sentence – not to mention to a revocation of his probation. Because of this, the federal court wanted to decide how all of those hypothetical sentences would interact. They decided that Setser's federal sentence would be served after any sentence that the state gave for the earlier possession crime, but at the same time as any sentence imposed for the 2007 possession-and-intent-to-sell crime.

The state court then sentenced Setser. For the 2006 crime, they revoked his parole and gave him five years in prison, and for the 2007 crime they gave him 10 years in prison. They ordered those two sentences to be served at the same time.

In 2010, he was paroled from the state crime and transferred to the federal prison system. The federal sentence was not shortened at all from time spent serving the state sentences.

Setser said that the court should not have the right to decide how his sentences were to be served, and so he appealed the federal sentence. The United States actually agrees with Setser, so the court appointed a man named Evan Young to argue the case against him.

Summary of the Arguments before the SCOTUS

Setser argued with that the prison system should have the right to decide how his sentences are to be served, and not the federal court. His argument is based on 18 U.S.C. §3584(a), a law which states that:

"If multiple terms of imprisonment are imposed on a defendant at the same time, or if a term of imprisonment is imposed on a defendant who is already subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment, the terms may run concurrently or consecutively… Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at the same time run concurrently unless the court orders or the statute mandates that the terms are to run consecutively. Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at different times run consecutively unless the court orders that the terms are to run concurrently."

His main argument is that, because his own circumstance does not fall under the specific cases outlined in the law, the judge of the federal court should not be able to decide how his sentences were to be served. Instead, he argues, the federal prison system should decide that matter at the end of his state term. He also states that, before that particular section was enacted, the Bureau of Prisons had the power to make sentences run at the same time – and so, since the statute does not apply to his particular case, the Bureau of Prisons should still have that right.

The counterargument is that the statute is a way of giving more power to courts, not specifying when they have power. In both of the situations outlined by the statute, the judge is allowed to decide whether to overwrite the default – so, even though Setser's particular case is not included in those situations, the judge should still be able to say how the sentences should be served.

Predictions on the outcome

The United States actually agrees with Setser. This makes me believe that the Supreme Court is likely to yield that the federal court did, indeed, make a mistake in specifying how Setser should serve his various sentences, even before the state sentences were decided.

SOURCE:

Michael Dimino, Argument preview: Court to consider run-on sentences, SCOTUSblog (Nov. 23, 2011, 3:00 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/11/argument-preview-court-to-consider-run-on-sentences/

​The Supreme Case I was assigned was Perry V. New Hampshire

The situation behind this case is that in an apartment building there was a hijacker that had been robbing cars for a while and one night an elderly woman looked outside of her window and saw a black man standing between cars talking to a police officer in the parking lot. The elderly woman, when questioned told police that he had been the man breaking into cars at night, when the elderly woman was asked to identify the man from an array of photos she could not do so and the only problem the Court agreed to look over was whether or not the absence of any police manipulation of that witness was reliable enough to bring before the jury to be used against the conviction of Barion Perry. 

The constitutional question in plain English  is “In a case should a court be required to exclude eyewitness identification evidence whenever the identification was made under circumstances that make the identification unreliable?”

            The Constitutional Provision involved in my case is The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Which states that “No State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1.

The Fourteenth Amendment is applicable to unreliable eyewitness identifications regardless of whether the identification was orchestrated by the police.

After the case was argued The Supreme Court decided that it wasn’t their job or place to decide whether or not the evidence in the case should be used and that the decision of permissible evidence would be left up to the jury. The conviction of Barion Perry still hasn’t been decided mainly because of the evidence debate. 

I’m not to sure how to predict the outcome of this case because it could go in either direction. I personally don’t believe this evidence should

Be used against Perry because I feel like the evidence is unreliable. The witness didn’t see Perry take anything and she was not able to identify him when she was asked. The conclusion of this case is strictly dependant upon the jury so at this point and time this could end either way.

