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| Younger v. Harris, No. 2,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 23, 1971, Decided
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Overview: The court reversed the trial court's judgment that a state law under which defendant had been indicted was unconstitutionally vague. Because the case was still pending, the court could not enjoin the proceedings. Plaintiffs who joined in the action out of fear that their constitutional rights would be impaired did not have standing because they had not been indicted themselves. Although the statute may have challenged defendant's U.S. Const. amend. I freedom of speech rights and its enforcement might have a chilling effect on the speech of other persons, the court could not review the statute on its face. The limited circumstances under which a statute threatened great and immediate irreparable injuries were not present.
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| Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, No. 1066,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 2, 1971, Decided
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Overview: Petitioners, private citizens and conservation organizations, claimed that respondent Secretary of Transportation violated ¿ 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, 49 U.S.C.S. ¿ 1653(f), and ¿ 18(a) of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, 23 U.S.C.S. ¿ 138, by authorizing expenditure of federal funds for construction of an interstate highway through a public park. Petitioners argued, inter alia, that respondent's action was invalid without formal factual findings and that he failed to make an independent determination but merely relied on the judgment of a local city council. In evidence of the independence of and basis for his decisionmaking, respondent introduced litigation affidavits at trial. Petitioners offered rebuttal affidavits. The district court granted summary judgment for respondent, and the court of appeals affirmed. On certiorari, the Court reversed and remanded to the district court, holding that respondent was not required to make formal findings, but judicial review based solely on litigation affidavits was inadequate under ¿ 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.S. ¿ 706, which required an agency's "whole record" as the basis for review.
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| Griggs v. Duke Power Co., No. 124,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 8, 1971, Decided
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Overview: The employees sought review of the lower court's decision, which concluded that the requirements of a high school education or the passing of a general intelligence test as a condition of employment in or transfer to jobs did not violate Title VII. The Court reversed on the basis that practices, procedures, or tests that were neutral on their face could not be maintained if they operated to freeze the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices. The Court found that it was significant that the requirements were not shown to bear a demonstrable relationship to the successful performance of the jobs for which the standards were used and that the requirements operated to disqualify black applicants at a substantially higher rate than white applicants for jobs that were formerly filled only by white employees. The employer's lack of discriminatory intent was not controlling because courts were required to look to the consequences of the employment practices, not simply the motivation. Tests could be used to measure job performance if they measured the person for the job and not the person in the abstract.
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| Blonder-Tongue Lab. v. Univ. of Ill. Found., No. 338,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, May 3, 1971, Decided
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Overview: Petitioner, a patent licensor, challenged an order of a federal appeals court affirming a judgment that respondent assignor's patent was both valid and infringed by petitioner's products. An appeals court in another circuit had determined respondent's patent was invalid for obviousness. Petitioner sought certiorari, assigning the conflict between the circuits as to the validity of respondent's patent as a primary reason for granting the writ. Petitioner sought modification of case law holding that a determination of patent invalidity was not res judicata as against the patentee in subsequent litigation against a different defendant. Petitioner argued the precedent should be modified to provide for comity on estoppel grounds where substantially the same documentary evidence was before both courts, and where respondent had the chance to present witnesses in the earlier litigation but failed to do so. The appellate court agreed and reversed the judgment, holding that Triplett v. Lowell, 297 U.S. 638, (1936), was overruled to the extent it foreclosed a plea of estoppel by one facing a charge of infringing a patent that had once been declared invalid.
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| Cohen v. Cal., No. 299,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, June 7, 1971, Decided
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Overview: Appellee argued that the four-letter expletive imprinted on appellant's jacket was "offensive conduct" that might provoke others to violence against appellant. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, noting that appellant did not engage in any act of violence, or make any loud noises, when he wore the jacket in the municipal courthouse as an expression of his feelings toward the Vietnam War and the draft. A conviction resting solely upon "speech" could be justified under the First and Fourteenth Amendment only for the manner that the freedom was exercised, but not for the content of the message. The Court observed that the statute was not limited to protecting courtroom decorum, nor directed at erotic messages, and the message did not consist of "fighting words," directed at readers of the message. That the message was thrust upon unsuspecting viewers, who were not captive and could avert their eyes, did not entitle appellee to protect the sensitive by curtailing all such speech. Moreover, no evidence demonstrated that anyone was prepared to strike out at whomever assaulted their sensibilities.
