Court backs coach in praying on field after games
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday that a high school football coach who knelt and prayed on the field after games was protected by the Constitution, a decision that opponents said would open the door to "much more coercive prayer" in public schools.
The court ruled 6-3 for the coach with the conservative justices in the majority and the liberals in dissent. The case was the latest in a line of rulings for religious plaintiffs.
The case forced the justices to wrestle with how to balance the religious and free speech rights of teachers and coaches with the rights of students not to feel pressured into participating in religious practices. The liberal justices in the minority said there was evidence that Bremerton (Washington) High School Coach Joseph Kennedy's prayers at the 50-yard-line had a coercive effect on students and allowed him to incorporate his "personal religious beliefs into a school event."
Dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision "sets us further down a perilous path in forcing states to entangle themselves with religion."
But the justices in the majority emphasized that the coach's prayers came after the games were over and at a time when he wasn't responsible for students and was free to do other things.
The coach and his attorneys at First Liberty Institute, a Christian legal group, were among those cheering the decision. Kennedy said in an interview that his first reaction was one of pure joy.
"Just like in all my football games I just threw my arms up, you know, 'touchdown,'" he said. He described the seven years since the dispute began as tough on his family but "absolutely worth it."
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority in the ruling, declared, "The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.
Gorsuch noted that the coach "prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters" and "while his students were otherwise occupied."
It would be wrong to treat everything public school teachers and coaches say and do as speech subject to government control, he wrote. If that were the case, "a school could fire a Muslim teacher for wearing a headscarf in the classroom or prohibit a Christian aide from praying quietly over her lunch in the cafeteria," he wrote.
He closed by writing that: "Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic—whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head."
The decision continues a pattern in which the court has ruled in favor of religious plaintiffs. Last week the court ruled that Maine can't exclude religious schools from a program that offers tuition aid for private education, a decision that could ease religious organizations' access to taxpayer money.
In dissent, Sotomayor wrote Monday that players "recognize that gaining the coach's approval may pay dividends small and large, from extra playing time to a stronger letter of recommendation to additional support in college athletic recruiting." And she said "some students reported joining Kennedy's prayer because they felt social pressure to follow their coach and teammates."
Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
Paul Clement, the attorney who argued the case on behalf of Kennedy, said in a statement that the decision would allow the coach "to finally return to the place he belongs – coaching football and quietly praying by himself after the game."
Kennedy now lives in Florida, and it was unclear when — or if — he might move back across the country to Washington state for a part-time job that had paid him less than $5,000. He said in the interview that he is in Florida to help his father-in-law but his family remains in Washington and it was never his intention to remain in Florida permanently. He said his lawyers and the school district would need to work things out for him to return to coaching.
He started coaching at the school in 2008 and initially prayed alone on the 50-yard line at the end of games. Students started joining him, and over time he began to deliver a short, inspirational talk with religious references. Kennedy did that for years and also led students in locker room prayers. The school district learned what he was doing in 2015 and asked him to stop out of concerns the district could be sued for violating students' religious freedom rights.
He stopped leading students in prayer in the locker room and on the field but wanted to continue kneeling and praying on the field himself after games. The school asked him not to do so while still "on duty" as a coach after the games. When he continued, the school put him on paid leave. The head coach of the varsity team later recommended he not be rehired because, among other things, he failed to follow district policy.
In a statement, the Bremerton School District and its attorneys at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said the decision undermines the separation required by the Constitution. The school district said in a statement that it had "followed the law and acted to protect the religious freedom of all students and their families."
Rachel Laser, the head of Americans United, said the decision "opens the door to much more coercive prayer in our public schools" and undermines the religious freedom of students.
The school district's attorney, Richard Katskee, said it is studying the decision and considering its next steps.
Three justices on the court — Breyer, Kagan and Justice Samuel Alito — attended public high schools, while the other six attended Catholic schools.
The case is Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 21-418.
Justices side with doctors convicted in pain pill schemes
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for doctors who face criminal charges for overprescribing powerful pain medication in a case arising from the opioid addiction crisis.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court that prosecutors must prove that doctors knew they were illegally prescribing powerful pain drugs in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act.
The ruling came as the U.S. has been seeing record numbers of drug overdose deaths, many from the highly lethal opioid fentanyl.
