Court avoids case over same-sex wedding cake
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court decided Monday against a high-stakes, election-year case about the competing rights of gay and lesbian couples and merchants who refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.
The justices handed bakers in the Portland, Oregon, area a small victory by throwing out a state court ruling against them and ordering judges to take a new look at their refusal to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.
The high court's brief order directs appellate judges in Oregon to consider last term's Supreme Court ruling in favor of a baker from Colorado who would not make a cake for a same-sex wedding. The court ruled that baker Jack Phillips was subjected to anti-religious bias in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's determination that he violated state anti-discrimination in refusing to bake the couple's wedding cake. The Oregon appellate ruling came before the court's decision in Phillips' case.
But the import of the order is that it keeps the case off the docket for a term that will end in June 2020 amid the presidential election campaign. The justices already have agreed to decide in their election-year session whether federal civil rights law protects people from job discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The larger issue weighing the rights of LGBT people against the religious objections of merchants remains unresolved. Another dispute involving a florist from Washington state who would not create flower arrangements for a same-sex wedding is headed back to the Supreme Court.
The high court took the same tack last year in the florist's case. Taking a second look at the case, the Washington Supreme Court concluded earlier in June that there was no animosity toward religion in court rulings that florist Barronelle Stutzman broke the state's anti-discrimination laws by refusing on religious grounds to provide flowers for the wedding of a gay couple. Stutzman owns Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington.
The justices could consider Stutzman's appeal in the fall.
The Oregon case had been in Supreme Court limbo for months, sometimes signaling behind-the-scenes negotiation over what to do. There were no noted dissents or other explanation for the delay in Monday's order.
The case involves bakers Melissa and Aaron Klein, who paid a $135,000 judgment to the couple for declining to create a cake for them in 2013. The Kleins' bakery was Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Oregon. It has since closed.
The dispute began when Rachel Bowman-Cryer went to the bakery with her mother in January 2013. They met with Aaron Klein, who asked for the date of the ceremony and the names of the bride and groom.
When told there was no groom, Klein said he was sorry but the bakery did not make cakes for same-sex weddings. According to documents from the case, Rachel and her mother left the shop, but returned a short time later. As Rachel remained in the car, in tears, her mother went in to speak with Klein.
The mother told Klein she had once thought like him, but her "truth had changed" when she had two gay children. Klein responded by quoting Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
Justices let voting go ahead under redrawn map
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Virginians will elect members of the House of Delegates this year using a map seen as favorable to Democrats as a result of a ruling Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The political boundaries are important because Republicans currently control the House by a slim majority. Only four states are having legislative elections this year. Virginia is the only one where Democrats have a chance of flipping control of the House and Senate.
The high court's 5-4 decision was perhaps telegraphed by the fact that the justices previously allowed election planning to go forward with the new map. Virginia held its primary last week, and the November general election will be the last time the state uses this map because legislative districts will need to be redrawn to account for results from the 2020 census.
The justices let stand a lower court decision putting the new map in place, saying the Republican-controlled state House did not have a right to represent the state's interests in an appeal to the Supreme Court. The state could have decided to bring the case but did not, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote.
"One House of its bicameral legislature cannot alone continue the litigation against the will of its partners in the legislative process," she wrote. The four justices joining her were Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch, a lineup that included conservatives and liberals. Dissenting were Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh.
The case stemmed from a map drawn by Republican lawmakers in 2011, after the last census, and used in the four elections since. Democratic voters sued in 2014, accusing Republicans of packing black voters into certain districts to make surrounding ones whiter and more Republican.
A lower court ruled 2-1 last year that the previous map drawn by lawmakers improperly factored race into drawing 11 of the 100 House districts. After lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a redistricting plan, the lower court chose a new map from a series of proposals submitted by a special master.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, called the ruling a "big win for democracy in Virginia."
"It's unfortunate that House Republicans wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and months of litigation in a futile effort to protect racially gerrymandered districts," he said in a statement.
The lawsuit challenging the original House lines was backed by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The group targets elections for governors and state legislators, court cases or ballot initiative to give Democrats more control during the next round of congressional redistricting after the 2020 Census.
"With a new, fair map in place, all Virginians will now - finally - have the opportunity this fall to elect a House of Delegates that actually represents the will of the people," Holder said in a statement.
House Republicans said they are disappointed by the ruling and criticized the "shadowy organization funded by out-of-state interests" that funded the lawsuit. But Republicans said they still expect to maintain their majority based on their track record of "common sense" leadership.
"Today's ruling from SCOTUS will make victory in November even sweeter," the House GOP caucus tweeted, adding in a statement: "We are confident that voters will opt for the leadership and results we have delivered over chaos, embarrassment, and unchecked Democratic control of state government."