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| Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, No. 301,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, June 21, 1971, Decided
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Overview: The federal agents argued that petitioner's right to damages for an invasion of the state-created right to privacy was available only in a state court applying state law. Thus, respondents asserted, they would stand before state law as private citizens if a constitutional violation was found. The court disagreed, saying that the relationship between federal agents, acting unconstitutionally, and a private citizen differed from that between private citizens. Because agents had a far greater capacity for harm, the Court reasoned, the Fourth Amendment limited the exercise of federal power. The Court explained that the Amendment did not proscribe only those acts engaged in by private citizens that were condemned by state law, that the interests of state laws regulating invasion of privacy and the Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches could be inconsistent, and that the awarding of damages to petitioner following a violation of the Amendment by federal agents was a remedy normally available in the federal courts.
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| Coolidge v. N.H., No. 323,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, June 21, 1971, Decided
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Overview: Petitioner appealed the judgment of the lower court that affirmed the admission of evidence at a murder trial. Petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Court reversed, holding that the warrant that authorized the search and seizure of petitioner's automobile was invalid because it had not been issued by a neutral or detached magistrate. The warrant had been issued by the attorney general, who was actively in charge of the investigation of the murder and who was later to be the chief prosecutor at the trial. The Court rejected the contention that the search of the automobile was incident to a valid arrest because petitioner was arrested in his house and the car was outside some distance away. The search did not come within the automobile exception to the warrant requirement because the automobile was regularly parked in the driveway and was not fleeing, and the items searched for were not contraband. Finally, the Court found that the car was not an instrumentality of the crime that could be seized in plain view because the police knew in advance of the car's location and had ample opportunity to obtain a valid warrant.
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| Lemon v. Kurtzman, No. 89,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, June 28, 1971, Decided **Together with No. 569, Earley et al. v. DiCenso et al., and No. 570, Robinson, Commissioner of Education of Rhode Island, et al. v. DiCenso et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
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Overview: Pa. Stat. Ann. tit. 24, ¿¿ 5601 - 5609 (Supp. 1971) provided financial support to nonpublic elementary and secondary schools by reimbursing the cost of teachers' salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials in specified secular subjects. Pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws Ann. ¿ 16-51-1 et seq. (Supp. 1970), the state paid directly to teachers in nonpublic elementary schools a supplement of 15 percent of their annual salary. Under each statute, state aid had been given to church-related educational institutions. The court held that both statutes were unconstitutional, affirming the Rhode Island District Court's conclusion that the Act fostered excessive entanglement between government and religion, as evident in the way the program required the government to examine a school's records to determine how much of the total expenditures was attributable to secular education and how much to religious activity. Similarly, the court reversed the Pennsylvania District Court order that dismissed appellant taxpayers' complaint under a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion, finding that the Pennsylvania statute had the facial defect of providing state financial aid directly to church-related schools.
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| Santobello v. New York, No. 70-98,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, December 20, 1971, Decided
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Overview: Defendant was indicted on two felony counts involving gambling. After negotiations, the assistant district attorney in charge of the case agreed to permit defendant to plead guilty to a lesser-included offense and agreed to make no recommendation as to the sentence. Defendant acquired new defense counsel and filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. The trial court refused. A new prosecutor replaced the prosecutor who negotiated the plea. The new prosecutor recommended the maximum sentence, which the trial judge imposed. The appellate court affirmed defendant's conviction. The Court granted certiorari and found that when a plea rested on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, such promise had to be fulfilled. The Court concluded that the interests of justice and appropriate recognition of the duties of the prosecution, in relation to promises made in the negotiation of pleas of guilty, would be best served by remanding the case to the state courts for further consideration.
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