Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided not to hear a controversial DWI case from Virginia. By refusing to hear it, the Court lets stand a Virginia ruling that police may not pull someone over on suspicion of DUI based solely on a tip, rather than direct observation of suspicious driving.

The vehement dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts raised fear that the court's refusal to hear the case would increase the likelihood of drunk drivers remaining on the road in some states. In his words, not allowing officers to pull drivers over based on a tip will allow drunk drivers "one free swerve."

In the underlying case, a Virginia man was pulled over after an anonymous tip that he was driving while drunk. The officer did not observe any traffic violations, but found the man to reek of alcohol after pulling him over.

The state Supreme Court in Virginia, however, overturned the DUI conviction. It held that pulling someone over based on a tip, without directly observing any dangerous driving, violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case about the extent to which police can seize property connected to drug crimes without offering any procedure for owners to contest the seizure.

The scenario of concern in the case happens across the U.S. Police, while investigating or making arrests in a drug case, seize property that may be connected to the case, like cars. What happens next depends on state law, but in many places, property owners go months or even years without their property, even when no charges are filed against them.

In his brief summary of the case before the Supreme Court (Alvarez v. Smith), George Mason law professor Ilya Somin points out how state seizure laws can threaten innocent property owners whose car or other property gets swept up in the War on Drugs. In Illinois, state law offers no procedure to challenge the seizure, and requires no proof from police that seizure is necessary to preserve evidence.

And as with this lawsuit's original plaintiffs, this can happen even when the owners are never charged with violating any law.

As Professor Somin points out, those whose property is seized are often poor -- meaning that the loss of a car for months on end is a very big deal.

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether by not providing a procedure to challenge seizure, Illinois has violated its the right to due process of those whose property is seized. The court of appeals below ruled that the seizure law does in fact deprive property owners of due process.

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case over whether a federal law criminalizing videos that depict animal cruelty violates the First Amendment.

For background on the case at hand (US v. Stevens), see this write-up in the Christian Science Monitor. To summarize, a Virginia man was convicted of selling dog fighting videos from Japan, where dog fighting is legal. An appeals court struck down the law as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

As described by the LA Times, today's questioning included a hypothetical posed by Justice Samuel Alito asking whether Congress could pass a law forbidding the "Human Sacrifice Channel." We won't know the court's decision (whether to narrow the law or strike it down entirely) until later in the term.

As detailed by NPR, the law at issue was passed 10 years ago with the intent of punishing the purveyors of "crush videos" -- videos of small animals getting crushed by women's bare feet or women in high heels.

We knew it was coming, but today the Supreme Court announced it will take a case that will provide a test for how Second Amendment gun rights will apply outside of Washington, D.C. Last year, in a hotly contested ruling, the Supreme Court announced individual Second Amendment rights for those in the District of Columbia. Now we may learn what type of gun laws will be allowed in cities across America.

As reported by the Washington Post, the Supreme Court will hear the case McDonald v. Chicago. Alan Gura, the same attorney who successfully challenged Washington D.C.'s gun ban, represents plaintiffs against Chicago's gun restrictions, which are reportedly similar to those struck down in D.C.

The Supreme Court's ruling in the D.C. case, District of Columbia v. Heller, was portrayed as remarkable because it announced for the first time that Second Amendment gun rights are individual rights (rather than rights only associated with militias protecting against tyranny from the federal government). The Supreme Court found D.C.'s ban on handguns to violate individuals' Second Amendment rights. However, the case applied only to the District of Columbia and not to any states or cities outside D.C.

All eyes will be watching to see what the Supreme Court does. It could either simply decide whether or not individual Second Amendment rights apply to residents of each state, or it could go further and detail what types of gun restrictions will be allowed going forward.

Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis got a win today from the US Supreme Court. The Court ordered an evidentiary hearing on Davis' claim that he is innocent of the murder of a Savannah police officer in 1989. The case may force clarification of federal courts' power to intervene in state court convictions based on claims of actual innocence, rather than an improper trial.

In 1991, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering off duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. MacPhail was shot as he attempted to aid a man being beaten in a Burger King parking lot. Davis was at the scene of the skirmish; however, he has always claimed that another man -- Sylvester "Redd" Coles -- was the shooter.

No physical evidence connected Davis to the murder. His conviction was based in large part on the testimony of nine eye witnesses, including Redd Coles, who initially fingered Davis. Seven of those eye witnesses have since recanted their testimony.

