Supreme Court rules wisely on immigration, juveniles
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday correctly rejected the notion proposed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and others that states can supersede the federal government and impose harsh crackdowns on immigrants.
But in a day of landmark decisions — though not the anxiously awaited one on President Barack Obama’s health care law — the court also reinforced the wrongheaded notion that unlimited campaign contributions from corporations, unions and anonymous individual donors should be allowed to pollute our nation’s political process.
In a third case, a majority of justices correctly respected the precedent that juvenile offenders should not be subjected to the same sentencing considerations as adults, even for the most heinous of crimes. The court said that juveniles could not be sentenced to life without parole.
Despite the discouraging campaign finance ruling, the decision on immigration, especially, may help put the brakes on growing concerns that the Roberts Court is as likely to heed conservative talking points as legal precedents. The seminal test is the ruling on the Affordable Care Act, which is expected on Thursday.
Show me your papers
The court’s long-awaited decision on Arizona’s immigration law vindicates a challenge by the Obama administration in three important areas.
Arizona cannot make it a crime for immigrants to be without identification papers showing they are in the country legally, the high court said. The state also can’t make it a crime for undocumented immigrants to apply for a job. And officials can’t arrest someone only because they suspect the person is in the state illegally.
The court let stand the law’s noxious “show me your papers” provision, which requires law enforcement officers to try to verify a person’s immigration status during a stop or arrest. This edict understandably has given rise to fears that whole groups of people will face greater odds of being stopped on flimsy pretenses.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said more scrutiny from state and federal courts was needed to determine if the provision is being enforced in a constitutional way.
Today’s ruling should serve as an incentive for Congress to get serious about a realistic immigration policy. And it should help to convince states that they are wasting time, money and good will by listening to Kobach, a lawyer who continually wins the confidence of elected officials, despite a near consistent record of being slapped down by courts.
United in obstinance
By the same 5-4 majority that inflicted the “Citizens United” ruling on America, the court passed up an opportunity to correct the mistake.
Instead, the justices summarily upended a 100-year-old Montana law that bans corporations from making political contributions.
Justice Stephen Breyer correctly protested in a dissent that “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere … casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”
But the four conservative justices and the court’s middleman, Kennedy, stuck with that contention.
The conservative majority was wrong before and it is wrong now. Citizens United is responsible for the proliferation of the SuperPACs, which spend unlimited sums from anonymous donors, mostly on vicious attack ads.
There is still some hope the court will take up the question of the silent money. But Monday’s action on the Montana law will surely mean a brutal election cycle.
5-4 for compassion
The court helped build a fairer, more compassionate society with its 5-4 ruling that will stop courts from sentencing juvenile offenders to life in prison without a chance of parole.
The decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, builds upon previous rulings banning death sentences for juveniles, and life sentences for young people convicted of crimes other than homicides.
“Mandatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features — among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences,” Kagan wrote. “It prevents taking into account the family and home environment…”
The decision doesn’t meant that juveniles who perform the most serious crimes should escape justice. But it correctly rejects the notion that lives at 14 or 15 years of age are beyond redemption.
Kent Mueller
11 months agoExcuse me, KC Star. You misrepresented the Courts CU ruling. You are in error when you say those two rulings had anything to do with, as you say, “silent money”. The Court in its majority opinion of CU even said the Court had no problem with requiring the identification of who gives the money. You misstated that twice in just this one editorial.
The lack of transparency is a legislative failure, not a judicial failure. The Court did not rule on that because that was not before the Court.
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months agoIt is truly a sad day when a state cannot protect its own CITIZENS when the Federal Government refuses to protect them.
All the more reason we need to retire the big 0 and appoint Justices who will protect CITIZENS.
George Hunsucker
Northland
11 months agoyes Chazzy, the big 0 is just throwing a hissy-fit. He is such a “leader”. I am sure his “friends” in Europe must be so proud of him……
Phil Cardarella
11 months ago“The conservative majority was wrong before and it is wrong now.”
What, pray tell is “conservative” about five justices that overturned a century of settled law to make their ruling in Citizens United? A ruling that the case itself did not require?
Seriously, by comparison, the “activist” Warran Court was practically inert!
Phil Cardarella
11 months agoRuling that mandatory life sentences for children is cruel and unusual is not “compassionate”. It is simple justice.
The laws that have dismantled our Juvinile Justice System were based on a false prophecy by a Harvard professor selling books — who stampeded our lawmakers into undoing a century of intelligent juvenile laws.
Children cannot — physicallly — reason like adults. Simple biology — that should be understood by anyone who has ever interacted with a teenager. It is UNJUST to punish them as adults.
In fact, it is truly criminal.