Supreme Court Decisons 2010 Trivia Quiz

Answer: The government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker's corporate identity.

A badly-split court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the government may not ban political spending by corporations. President Obama decried the ruling, stating, "This ruling strikes at our democracy itself. I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections."

The majority of the court saw the case as a fairly straightforward application of the first amendment, and felt that the government simply had no business restricting political speech, even when done by corporations. Justice Stevens in dissent accused the majority of political activism, since they were striking down a law passed by Congress. Stevens wrote: "The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court's disposition of this case."

It should be noted that the restrictions imposed by Congress on corporate donations to individual candidates were not affected by this ruling. Rather, this case involved direct spending by the organization Citizens United, which had produced a film critical of Senator Hillary Clinton, intended for viewing during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign. The McCain-Feingold campaign reform law of 2002 prevented this sort of broadcast within thirty days of a primary, and it is this provision which the Supreme Court struck down.

Answer: David Souter

Souter had been serving on the court since his appointment in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. The oddity associated with Souter's retirement is that at the time he retired he was only the sixth-oldest member of the court. He was "only" 69, twenty years younger than Justice John Paul Stevens, but he did not like Washington and was anxious to return to his native New Hampshire.

Answer: The cross could remain, provided that the proposed transfer of the land to the VFW could be done in a way that wouldn't look like a government endorsement of religion.

This case, titled Salazar v. Buono, had more twists and turns than a "Law and Order" episode. Buono originally obtained a District Court ruling in his favor, requiring the government to remove the cross, which had been sitting in a remote area of the Mojave Desert since 1934 as a memorial to U.S. war dead. Congress then responded by authorizing the Interior Department to convey the land to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), so that the cross would no longer be on public land. Buono then went back to court and obtained an injunction against this land transfer, and this injunction was upheld by the Court of Appeals. At this point the Supreme Court accepted the case for review.

The court's two arch-conservatives, Thomas and Scalia, felt that Buono had no standing to pursue his lawsuit because the land transfer did not personally injure him in any way. The court's four liberals voted to uphold the lower court order blocking the land transfer. The controlling opinion was authored by Justice Kennedy, who said the case should be sent back to the lower court to determine whether the proposed land transfer did or did not appear to be a government endorsement of religion.

Answer: The program could continue.

Civil commitments by the states had been upheld previously by the court, provided that the commitment was genuinely for the purpose of treatment and not merely further punishment for past crimes, which would constitute double jeopardy. The Comstock case involved a commitment program run by the federal government itself, not by the states.

The two conservatives, Thomas and Scalia, dissented, feeling that nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to undertake such a program, which was actually what the Court of Appeals had held. Justice Breyer's majority opinion held that the authority was found in the so-called "necessary and proper" clause, which gives Congress the right "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" its other powers. Alito and Kennedy concurred in the result, but did not like the scope of Breyer's sweeping language. They likened the program to capturing escaped prisoners, i.e., a power the federal government obviously has.

Answer: life imprisonment with no chance of parole for a juvenile offender who has not committed murder

Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the deciding vote and wrote the opinion for the majority in this 5-4 decision. The court did not say parole had to be granted, just that there had to be a "realistic opportunity" for parole.

This decision was part of a long line of cases in which the Supreme Court has interpreted the Eighth Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment". In the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, the court ruled that mentally retarded offenders could not be executed, and in the 2005 case of Roper v. Simmons the court held that juvenile offenders could not be executed. Then in the 2008 case of Kennedy v. Louisiana, the court held that execution for crimes other than murder violated the Eighth Amendment. This latter case prevented Louisiana from executing defendant Kennedy for the crime of raping his stepdaughter.

Answer: National Football League

In this decision, titled American Needle v. National Football League, the court ruled that each of the NFL's 32 teams was a separate business, and the NFL could not hold itself out to be a single entity for marketing purposes. The plaintiff, a company called American Needle, had sued the NFL under antitrust law after it lost its contract to make official NFL hats. The Supreme Court decision reinstated the case, which had been thrown out by the Court of Appeals, and allowed the case to go forward at the trial stage.

The irony here is that the NFL *does* act as a single entity for collection and distribution of TV revenues, which are enormous. All of the 32 NFL teams share equally in the overall TV revenue, and this arrangement was not affected by the American Needle decision. What *is* affected is the ability of individual teams to market their souvenirs as they see fit. Successful individual teams, like the Dallas Cowboys who are known colloquially as "America's team", can make huge sums marketing their products, and under this decision individual teams were free to make deals with companies, unimpeded by league restrictions.

Another oddity is that the sport of baseball has long enjoyed an exemption from antitrust laws, ever since a 1922 Supreme Court decision in the case of Federal Base Ball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs. However, none of the other pro sports in the U.S. has ever been granted such an exemption. The practical effect of this for sports fans is that baseball franchises enjoyed a period of relative stability, with no moves taking place from 1972 until the league-sponsored relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington in 2004. The other sports--football, basketball and hockey--have, by contrast, experienced frequent moves by franchises which are enticed to move by cities anxious to become "major league". The difference is that the antitrust laws prevent those other leagues from dictating to the individual team owners where they will call home, whereas baseball is free to exercise this control.

Answer: what consitututes a waiver of rights

The defendant Thompkins had been read his rights and indicated he understood them, but he refused to sign the form acknowledging that he understood them. Nevertheless, the detectives questioned him for three hours, while the defendant remained mostly silent. But to the question, "Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?", the defendant answered "yes", and this one-word answer was used against him at trial to convict him.

The Supreme Court held that the mere silence of the defendant was not enough to show he was invoking his right to remain silent. Had he asked for a lawyer or said he didn't want to be questioned anymore, then all questioning would have had to cease.

The old rule was that the prosecution had the affirmative burden of proving the defendant had waived his right to remain silent. The new rule shifts the burden to the defendant to affirmatively speak up if he wants to invoke his rights.

Answer: The Second Amendment applies to the states as well as to the federal government.

The case, McDonald v. Chicago, dealt with a Chicago law banning the possession of handguns. The Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment applies to the states.

The process of applying the Bill of Rights to the states, a process called "incorporation", has been going on since the 1890's. After the McDonald decision, these were the only remaining Bill of Rights provisions that had not yet been incorporated: quartering of soldiers (3rd amendment), indictment by a grand jury (5th amendment), jury trial in civil cases (7th amendment), and excessive bail and fines (8th amendment).

Answer: Oliver Wendell Holmes

Stevens retired at the age of ninety years and two months, while Holmes was age ninety years and ten months when he retired in 1932. Only two Justices had served longer than Stevens: William O. Douglas, who served two years longer (from 1939 to 1975), and Stephen Field, who served one day longer (from 1863 to 1897).
Douglas benefited from being the youngest justice ever confirmed to the Supreme Court (he was only 40 when he joined the court); Holmes, by contrast, was 61 when he took the bench.

Answer: federal District Court Judge

Her lack of judicial experience was seen as a negative by some of the Senators considering her nomination. However, a survey of the 109 justices who have served in the past showed that 41 of them had no prior judicial experience upon taking their seat on the high court, so that particular criticism was not determinative.

More to the point was the criticism that she had never practiced law, her prior experience having been in academia and government, as the wrong choices suggest.