Court Digest

Washington
Washington Supreme Court reverses 1960 cemetery decision
SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state Supreme Court has reversed its 1960 decision that allowed cemeteries to discriminate on the basis of race, a rule considered irrelevant as federal and state regulations have already made it illegal.

The Supreme Court said on Thursday it was trying to reckon with the court system's long history of racial discrimination and was taking a small symbolic step to undo systemic racism, The Seattle Times reported.

Following national protests stemming from the police killing of George Floyd, all nine justices on the court wrote an open letter in June foreshadowing their plans to overrule the decision that made it illegal for cemeteries to "refuse burial to any person because such person may not be of the Caucasian race."

"This very court once held that a cemetery could lawfully deny grieving black parents the right to bury their infant," the justices said in the letter. "We cannot undo this wrong — but we can recognize our ability to do better in the future."

The decision came as the Supreme Court simultaneously denied an initiative on Thursday that would have lowered many state vehicle-registration fees to $30.

"It's institutionally really important that the courts look backward in time and acknowledge when things are really wrong, when they accomplish an injustice rather than justice," University of Washington School of Law professor Theo Myhre said.

Nebraska
State Supreme Court rejects challenge to lending measure
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to a payday lending measure on the November ballot.

Supporters of the measure, which would cap the annual interest rate on payday loans at 36%, gathered enough signatures to place the proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot. However, a lawsuit argued that when circulators gathered petition signatures, they didn't read the initiative's full object statement to signers.

A Lancaster County District Court judge dismissed the challenge in September, finding affidavits from 188 signers missed a deadline. The judge also found that while the signers claimed circulators hadn't read the initiative's full object statement, the law only requires signers by offered a summary of the petition that isn't misleading.

The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the district court decision.

The court earlier allowed the initiative to go before voters, and many people already have cast early ballots on the question.

If approved by voters, the limit would change a Nebraska law that now allows lenders to charge as much as 404% annually. Supporters of the measure say such high rates victimizes low-income people and those who don't understanding lending requirements.

Industry officials responded that most loans are short-term, so such high rates are misleading.

Tennessee
Trial set for death row inmates seeking firing squad option
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A trial date has been set for case seeking to allow the firing squad and other execution methods outside of lethal injection and the electric chair in Tennessee.

U.S. District Judge William Campbell scheduled the trial for April 2022.

Nearly two years ago, four death row inmates filed a complaint arguing that the state had several alternative execution methods that would "substantially reduce the constitutionally-unacceptable risk of inflicting unnecessary and serious pain" caused by electrocution.

Three of those inmates have since been executed by the electric chair, an option available in Tennessee for inmates whose crimes were committed before the state adopted lethal injection as its preferred execution method.

Nicholas Todd Sutton's electrocution took place in February 2020, Stephen Michael West was electrocuted in August 2019, and David Earl Miller was electrocuted in December 2018.

The fourth inmate remains on death row: Terry Lynn King, who was sentenced to death in 1985 for the kidnapping and killing of Diana Smith.

According to the lawsuit, attorneys argue that the state already has the trained personnel, firearms and space to allow for a firing squad. However, if the court disagreed, the suit argued inmates should have permission to use other alternatives such as orally administering lethal drugs over using a needle, or using different forms of drugs.

The last time a firing squad was used in the U.S. was in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a firing squad in Utah for the 1984 murder of attorney Michael Burdell during a failed courthouse escape.

Today, just three states — Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah — continue to allow the use of firing squads.

Arizona
Court rejects bid to extend vote counting on Navajo Nation
PHOENIX (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a bid to give an extra 10 days after Election Day to count ballots mailed by Navajo Nation members living on the Arizona portion of the tribe's reservation

Thursday's ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort by six Navajos who sought more time for authorities to count ballots.

They alleged mail service on the reservation is much slower and less accessible than other parts of the state so ballots should be counted if postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials up to 10 days later. They also argued that Arizona's requirement that mail ballots be received by 7 p.m. on election night would disenfranchise tribal members.

A lower-court judge rejected the request two weeks ago, saying those seeking the extension didn't prove the deadline imposes a disparate burden on Navajos as a protected class of voters.

Thursday's ruling from the appeals court panel used different reasoning to reach the same result. The court said the six plaintiffs had no right to sue because they hadn't shown they would be affected by slow mail, or even that the remedy they suggested the court adopt would help them vote.