U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court. 358 U.S. 153, Dec. 15, 1958. The court ruling that established the harmless per se principle that a color additive had to be harmless regardless of the quantity used. 

U.S. Supreme Court breaks Standard Oil monopoly into thirty-four companies. 

The U.S. Supreme Court rtil es that states have the authority under the Clean Water Act to establish minimum streamflows at hydro projects. The ruling gives states more authority in hydro licensing and relicensing decisions. 

The federal judiciary handles litigation on patents nearly exclusively. Theoretically, the same law governs all the judicial circuits. Where there is a conflict between circuits, as in the Kewanee case, sooner or later the U.S. Supreme Court can establish the controlling interpretation. Perhaps more in theory than in practice, the same decision should be obtainable in any U.S. district court. 

The lack of a non-competition clause in the agreements derived from the employer survey apparently reflect a concern that such a clause might not be enforceable. In California, for example, the Business and Professions Code 16,600 voids such clauses. This provision was recently upheld by U. S. Supreme Court (4). In other jurisdictions, there is a substantial risk that a clause prohibiting a chemist from engaging in his profession with another employer would be ruled unenforceable as an unconscionable contract of adhesion. It seems the trend of the law is to recognize the doctrine of contracts of adhesion as being unenforceable. 

U.S. Supreme Court allows the Chakrabarty patent for a bacterium able to break down oil because it contains two different plamsids... 

In both cases, the district courts of appeals ruled that the background check provision was unconstitutional, though other parts of the law (such as the waiting period) could remain in force. However, federal attorneys appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, which ruled that the background checks were constitutional. The sheriffs appeals, now combined, came to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

October 4 The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review a 9th Circuit appeals court decision uploading the Alameda County, California, ban on gun shows at county fairgrounds. The lower court had said that neither the First nor the Second Amendment had been violated by the ban. 

Presserv. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) Here the parties are Presser and the State of Illinois. The case is in volume 116 of the U.S. Supreme Court Reports, and the case was decided in 1886. (For the Supreme Court, the name of the court is omitted.)... 

Carney, Dan. Brady Decision Reflects Effort to Curb Congress Authority. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 55, June 28, 1997, p. 1524. Explains the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Printz v. U.S., where the Court struck down the part of the Brady Bill that required local sheriffs to perform bac%round checks on gun purchasers. The justices ruled that the provision extended beyond Congress s power to regulate interstate commerce. 

Congress and the Executive Branch can also use the Supreme Court s decisions about the admission of expert testimony in courts as a starting point for establishing standards for consideration of experts and their opinions. In the 1993 Daubert Case, 17 the U.S. Supreme Court set down some guidelines for courts to use to decide whether an expert and his or her testimony is ad-... 

The following selection of court cases (mainly from the U.S. Supreme Court) deal specifically with drug laws. Note that there are many other cases that deal with related issues of search and seizure, privacy, self-incrimination, and so on. 

Medical Use of Marijuana United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, No. 00-151, (2001) U.S. v. Rosenthal, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2003 Raich v. Ashcroft, U.S. Supreme Court, 03-15481 (2003)... 

The District Court held the section unconstimtional for the reason that it was not a revenue measure, and was an invasion of the police power reserved to the state. .. The case came to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. 

The defendant, a physician, was convicted under the Harrison Narcotics Act of unlawfully selling morphine. The law allowed an exception for distribution of narcotic drugs to a patient by a registered physician in the course of his professional practice only. The government charged that Jin Fuey Moy had sold morphine to persons who were not his patients, and thus the prescriptions were not legitimate. The defendant appealed his conviction, and the appeal was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The United States brought an action against defendant Sanchez for recovery of taxes due under the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This law imposed a tax ranging from 1 to 24 per ounce on sales or transfers of marijuana. If this tax was not paid and the proper paperwork filed, then an additional levy of 100 per ounce tax came into effect. The district court dismissed the government s claim for the tax. The court of appeals, however, reversed that decision, and Sanchez appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In juvenile court T.L.O. s attorney argued that the search hy the vice principal had violated the girl s privacy under the Fourth Amendment. However, while the court did agree that the Fourth Amendment did apply to searches in schools, the search of T.L.O. s purse met the standard of being reasonable under the circumstances. The appeals court also upheld the search, but the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the decision, calling the search unreasonable. The case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

After receiving an anonymous tip that Ciraolo was growing marijuana, police in Santa Clara, California, tried to look into his backyard. If they could see the plants, they could get a search warrant. However, the fence around the yard was too high, so they hired a private plane and flew over the house at an altitude of 1,000 feet. Being able to confirm the presence of marijuana plants, they secured a search warrant and then arrested Ciraolo, who pled guilty to cultivation of marijuana. An appeals court, however, ruled that the fly-over constituted an illegal search and reversed Ciraolo s conviction. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Sokolow moved to suppress this evidence as being the fruit of an unlawful search. The district court denied his motion, but the court of appeals sided with Sokolow. It ruled that some more definite sign of ongoing criminal activity such as evasive movement was needed, not just characteristics that indicate some probability of criminality but were likely shared by many innocent persons as well. The case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The Oregon Supreme Court then decided that although the state law did forbid use of controlled drugs even for religious purposes, this prohibition violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the free exercise of religion. Upon appeal by the government the case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision. 

The U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin... 

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the district court to determine whether the device used was intrusive. The district court concluded that because the device showed only a crude image of heat sources and did not show any people or activity within the walls of the structure, use of the device was not intrusive. The Court of Appeals evenmally affirmed the district court s opinion, and Kyllo appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Pringle s motion was denied by the trial and lower appeals courts, but the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the police officer did not have probable cause for the arrest because there was no reason to assume that Pringle, who was only a front seat passenger, had any knowledge of the drugs hidden in the back seat. The state appealed further, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. 

The Ninth Circuit ruled that Raytheon s blanket policy did not shield it from the obligation not to discriminate against former drug abusers. The company was obligated to take Hernandez s protected status (as disabled) into account and could not deliberately avoid learning about that status. The court ruled that the case should go to trial to determine whether Hernandez had been discriminated against. Raytheon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

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