The case is Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 18-281.
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Associated Press writer Alan Suderman contributed from Richmond, Virginia.
Court sides with Virginia in uranium mining ban case
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court sided with the state of Virginia on Monday, finding nothing improper about its decades-old ban on mining radioactive uranium.
The owners of a massive deposit of radioactive uranium, the largest known in the United States, challenged that ban, which has prevented them from mining.
They tried from 2008 to 2013 to persuade Virginia lawmakers to reconsider. After that effort failed, they tried a different approach, suing the state in federal court in an attempt to invalidate the ban, which goes back to the 1980s. Lower courts ruled against Virginia Uranium, the owners of the deposit near Coles Hill, in southern Virginia's Pittsylvania County, and the case was dismissed.
The Supreme Court agreed with those decisions, ruling 6-3 that a federal law called the Atomic Energy Act does not keep the state from banning uranium mining.
"Virginia Uranium insists that the federal Atomic Energy Act pre-empts a state law banning uranium mining, but we do not see it. ... Congress conspicuously chose to leave untouched the States' historic authority over the regulation of mining activities on private lands within their borders," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.
Turning the uranium in the ground into usable material would involve several steps. First, the uranium ore would have to be mined from the ground. Next, the uranium would then need to be processed at a mill, where pure uranium is separated from waste rock. Then, the waste rock, called "tailings," which remain radioactive, would have to be securely stored.
The debate at the Supreme Court centered on Virginia's ability to regulate the first step in that process: mining. The Atomic Energy Act gives the federal government oversight over the other steps: processing the radioactive uranium and storing the radioactive waste that results.
Virginia Uranium argued that the state cannot ban uranium mining based on concerns about hazards connected with later steps. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing a dissent in the case for himself and Justices Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito, said he agreed with that argument.
In a statement, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring called the ruling "a big win for the health and safety of Virginians and our environment."
"Our ban on uranium mining has protected our citizens, communities, local economies, and waterways for more than 30 years, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that we are well within our rights as a state to decide that a risky, potentially dangerous activity like uranium mining is not for us," Herring said.
Walter Coles, the president and CEO of Virginia Uranium, said in a statement that the company is still studying the court's opinion but "obviously disappointed with the result."
"We continue to think that Virginia's uranium mining ban is both unlawful and unwise, and we are reviewing other options for challenging the Commonwealth's confiscation of Virginia Uranium's mineral estate," he said.
The case is Virginia Uranium v. John Warren, 16-1275.
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Associated Press reporter Denise Lavoie contributed to this report from Richmond, Virginia.
Justices uphold rule allowing state, federal charges
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is upholding a constitutional rule that allows state and federal governments to prosecute someone for the same crime, a closely watched case because of its potential implications for people prosecuted in the Russia investigation.
The court's 7-2 decision Monday preserves a long-standing rule that provides an exception to the Constitution's ban on trying someone twice for the same offense. Ruling for the defendant in this case might have made it harder for states to pursue criminal charges against defendants in the Russia investigation in the event they are pardoned by President Donald Trump.
The court ruled against federal prison inmate Terance Gamble. He was prosecuted by Alabama and the federal government for having a gun after an earlier conviction for robbery.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion that 170 years of precedent supports the idea that "a state may prosecute a defendant under state law even if the federal government has prosecuted him for the same conduct under a federal statute."
New York authorities already have indicted Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.
Manafort has been sentenced to more than 7 years on federal conspiracy and fraud convictions. He also has been charged with mortgage fraud and other crimes in New York. Trump could pardon him for his federal convictions, but Manafort still would have to answer to the state charges by the Manhattan district attorney's office. The president's pardon power doesn't extend to state charges.
Had the justices ruled the other way, it might have called into question the ability to prosecute Manafort on the state level.
The case decided Monday drew the court's attention after Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas wrote in 2016 that the exception to protection from double jeopardy should be reconsidered.
But during arguments in December, several justices worried about the practical effects of ruling for Gamble. Justice Stephen Breyer pointed to federal prosecutions for crimes of racial violence and domestic violence against Native American women that could be imperiled if Gamble prevailed.
Ginsburg dissented from Monday's ruling, which she called "adherence to that misguided doctrine." In a separate dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, "A free society does not allow its government to try the same individual for the same crime until it's happy with the result."
In the end, Thomas parted ways with Ginsburg. He noted in a 17-page opinion that "the historical record does not bear out my initial skepticism." Thomas spent the bulk of his opinion making the case for less fidelity to Supreme Court precedents. "When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple: We should not follow it," wrote the justice who is the most likely to encourage his colleagues to overrule earlier high court decisions.
Published: Wed, Jun 19, 2019