So what does today's Supreme Court order mean? For Troy Davis, it means a federal hearing to determine whether evidence unavailable at the time of trial clearly establishes his innocence.

Though Davis' case, like most death penalty appeals, has a long and complicated history, it now poses a question that can be stated simply, but will perhaps be more difficult to answer: Can federal courts do anything if someone convicted in state court can prove actual innocence, but can't prove that their trial was unconstitutional?

Child molesters, rapists, sexual predators and the like are often, with good reason, considered to be amongst the worst of the worst of criminal offenders. Severe sentences are the norm for these types of offenses, but many people feel even lengthy jailtime is sometimes not enough. The Supreme Court today announced it will consider the constitutionality of a part of a federal law that allows for "sexually dangerous" inmates to be put away indefinitely via civil commitment, even after they've completed their sentences.

Criminal law reserves serious sentencing penalties for sex offenders, acknowledging both the harm done to victims by the crimes, plus the likelihood of re-offense. However, these jail terms, lengthy as they may sometimes be, do come to an end in many cases. As a result, some states and recently the federal government have enacted laws that permit the civil commitment of certain previously convicted individuals, usually sex offenders. Civil commitment allows for such individuals to be removed from society for extended periods of time, for purposes of both protecting society and rehabilitation.

It's not unusual to hear news stories about individuals who have languished in prison for years to be freed based on exonerating DNA evidence. Similarly, although they might not get as many headlines, the value of evidence from DNA tests for law enforcement and the prosecution in pursuing and establishing the guilt of a defendant is tough to dispute. In a close 5-4 decision today, the Supreme Court today announced that there is no constitutional right for someone who has been convicted of an offense to get access to the prosecution's evidence to perform DNA testing.

The case involved a violent sexual assault in Alaska, of which William Osborne was found guilty by a jury. After his conviction, Osborne asked for certain DNA evidence to be tested, but was shot down in courts at various times for various reasons, one big one being "that Osborne had confessed to some of his crimes in a 2004 application for parole" and in front of the parole board too. The end result was that Osborne ended up bring a lawsuit under civil rights laws claiming the constitution gave him a right to the DNA tests he wanted. He actually prevailed in the lower courts, which found that just like getting evidence from the prosecution before trial, Osborne had a constitutional right to obtain the same after conviction.

The Unforeseen Consequences of Criminal Proceedings

The Supreme Court today may have limited the role a jury must play for aliens facing deportation based on certain past criminal offenses. Pretty much everyone knows that getting convicted of a criminal offense can bring with it serious consequences ranging from jail or prison time, to fines and/or job loss. But for aliens (including lawful permanent residents) facing criminal charges, today's ruling may further emphasize that what goes on during their criminal proceedings can lead to later consequences they might not expect.

Immigration law allow for the deportation of aliens convicted of an "aggravated felony". Immigration laws go on to list various crimes and types of crimes that qualify as these aggravated felonies, and sometimes the language in those definitions can set a hard line for when a crime will become aggravated in nature. The language that the Supreme Court addressed today, for example, dealt with crimes of fraud or deceit and makes an alien deportable if such a crime involves a loss of more than $10,000 by the victims.

Daniel Wilson, a man who burned a woman alive after locking her in the trunk of her car, was executed in Ohio today. According to Reuters, the execution involved the use of a new execution procedure or protocol which the headline referred to as the "set-to-die" procedure.

That term might be a little confusing, because what the new procedure actually entails is a prison warden checking to make sure an inmate is "set to die" after they have been sedated by calling out the inmate's name, shaking his or her shoulder, and giving them a pinch to the upper arm. Of course, being set to die actually means that no response must be received from the inmate before they can get executed. This is because recent death penalty challenges to lethal injection have focused on the possibility that inmates undergoing the penalty were conscious and/or suffering from the administered protocol.

In a sharply divided 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court today slapped down a New York law limiting the legal avenues available for prisoner civil rights lawsuits against corrections officers.

Courts across the nation are no strangers to lawsuits brought by prisoners against corrections officers, wardens, judges, and sometimes pretty much anyone in the justice system they may feel is responsible for their plight. Considering that inmates do have quite a bit of time on their hands, perhaps it isn't too surprising that some are able to spend chunks of this time pursuing legal redress for perceived or real wrongs.

This was precisely why New York enacted Correction Law section 24.3, which as explained by the state's Attorney General, was designed to "further New York's legitimate interest in minimizing the disruptive effect of prisoner damages claims against correction employees, many of which are frivolous and vexatious."