Main Issue: Can the court of appeals intervene in a federal habeas case? And when does the statute of limitations for federal habeas claims begin?

One June 2nd of 1995, Robert Velasquez was murdered in a drive-by shooting, in which Rafael Gonzalez was labeled as one of the men in the two cars involved in the shooting, and thus an accomplice, if not the perpetrator of the murder. Officers tried to arrest Gonzales at his last known address, but unbeknownst to detectives, Gonzalez had left the country. After failing to apprehend Gonzalez at any known addresses, no further attempts to locate him were made until six weeks later detectives were told that Gonzalez was in Guatemala. Shortly thereafter the U.S embassy in Guatemala was informed of Gonzalez's actions and general whereabouts, but no further action was taken to apprehend him.
Six years later the extradition process begins, but he is not extradited until July of 2004, nine years after the murder. On July 15th of 2005, Gonzalez is put on trial. At this trial, he attempts to have the case dismissed on the grounds that this trial violates his 6th and 14th amendments, which guarantee him a speedy trial. In addition, he adds that because he was unaware that he was charged with murder for most of those ten years, he was unable to prepare a proper defense for the case. Ultimately he was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. After sentencing, he filed many habeas corpus appeals, which in short protect a person from unlawful detention, as he saw because of the lack of a speedy trial, violating the 6th and 14th amendments. The appeals climbed the judicial ladder until it finally arrived at United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. However, because the appeals had not had any approval on it's journey here, there was no 'renewal' for the expiration date, so the claim was long expired, and thus discarded on those grounds, with little consideration to the constitutional issue it brought up. He then filed an appeal addressed to the district court, requesting a certificate of appealability. This was denied on grounds of being untimely as well, so in turn he filed a request with the court of appeals for a certificate of appealability. Ultimately, this request was granted, and Judge Garza signed a certificate of appealability. This has caused quite a lot of rabble, and has brought up a large question: Should courts dismiss constitutional claims on procedural bases without any real investigation of the constitutional claims?
I'm not quite sure what to think of this. Logically, I believe he should stay in jail because he was involved in a murder, but procedurally he should walk free because he was denied the constitutional right to a prompt and speedy trial. This case is really quite a mess and it's very hard to predict the outcome. If it were a small crime, then I think certainly the charges would be dropped due to the constitutional issues, but because it's murder it's much more complex. I think that this case will come down to very small details, but I think he stands a chance of winning it due to his persistence.

​A link to the court case on the SCOTUSblog : http://bit.ly/ste9dt
Transcript : http://bit.ly/rJOMCF
6th Amendment : http://bit.ly/9L4u

 
Galin Frye's situation has brought up the question of (from SCOTUSblog): 
"Can a criminal defendant who was convicted after a jury trial later argue that his lawyer was inadequate because he failed to tell him that prosecutors had offered a deal to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence? And, if so, what should courts do to correct the lawyer's error?"

Galin Frye was caught felony driving with a revoked license. He entered a plea of guilty and recieved a sentencing of 3 years in prison. However, his lawyer failed to tell him that the prosecutor offered a plea offer to a a misdemeanor charge instead, in which he'd only receive 90 days in prison. The lawyer exemplified "ineffective assistance of counsel". This situation brings up the issue of "fundamental fairness and reliability of criminal process". This issue states that a client's attorney provide him with ALL of the facts, especially a fact as detrimental as this one.

The only piece of the Constitution that is brought up throughout the case was the Sixth Amendement. Which reads: 

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."  

This was brought up because of the last line, "and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense". Frye and his team of lawyers are arguing that his counsel gave ineffective assistance. Frye and his team are looking for some kind of correction to the lawyer's error. The last moment of dialogue of the argument was, "For this and other reasons stated in our briefing, the Missouri versus Court of Appeals should be reversed."

