Cultivated Compendium

The National Law Journal's Tony Mauro reports that the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments this morning about the constitutionality of several states' bans on same-sex marriage, appeared to be cautious about making sweeping change to the definition of matrimony in the United States.

According to Mauro, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has authored several of the court's landmark decisions on LGBT rights and is considered a swing vote on the issue, said, '"The word that keeps coming to me is 'millennia.'" Kennedy, however, also said that there is nobility in marriage that same-sex couples should enjoy. I think that sentiment from Kennedy seems to reflect the kind of rhetoric he deployed in decisions that struck down criminal bans on consensual sodomy and a Colorado state constitutional amendment that barred any extra legal protections for LGBT Coloradans.

According to Mauro, Michigan special attorney general John Bursch asserted that states have a rational basis for keeping marriage to opposite-sex couples in order to encourage children being raised in stable families. But the liberal justices sharply challenged that argument.

President Obama's revelation last week that a counterterrorism operation let to the accidental killing of an American and an Italian hostage, as well as two Americans associated with Al Qaeda, has once again raised the circumstances under which the U.S. can use lethal force to target American citizens abroad, The Christian Science Monitor's Anna Mulrine reports: "A 2011 Department of Justice memo says that to legally order the death of a US citizen without a trial, the government must determine that the citizen is 'a senior Al Qaeda leader or an associated force' who is 'actively engaged in planning operations to kill Americans.'"

Christopher Swift, adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University in Washington, told CSM that the memo is the only legal authority out there about when American citizens can be killed without trial in the name of national security. The problem is the memo's "'reliance on due process is vague,'" Swift said.

A Navajo inmate incarcerated in Wisconsin can wear a tribal headband and celebrate a tribal feast with wild venison following a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last week, the Associated Press reports. Judge Frank Easterbrook ruled that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act requires prisons to accomodate religious practices.

According to the United Nations, the court system in Afghanistan is failing women who are victims of violence, leading them to turn to mediation instead, the Los Angeles Times' Ali M. Latifi reports. Women interviewed by UN investigators reported they have to pay bribes to move the judicial process along, that they don't know how the law applies to their cases, and they fear imprisoning the men who are often the sole breadwinners for their households. Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a women’s rights activist, told the L.A. Times that mediation can be a long-term solution to domestic violence, but, on the other hand, "'in the past, we have had judges telling victims of gang rapes to marry their rapists. Clearly, there has to be a certain level of corruption in the formal systems for people to prefer mediation.'”

The U.S. Supreme Court, 6-3, has ruled that police can't prolong traffic stops in order to await the arrival of drug-sniffing dogs to inspect motor vehicles, The New York Times' Adam Liptak reports: "'“A police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures,'" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote for the majority.

The Nebraska defendant had his traffic stop delayed by eight minutes after he got a written warning for driving on the shoulder of a state highway. The court's ruling means that the large bag of methamphetamine found in the defendant's car could be suppressed if a lower court does not find that there was reasonable suspicion to prolong the traffic stop.

In separate dissents, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court's new rule is not workable, and Justice Samuel Alito wrote that police officers will now make sure to issue tickets or warnings as the last step during traffic stops.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has refused to reconsider a class action by 33,000 Arizona prison inmates over a strong dissent, Courthouse News' Tim Hull reports. The dissent said that inmates failed to demonstrate that their class has commonality and typicality: "'First, before certifying a class, a court must ensure that all members of the potential class have the same sort of claim, and that the claim is susceptible to classwide resolution. Second, a prisoner does not have an Eighth Amendment claim merely because the prisoner is incarcerated in a prison with a defective medical system,'" Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote.

The plaintiffs allege that inadequate healthcare in Arizona's prisons has violated their Eighth Amendment rights. For example, prison officials allegedly made it difficult for inmates to get medications, medical devices and dental care beyond having their teeth pulled.

The case has now settled, and the dissent said class certification should be vacated despite the mootness issues.

As many as 45,000 more Montanans will be get health coverage after legislators have passed a bill to expand Medicaid, The Huffington Post's Jeffrey Young reports. Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, supports expanding Medicaid. The expansion also must be approved by the federal government because it includes new requirements for enrollees, including monthly premiums.

Two years ago, the expansion failed because a supporter cast the deciding vote the wrong way accidentally, Young reports.

The Recorder's Marisa Kendall reports on the ebb and flow between arbitration and class actions and the U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in AT& T Mobility v. Concepcion led to class actions drying up; the justices found that the Federal Arbitration Act pre-empted California's ban on class arbitration. As a result, companies shielded themselves with agreements providing that disputes with customers and employees must be resolved through arbitration.

But the California Supreme Court has agreed to review whether consumers seeking injunctive relief under California law can be forced into arbitration. The California justices also will hear a case that will "potentially lay out new grounds by which courts can reject unfair or one-sided arbitration agreements." In the latter case, the Kendall reports the California Supreme Court is likely to use the case to clarify what makes an arbitration agreement too one-sided or unfair to enforce.

Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage has been struck down by a state judge on the grounds that there is no rational basis for the prohibition, the Lexington Herald-Leader's John Cheves reports: "Judge Thomas Wingate ruled for two Lexington couples who were denied marriage licenses by the Fayette County Clerk in 2013 because Kentucky's constitution was amended by voters to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman."

When a Kentucky federal judge struck down Kentucky's ban, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit restored the ban on appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the issue April 28.
 

A group of Wisconsin voters who favor a constitutional change that would let a majority vote, not seniority, determine the Wisconsin chief justice have moved to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the current sitting chief justice to attack the amendment, Wisconsin Watchdog's M.D. Kittle reports.

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahmson is a liberal, and many conservatives in Wisconsin supported the constitutional amendment in order to allow the conservative majority on the court pick a new leader. Voters approved the amendment earlier this month, and Abrahamson immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the amendment on the grounds of due process and equal protection.