Supreme Court Decisions in 2015 Quiz

Answer: Yes

Justice Alito wrote the decision for a 9-0 court in the case of Holt v. Hobbs. Alito found that the ban on beards in the Arkansas prison system did in fact burden the inmate's religious practices. The question, then, was whether the state had a legitimate basis for the ban. Alito scoffed at the Arkansas claim that the ban was necessary because inmates might hide things in their beards. Alito wrote that the idea that security "would be seriously compromised by allowing an inmate to grow a half-inch beard is hard to take seriously." Alito noted that inmates were permitted to grow hair on their heads, which would be a much more likely place to hide contraband.

Answer: Personally asking their supporters for money

Williams-Yulee was reprimanded and fined for signing a fund-raising letter during her campaign for judge. The court split 5-4, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the four liberals (Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Kagan and Breyer) in upholding the law. The majority applied the principle that any law limiting speech content must face strict scrutiny, meaning that the law must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. The majority felt that the state's interest in preserving public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary met the "compelling state interest" test, and Roberts concluded that "This is therefore one of the rare cases in which a speech restriction withstands strict scrutiny."

The dissenters pointed to the fact that all solicitations were banned, even solicitations from family members or others who could not possibly ever appear as a litigant in the candidate's courtroom, should she be elected. Similarly, newspaper ads, mass mailings, flyers on telephone poles, and websites addressed to the general public were all banned, as long as they contained a personal appeal for funds from the candidate. In light of this analysis, the dissenters were incredulous over how the majority could have concluded that the law in question met the "narrowly tailored" test.

Answer: Clarence Thomas

The issue in this case was whether a specialty license plate represents speech by the state or speech by the individual vehicle owners. The majority felt it was the state's free speech rights that were at issue. Thomas did not write a separate opinion, so we are left in the dark as to why he chose to join the liberals in deciding this case.

In his dissent, Justice Alito mocked the notion that the specialty plates represented speech by the government. He noted that there are hundreds of such specialty plates, including frivolous phrases like "Rather be Golfing", and he therefore concluded that no rational person would ever think that this represented an actual governmental position.

Answer: Facebook

The Supreme Court threw out the conviction, based on erroneous instructions to the jury that the lyrics constituted a threat if a reasonable person would foresee that it would be interpreted as a threat. The trial court's instructions contradict the basic criminal law principle that any crime must contain mens rea, or guilty mind. That is, the defendant must have criminal intent; consequently, the true test was whether defendant Elonis intended the lyrics as a threat.

Answer: Jerusalem

At issue in this case was a 2002 Act of Congress which required that the U.S. government list "Israel" as the place of birth on passports for American citizens born in Jerusalem, if the citizen (or his/her parents) requested this. This was a 5-4 decision, with Justice Kennedy joining the four liberals to form the majority. The majority felt that requiring this was tantamount to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, which is contrary to official U.S. policy followed by every administration since Harry Truman in 1948 when Israel was created. The majority felt that diplomatic recognition is solely the province of the executive.

The dissent by Chief Justice Roberts expressed doubt that the president's power of recognition is exclusive. But it then goes on to say that "even if the president does have exclusive recognition power, he still cannot prevail in this case, because the statute at issue does not implicate recognition". That is, simply listing the country of birth on the passports of a few citizens as "Israel" does not equate to official recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. And if there was any doubt in the world community about this, it would be a simple matter for the president to issue a clarifying statement.

Answer: Wearing a headscarf (hijab)

Samantha Elauf, a 17-year-old Muslim girl, applied for a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store. The employer had a "no hat" policy, and the applicant was marked down because she wore a hijab, and therefore was not hired. The hijab was not discussed in her employment interview.

Justice Scalia, writing for a near-unanimous court, found that this was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits an employer from refusing to hire an applicant in order to avoid accommodating a religious practice, if that practice could be accommodated without undue hardship to the employer. The court rejected Abercrombie's argument that the accommodation had to be specifically requested by the applicant before a valid discrimination claim could be triggered.

Answer: Legislature

To combat the problem of partisan gerrymandering, Arizona voters approved an initiative providing that an independent commission be appointed to do the redistricting for Congressional districts after each national census, taking that authority away from the state legislature. A clause in the U.S. Constitution, known as the "Elections Clause", provides that the legislature shall have the authority over the "Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections", which includes drawing the border lines for each district.

The majority interpreted "legislature" as broad enough to encompass the people as a whole making the decision, as they did in passing the initiative setting up the independent commission. The dissent by Chief Justice Roberts, joined by the other three conservatives, felt that the term "legislature' was unambiguous. Roberts listed all seventeen of the instances in which the word "legislature" is used in the Constitution, and he concluded that "every one of those references is consistent with the understanding of the legislature as a representative body".

Answer: Stephen Breyer

Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Ginsberg, discussed at length four troublesome factors with the death penalty as it existed in 2015. These factors were: 1) serious unreliability; 2) arbitrariness in application; 3) unconscionably long delays; and 4) a trend in the U.S. towards abandoning the use of the death penalty.

A second dissent, written by Justice Sotomayor, argued that the majority opinion left the prisoners who filed the suit "exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake". She looked at the testimony of the state's so-called expert, a doctor of pharmacy, and concluded that his opinion on the effects of the main drug at issue, midazolam, was totally unsupported by any scientific evidence. Further, Justice Sotomayor found that the majority position that the petitioners had to come up themselves with a more humane execution method to be an "unprecedented obligation". She also questioned the illogical premise of the majority that if the death penalty is constitutional, then there must be a constitutional way of administering it.

Answer: Yes

The issue in the case was whether that ACA's tax credits are available in states that have a Federal Exchange. Because of a drafting error, a literal reading of the Act would imply that they were not available in these states.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in this 6-3 decision, interpreted the drafting error in a way that preserved the intent of the ACA, which is to make health care more widely available. Scalia's dissent, joined by Thomas and Alito, thought the majority's interpretation to be "quite absurd". Scalia would interpret the clause in question 100% literally.

Answer: Anthony Kennedy

Justice Kennedy reasoned that marriage was a fundamental right, and therefore a denial of that right violated the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Kennedy saw this decision as a logical continuation of a line of cases expanding marriage rights; these rights were extended to mixed-race couples in 1967, to fathers owing child support in 1978, and to prison inmates in 1987.

In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that the basic definition of marriage as between a man and a woman was never in question in any of these cases cited by the majority. The other three conservatives filed separate dissents, each one emphasizing a particular aspect of the minority position.