​Constitutional Question: The case of Florence V. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the Country of Burlington was followed with a question from the Supreme Court, the question is “Does the Constitution permit the government to strip search every person admitted to a jail, even if there is no reasonable basis to suspect that the person has hidden weapons or contraband?” In another word, does the Constitution have permission to violate the fourth amendment to follow security order and to investigate minor Crimes.

 

Facts of the Case: A citizen named Albert Florence from the state of New Jersey was arrested on a bench warrant from Essex County. Florence was charged from the arrested for non-indictable offense and not capable to pay a fine. However, Florence argued for his rights and protested the validity of the warrant due to the fact that he had paid the fine. However, after his arrested and detention, the charge was, in fact already been dismissed.

During the arrest, Florence was stripped and search as subjected to a visual body cavity search during his arrival at the Burlington County Jail. From the time of his arrest he was being consume to visual body cavity search and after six days upon his transfer from Burlington County to Essex Country Correctional Facility. But soon after, the charge against him was dismissed and Florence was released.

However, Florence decided to bring a civil rights lawsuit to the United State District Court and to the District of New Jersey for claiming the right to his privacy and the rights of all persons in the class of alleged minor offenders of consuming in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Also the Constitution were violated the Fourth Amendment by strip and search a visual body cavity searches for a minor arrest. This District Court agreed to Florence request and his claim to the charge.


Summary of the Arguments before the SCOTUS: The Court pointed out the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1979, which stated “Inmates do not have the right of privacy in prison that is guaranteed to ordinary citizens.” This is to protect the process from unreasonable violations to any citizen’s privacy. The Court decided to applied one of the cased called “Bell v. Wolfish,” which were also involved visual body cavity searches for being arrestees including charged with a minor offense and was striped and search.

The Court decided to apply the rule of the Third Circuit panel that was persuaded by the recent Eleventh and Ninth Circuit that ruled balancing the jails’ security concerns. These circuits are –

(1) The detection of smuggling weapons, contraband and drugs into the facility.

 (2) The identification of gang members by observation of their tattoos.

(3) The prevention of disease, particularly MRSA, against the privacy interest of the arrestees, a blanket policy of strip searching and subjecting all arrestees to visual body cavity searches, irrespective of any particularized suspicion, does not contravene the Fourth Amendment. 

 

Prediction: Since the Supreme court had involved in a similar case and was pass with the Bell v. Wolfish, this case probably will be done with more of a complex explanation by the judges and the court. However, since this case is being reenact, Florence V. Board will not be abandon by lawyers because the Fourth Amendment was violated for Florence, which also was prohibited in the Three Circuits.

 http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/florence-v-board-of-chosen-freeholders-of-the-county-of-burlington/

 http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/093603p.pdf

I was assigned to following the case "Douglas v. The independent Living Center of Southern California". in California there is a tight financial situation and one of the states larger  expense is Healthcare. As a result in 2008 and 2009 the state cut 1-10% of the Medi - Cal reimbursement budget .The main topic (question/concern) of "Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California" is  not the legality of the actual cuts to the health care budget. It is whether or not the healthcare beneficiaries and providers can sue the state for not meeting the required reimbursement rates.
Medicaid is  federally funded healthcare that reimburses healthcare providers for servicing individuals who qualify. If a state chooses accept federal funding it is mandatory  that the state  give out a reasonable amount of money to medicare providers, If not the funding for healthcare for the state will be shut down.
Medicaid providers and recipients in California attempted  to sue the state  to prevent budget cuts. The healthcare providers are using the  Supremacy Clause , which basically states that federal law trumps state law. If the state is not following the federal law then the state can be sued under there Ex Parte Young , which would allow the state to be sued for acting in a unconstitutional manner .
The case reached the Supreme Court in October of 2011. The defense has made a point that if this is allowed federal agencies will be bombarded with other cases thats are also arguing that the state is not following the federal law. Making it difficult for them to handle anything but the cases.The prosecution responded saying they had no intention of doing this they just simply wanted to make sure they are allowed to exercise their rights to fight.
A decision has not been reach as of yet. The Supreme Court is expected to have a final ruling  sometime next year. The case is not expected to rule in favor of the people and providers  of the California medicare system. Personally I do not expect to see them come out completely successful either because the defense most laws likely correct when they said that other organizations or people will also try and sue the, state arguing that it has acted unconstitutionally. If the state has acted as such it should be handled fairly and not given a final ruling under the impression that if it as allowed it will only bring chaos. Sadly the case will most likely be given a ruling with future cases in mind.Therefore not allowing these organizations to sue the state.

