SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK

Lawyer's brief absence doesn't merit a retrial

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court says a Michigan man convicted of murder and armed robbery does not deserve a new trial even though his lawyer was absent for 10 minutes during the original trial.

The justices ruled Monday in favor of Michigan officials who want to stop a new trial for Cory Donald, one of three defendants convicted in the 2005 shooting death of Mohamed Makki.

Michigan state courts rejected Donald's claim that his lawyer was ineffective. But a federal court ruled that the absence occurred at a critical stage during testimony that implicated his co-defendants. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court said there was no harm to Donald since the testimony was irrelevant to his theory of the case.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Sex offender can challenge GPS monitoring

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a North Carolina sex offender should have another chance to challenge an order that he wear a GPS monitoring bracelet around the clock and for the rest of his life.

The justices said the state's highest court must reconsider whether North Carolina violated Torrey Dale Grady's constitutional rights when it ordered him to wear the ankle bracelet beginning in 2013.

North Carolina is among at least eight states that have a system for lifetime monitoring for convicted sex offenders. More than 40 states impose some kind of monitoring as a condition of probation or release from prison.

Grady was convicted of a second-degree sex offense in 1997 and then again of taking indecent liberties with a child in 2006. The second conviction qualified Grady as a repeat offender. After serving nearly three years in prison, Grady was ordered to start wearing the GPS bracelet 24 hours a day in 2013 so officials could keep track of his movements.

Grady argued that the state's lifetime GPS monitoring system is unreasonable because it allows state officials to enter his home - with or without his permission - to maintain a GPS monitoring base station. Grady also complains that he must charge the bracelet every day by plugging it into a wall outlet for four to six hours at a time.

State courts rejected his claims, but the Supreme Court said the monitoring qualifies as a search under the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures and likened it to its last case on GPS devices three years ago.

"The state's program is plainly designed to obtain information," the court said in an unsigned opinion. "And since it does so by physically intruding on a subject's body, it effects a Fourth Amendment search."

In 2012, the court ruled that placing the tracking units on cars to follow their movement is a search. That case did not decide whether attaching the devices without a search warrant violated the Constitution. On Monday, the justices said in their unsigned opinion that the state court should weigh whether North Carolina's tracking of sex offenders is reasonable.

State officials argued that Grady's complaints are based on outdated descriptions of the monitoring program. They said he presented no evidence of the interruptions to his daily life, how often officials must visit his home or what use North Carolina makes of the information it collects from the ankle bracelet.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Justices reject appeal by U.S. flag-wearing students

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has denied an appeal from former California high school students who were ordered to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out during a celebration of the Cinco de Mayo holiday at school.

The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place an appellate ruling that found that school officials acted appropriately because their concerns about racial violence outweighed students' freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday.

The onetime students argued that school officials gave a "heckler's veto" to the objecting students.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Church appeal over use of public school rejected

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has again rejected an appeal from a small evangelical church in the Bronx seeking to overturn New York City's ban on after-hours religious worship services at public schools.

The justices did not comment Monday in siding with the city's Department of Education in a long-running fight over the separation of church and state in the nation's largest public school system.

The Bronx Household of Faith held Sunday services at P.S. 15 for 12 years, until last summer when the church completed its own building near the school. But the church said it still needs extra space for events that include religious services.

The Supreme Court has twice before rejected the church's appeal in a lawsuit spanning 18 years.

The city said it risked blurring church-state separation if it allowed worship services in public schools, although New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has been more supportive of allowing faith organizations to use the city's schools than was his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg.

About 60 groups had been allowed to worship in public buildings.

The case is Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education, 14-354.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Ruling on redistricting sent back

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judicial panel must take another look at its ruling that Virginia state lawmakers packed too many black voters into one congressional district, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday.

The justices ordered the three-judge panel to review the case in light of the high court's ruling last week in an Alabama redistricting case. In the Alabama case, the justices said a lower court failed to consider claims that the new districts limited minority voting power.

In a 2-1 ruling last year, the panel that the Republican-controlled General Assembly packed too many black voters into Virginia's black-majority 3rd Congressional District to make adjacent districts safer for GOP incumbents. The court initially ordered state legislators to redraw new boundaries by April 1, but that requirement was lifted after eight current and former Republican congressmen appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat, has represented Virginia's only black-majority congressional district since 1993 and has never faced a serious challenge. He is one of only three Democrats in the state's 11-member delegation.

With Democratic backing, two voters from the 3rd District filed a lawsuit challenging the district map. The plaintiffs said the lawmakers who drew it could have shifted a large number of black voters from Scott's district into a neighboring district currently represented by a Republican, increasing Democratic influence there without substantially diluting the voting strength of blacks in Scott's district.

During the mapmaking process, the Republican majority rejected an alternative plan that would have created a second black-majority district.

Republicans also have opposed proposals by Democrats to task an independent commission with the responsibility of drawing the state's political boundaries.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Court won't hear pastor's appeal of abuse conviction

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from a Wisconsin pastor convicted of conspiracy to commit child abuse for advocating the use of wooden rods to spank children.

The justices had no comment on their order Monday rejecting Philip Caminiti's appeal of his 2012 conviction for urging church members to use so-called "rod discipline" on babies and toddlers.

Caminiti argued that prosecutors violated his religious freedom and the rights of parents to decide how to discipline their children.

The Wisconsin state appeals court ruled last year that a jury could have reasonably inferred that Caminiti's teachings produced lawless action. The lower court said the state has a compelling interest in preventing child abuse.

Published: Wed, Apr 01, 2015