Reacts to ‘Obamacare’ decision
Pres. Obama reacts to the Supreme Court decision on Affordable Care Act subsidies:
After multiple challenges to this law before the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.
He adds that, had the decision gone otherwise:
America would have gone backwards. That’s not what we do.
Delivers Rev. Pinckney’s eulogy, sings Amazing Grace
The President delivers the eulogy at the funeral of South Carolina State Senator Rev. Pinckney, who was also a personal acquaintance, which includes him singing Amazing Grace.
Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.
Upholds Fair Housing Act
In a 5-4 decision, justices re-affirm a 47-year-old federal law that cracks down on housing discrimination. They hold that the law allows for both claims for intentional discrimination, and claims on practices that are not intended to discriminate, but have a discriminatory effect. According to Justice Kennedy, writing on behalf of the majority, which includes Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor and Breyer.
Much progress remains to be made in our nation’s continuing struggle against racial isolation. The Court acknowledges the Fair Housing Act’s continuing role in moving the nation toward a more integrated society.
In dissent Justice Thomas said the court was in danger of constructing “a scheme that parcels out legal privileges to individuals on the basis of skin color.”
Upholds health care subsidies
In a 6-3 ruling, justices uphold health care subsidies, based on their finding that critics’ reading of Obamacare might make sense in isolation, but not when viewed in a larger context and in light of the intention of the law. Americans who currently receive subsidies under the Affordable Care Act will continue to do so. Chief Justice Roberts writes for the majority:
Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.
He is joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Kennedy and Sotomayor. Justice Scalia presents the dissent, and is joined by Justices Alito and Thomas. Scalia calls the decision “wonderfully convenient,” complains about “interpretative jiggery-pokery” and argues it was not the Court’s job to make up for the sloppy drafting of the law by Congress, branding the law as “SCOTUScare”.
Favors inmate on excessive force claim
In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, a 6-3 ruling makes it easier for pre-trial inmates to bring claims against jail officials for using excessive force, and rules that officers and juries will be held to an objective standard about whether the use of force is reasonable. At issue is the question of whether police officers are permitted to use subjective standards in their use of force force, and whether juries can also be instructed to use subjective standards when determining whether or not excessive force was used in a given case. The ruling makes it clear that objective standards are to be developed and used.
Denies police access to LA hotel registries
In a 5-4 decision, justices strike down a Los Angeles ordinance that requires hotel owners to give the police access to hotel registries without a warrant. The case highlights a reoccurring tension between the need to protect people’s right to privacy while also giving law enforcement the tools it needs to pursue public safety.
Spider-Man Toy precedent upheld
In a 6-3 decision, justices decline to overrule a 50-year-old decision on patent royalties. Stephen Kimble invented a web-shooting toy and obtained a patent on the device in 1991. He sued Marvel Enterprises in 1997, alleging the company used his ideas to create a toy named the Web Blaster without paying him. The two sides settled in 2001, agreeing on terms that included Marvel paying a running 3% royalty rate on sales of the toy. When the patent expired, Marvel asserted that its obligations to pay would end. Lower courts agreed, as did the Supreme Court, saying in a 6-3 decision that Kimble hadn’t presented the court with a compelling “special justification” for abandoning the principle of stare decisis, or sticking with past precedent. Kagan:
What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly.
Sides with raisin farmers
In an 8-1 decision, the justices rule that a government program meant to increase raisin prices by keeping some of them off the market amounts to an unconstitutional taking of private property by the government. Chief Justice Roberts writes for the majority:
The fact that the growers retain a contingent interest of indeterminate value does not mean there has been no physical taking, particularly since the value of the interest depends on the discretion of the taker, and may be worthless, as it was for one of the two years at issue here.
Justice Sotomayor is the sole dissenting voter. She states that the majority had damaged settled legal principles…
… in a manner that is as unwarranted as it is vague. What makes the court’s twisting of the doctrine even more baffling is that it ultimately instructs the government that it can permissibly achieve its market control goals by imposing a quota without offering raisin producers a way of reaping any return whatsoever on the raisins they cannot sell. I have trouble understanding why anyone would prefer that.
The justices are, however, divided 5-4 on the issue of compensation for the plaintiffs, with Justices Breyer, Kagan and Ginsburg joining in the dissent.
Confirms Texas’ Confederate plates rejection
In a 5-4 decision, the justices rule that Texas did not violate the First Amendment when it refused to allow specialty license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. Justice Breyer writes for the majority that such plates are the government’s speech and are thus immune from First Amendment attacks.
Children’s abuse statements can be evidence
Justices unanimously rule that statements made by children to teachers about possible abuse can be used as evidence, even if the child does not testify in court. The ruling is expected to make it easier for prosecutors to convict people accused of domestic violence. The justices state that defendants don’t have a constitutional right to cross-examine child accusers unless their statements to school officials were made for the primary purpose of creating evidence for prosecution.
Releases climate change letter
Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his long-awaited encyclical calling for action on climate change. In the letter, he urges the rich to change their lifestyles to avert the destruction of the ecosystem. In excerpts from the 184-page document:
What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? The question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal…Today, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
Arrested
Police arrrest Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, almost 250 miles (400 km) – about three and a half hours’ drive – away from Charleston, when local police stop his car after a citizen called in about suspicious activity. Police say Roof was “cooperative” with the officer who stopped him.