Natalie Sanchez

My case was Howes v. Fields. It dealer with a young man, Randel Lee Fields, who was imprisoned for a crime that he admitted to have committed. "How could he have ratted himself out like that?" you might be asking yourself. The answer is that he was not read his miranda rights before interrogation. Here's the whole story.  Fields was under custody for disorderly conduct in Lenawee County Sheriff’s Department. On December 23, 2001, Field was escorted form his cell to a conference room by a police guard without handcuffs. Once there, officers Deputy David Batterson and Deputy Dale Sharp began to question him. Fields continued to tell the guards that he did not want to speak with them at that moment, but the guards continued to question him. They told Fields that he was welcome to leave if he wanted. In the end, Field was interrogated for seven hours and told the officers about his sexual relations with a minor. During those seven hours of interrogation, Fields was not read his miranda rights. 

For those of you who do not know, miranda rights are the set of entitlements that must be read to someone before are incarcerated or before are taken into an interrogation. These rights state, “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to an attorney during interrogation; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.”  The Miranda rights are connected to the constitution in that they give the suspect a chance to clear his or her name by pleading the fifth ammendment (or, in other words, keeping their mouths shut). Because he was not read his miranda warning, Fields told the police officers what he did, hence, the Michigan court of appeals charged him with two counts of third degree sexual conduct and was given a term of ten to fifteen years in prison. The Questions in hand are as follows: Was Field's second sentence constitutional? Was the Michigan Court of Appeal’s decision against or in agreement with federal law? More importantly, "Does federal law automatically require Miranda warnings before questioning jail or prison inmates about issues unrelated to the cases for which they were incarcerated?" This is what congress was debating on October 4, 2011. They wanted to determine whether or not miranda rights should be read to prisoners even when they are being interrogated about a different crime than the one that got them in jail in the first place. 

Now there are two ways to look at this case. You could either justify Field's second jail sentence or deem it unlawful. The side that the Michigan Court of Appeals took was the one that justified Field's second sentence. They argue that 1. Field was under custody for another crime, 2. he was not wearing handcuffs when he was interrogated by the officers, 3. he was interrogated in a conference room, and 4. he was told that he could leave the room whenever he wanted to. Because of these small details,the Miranda rights were not necessary for this case scenario, according to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The other side argues that Miranda rights were created in order to give a suspect the chance to clear his name by not speaking about his or her acts during an interrogation. They argue that the person must be in custody in order to receive their miranda warning; Fields was in custody. Fields also stated that he was treated harshly during the impromptu interrogation, as one of the deputies used intimidation to get him to talk about his offense. The people who think that Field was treated unjustly argue that 1. a suspect in custody should be read their miranda rights, as anything they say can be used against them, 2. that this should happen regardless of what crime the criminal is going to be asked about, and 3. this is the only way that the miranda warning could serve its full purpose. I think that Field's sentence is going to be lifted-his sentence will be deemed unconstitutional. 

I feel like, though he was being asked about another crime he committed, he was tricked into giving information to the officers in a very unlawful way. The fair thing would have been to read Fields his miranda rights so that he would have been given a heads up that he was going to court and that what he was going to say to the officers would be used against him. I feel like Fields was treated unfairly and that he will soon receive justice. 

Sources: 

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/10a0254p-06.pdf

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2011/2011_10_680%20#

http://www.mirandawarning.org/historyofmirandawarning.html