Supreme Court Rulings
Find three cases that went from a lower court to a higher court
The Supreme court, which is one of the arms of government, has two major roles. The first is interpreting and expounding on congressional enactments (McCloskey & Levinson, 2016). The second is the oversite of state and federal statutes to determine their constitutionality. The court extends this function to include the rulings made by the state courts or any other lower courts. If found to be unconstitutional, the Supreme Court possesses the mandate of overruling such decisions made by the lower courts. This mandate of the Supreme Court is exercised in several cases.
What are the reasons why the higher court overruled the decisions of the lower court in those three cases?
The first, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. (2016), is based on Texas House Bill 2 (2013), which laid the requirements for a health institution to run an abortion facility. Among these requirements was that the physicians should have active admitting privileges to the facility on the day of the operation, the physician must not live more than 30 miles from the institution and that the institutions must maintain certain set minimums. The district court overruled these requirements citing the reduced number of abortion facilities. In contrast, patients in need of the service, yet the abortion process was safe before the enforcement of H.B 2 (Justia, 2016). However, the Fifth Circuit reversed this ruling citing res judicata. In its part, the Supreme court reversed the judgment based on several reasons. The first was that res judicata could not hold back constitutional claims. The other reason was the obstacle laid by the statute in the accessibility of abortion services to women. The law did not indicate any interest in protecting the interests of women (Justia, 2016). Finally, the Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot demand that physicians or hospitals must meet certain minimums when performing an abortion.
The second case, Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), is based on the sentencing of a 14-year-old on murder charges. The teenager was given a mandatory term life imprisonment sentencing without parole (Justia, 2012). This ruling was upheld by the Alabama and Arkansas state courts. However, this ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court. The main reason for overturning the verdict was the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. Based on the Eight Amendment, no sentencing scheme should subject juveniles to mandatory life sentences without parole. The Supreme Court argued that the lack of maturity in juveniles results in reckless and impulsive decisions (Justia, 2012). In addition to that, juveniles as subject to adverse external influences, yet they do not possess the decisiveness to recognize crime-producing situations. The courts argued that they consider the age of juveniles before issuing sentences. The Supreme Court, however, dismissed this pointing to the fact that states use mandatory transfer systems to hand over the ruling to the prosecution instead of the court.
The third case, Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 584 U.S. (2018), focuses on the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which declares that it is unconstitutional for states to promote or allow gambling on competitive sporting events. The state of New Jersey passed a law that invalidates this requirement in 2014. This was considered to be a violation of the PASPA by the Third Circuit. However, the Supreme Court overruled this, arguing that the cancelation of the sports gambling law by the state law was allowed in PAPSA (Justia, 2018). The Tenth Amendment allows states to reverse any legislative powers that are not conferred by Congress. Additionally, the application of the PAPSA states is a violation of the anti-commandeering rule. Congress has no power to force states to enact or enforce federal law or stop the state from establishing and enacting its new regulations.
References
McCloskey, R. G., & Levinson, S. (2016). The American supreme court. University of Chicago Press.
Justia. (2016). Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/579/15-274/
Justia. (2012). Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460. Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/460/
Justia. (2018). Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 584 U.S. Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/584/16-476/