Overview of the 2009 Supreme Court Term
Steven R. Shapiro, ACLU Legal Director
Court Poised To Issue Important Rulings On Free Speech, Government Accountability And Criminal Justice
The Supreme Court begins its 2009 Term with a new justice and a seemingly emboldened conservative majority. Both were previewed two weeks ago when the Court heard re-argument in Citzens United v. FEC (08-205), which has the potential to produce the most important decision on campaign finance since Buckley v. Valeo in 1976.
The Court's re-argument order was sweeping. It asked the parties to address whether the Court should overrule both its 2003 decision in McConnell v. FEC upholding the facial validity of current restrictions on "electioneering communications" by corporations and unions, and its 1990 decision in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce holding that corporations can be barred from using general treasury funds to engage in partisan campaign speech.
Overruling Austin would be a far bigger step. If corporations (and presumably unions, as well) cannot be barred from using general treasury funds to directly support or oppose the election of particular candidates, then there is no need to consider the exact scope of the restrictions adopted by Congress as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act ("BCRA") of 2002.
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Supreme Court Cases
Keep America Safe & Free
8/31/2009 -
Whether a district court may award enhanced attorney’s fees to a prevailing plaintiff in a civil rights action based on extraordinary performance and exceptional results.
Keep America Safe & Free
8/7/2009 -
Whether a state must provide some sort of preliminary hearing when it allows cars and other property to be seized and held for six months or more pending final forfeiture proceedings.
Quality of Counsel
8/6/2009 -
Whether the federal courts properly reviewed the state court findings in this habeas corpus proceeding to determine the constitutionality of the petitioner's death sentence.
Free Speech
7/29/2009 -
Whether a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which bars unions and corporations (both for-profit and non-profit) from engaging in "electioneering communications," violates the First Amendment and should be struck down as facially unconstitutional.
Free Speech
7/27/2009 -
Whether the First Amendment permits the government to criminalize the interstate sale or possession of any depiction of animal cruelty that is illegal where the depiction is created, sold or possessed, unless the depiction has serious value.
The Public Square
10/7/2009 -
Whether a congressional statute transferring a small parcel of land in the Mojave Desert National Preserve to private owners satisfies the government's obligation to cure the Establishment Clause violation created by a Latin cross on public land, when the government also designates the cross as a national memorial and retains a reversionary interest in the land.
Immigrants' Rights
7/20/2009 -
Whether a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals denying a motion for reconsideration in an asylum case is subject to judicial review.
Detention, Keep America Safe & Free
8/1/2009 -
Case Number:
08-1234
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union urged the United States Supreme Court in a friend-of-the-court brief to hear the case of 17 Chinese ethnic Uighurs who have been detained without charge for over seven years at Guantánamo Bay and whose continued detention was found unlawful by a federal district court. The district court ordered the Uighurs, who the government concedes are not "enemy combatants," released into the U.S. because they cannot be returned to China given the threat of torture there, and because no other country has agreed to accept them.