Evaluating the convictions of two doctors who are each facing more than two decades in prison, the justices ruled on a subject on which advocates for patients and doctors had urged the court to distinguish between criminal behavior and medical errors made in good faith.
It did so in the ruling. Prosecutors, Breyer wrote, "must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or intentionally acted in an unauthorized manner." The justices ruled unanimously for the doctors, though only six endorsed Breyer's standard for conviction.
Fear of aggressive prosecution already has led doctors to avoid prescribing opioids "against their best medical judgment," the National Pain Advocacy Center told the court in a written filing.
But the justices did not throw out the convictions of two doctors whose appeal was heard in February. Instead, it ordered federal appeals courts to take a new look at their cases.
The court ruled on appeals from Xiulu Ruan of Mobile, Alabama, and Shakeel Kahn, who practiced medicine in Ft. Mohave, Arizona, and Casper, Wyoming.
Ruan is serving a 21-year federal prison term. Kahn is in prison for up to 25 years. They will get another chance to argue that their convictions should be overturned.
Ruan and a partner, James Couch, were convicted of overprescribing medications at their Physicians Pain Specialists of Alabama clinic and a pharmacy.
The two doctors "enriched themselves through a long-running scheme of unlawfully issuing prescriptions for addictive and potent controlled substances, in response to their own financial incentives rather than the legitimate medical needs of their patients," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, told the court in a written filing.
They grossed $20 million between 2012 and a raid in 2015, prosecutors said. In 2014, they wrote 66,892 prescriptions, prosecutors said.
Kahn was convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and dispense controlled substances resulting in death, including oxycodone, an opioid pain reliever, and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.
Kahn "routinely performed only a perfunctory examination — or no examination at all — before prescribing controlled substances for a patient," the Justice Department said in a Supreme Court brief.
Jessica Burch, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, was a patient of Kahn's who died from an overdose in 2015.
Kahn wrote nearly 15,000 prescriptions for controlled substances over six years, totaling nearly 2.2 million pills, prosecutors said. Nearly half were oxycodone, they said.
Court rules for inmates seeking reduced prison terms
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court made it easier Monday for certain prison inmates to seek shorter sentences under a bipartisan 2018 federal law aimed at reducing racial disparities in prison terms for cocaine crimes.
The justices ruled 5-4 that trial judges who are asked to resentence inmates may look at a wide range of factors, including some that have nothing to do with crack cocaine offenses that had produced longer stints in prison, disproportionately for people of color.
The high court settled a disagreement among the nation's appellate courts over what judges should do in these cases.
The case before the justices involved Carlos Concepcion, who is serving a 19-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to possessing at least five grams of crack cocaine with an intent to distribute.
But the length of Concepcion's prison term really was determined by previous state court convictions that made him a career offender under federal law.
In 2019, Concepcion asked for a reduced sentence under the First Step Act that President Donald Trump signed into law a year earlier. Concepcion argued that the law made him eligible for a shorter term, but he also pointed to his earlier convictions, one of which had been thrown out and others of which were no longer considered violent crimes under intervening Supreme Court decisions.
Still, the judge refused to consider changes to his sentence.
"The District Court in this case declined to consider petitioner Carlos Concepcion's arguments that intervening changes of law and fact supported his motion, erroneously believing that it did not have the discretion to do so," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her opinion for the court.
Still, she wrote, judges remain free to leave the original sentence in place.
An unusual group of justices joined her, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch.
In a dissent for four members of the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the majority misconstrued the 2018 law.
"The text of the First Step Act authorizes district courts to reduce sentences based only on changes to the crack-cocaine sentencing ranges, not based on other unrelated changes that have occurred since the original sentencing," Kavanaugh wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justices nix 2nd mostly Black district in Louisiana for 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold a lower court ruling that Louisiana must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power.
With the three liberal justices dissenting, the high court short-circuited an order from a federal judge to create a second majority Black congressional district in Louisiana.
The state will hold elections this year under a congressional map adopted by its Republican-dominated legislature with white majorities in five of six districts.
The court's action is similar to an order issued in February in Alabama that allowed the state to hold elections in 2022 under a map drawn by Alabama's GOP-controlled legislature that contains one majority-Black district. Alabama has seven seats in the House of Representatives.
The justices are hearing arguments in the Alabama case in October. The Louisiana case will remain on hold under the court renders a decision on the Alabama case, the justices said.
