The Roberts Court

Chief Justice Roberts proved himself an adept consensus-builder in cases involving First and Eighth Amendment rights. But on deeply polarizing issues, such as race-based school assignments and voting rights, the Court remains as sharply divided as in the past.

School Desegregation

In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007) the Court decided by a 5–4 margin to strike down the use of race in assigning students to particular schools as violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

Criminal Due Process

In Herring v. United States (2009) the Court upheld and expanded the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The Court held that evidence obtained through an arrest and search under a cancelled warrant was admissible at trial, even though police error had kept the warrant on file. In previous cases, the error invalidating the warrant was not directly attributable to the police.

Tracking Devices and the Fourth Amendment

In United States v. Jones (2012), a unanimous Court held that installing a GPS device on a motor vehicle without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. The justices divided, however, on whether the defendant’s property rights or privacy rights had been violated. The majority opted for the former, holding that in attaching a GPS device to the vehicle, the police had violated his property rights.

Partial-Birth Abortion

In Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), the Court upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortions that contained no exception protecting the health of women. Because the Court invalidated a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortions in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) for not allowing a health exception, the cases are difficult to reconcile.

Obama’s Court Appointments

President Obama has appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor had served as a federal judge for almost twenty years prior to her nomination, receiving judicial appointments from both Republican and Democratic presidents. Kagan was Obama’s solicitor general at the time of her nomination. The Senate confirmed both without issue.

Juveniles and the Eighth Amendment

The Roberts Court has expanded Eighth Amendment protections for minors convicted of crimes, ruling that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are cruel and unusual punishment.

Illegal Immigration and the States

The ruling of the Roberts Court in Arizona v. United States (2013) occasioned much political controversy. At issue was the constitutionality of an Arizona measure establishing state-level enforcement mechanisms against illegal immigrants. The Court invalidated the statute on the ground that federal power over immigration preempts state power to legislate on the subject.

First Amendment Rights

Two First Amendment decisions of the Roberts Court have triggered much public debate. In Snyder v. Phelps (2011), an 8–1 majority held that political speech enjoys the highest level of First Amendment protection, even when that speech is offensive and morally repugnant. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), a 5–4 majority held that corporations enjoy the same free speech protection as individuals, and that regulation of their political communications is subject to strict scrutiny. The ruling overturned a line of cases subjecting corporations to a double constitutional standard.

Affordable Care Act

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) upheld the constitutionality of the controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Public opinion divided sharply on the statute, and speculation ran high on how the Court would rule. A sharply divided Court ruled that the ACA’s individual mandate constituted an unconstitutional exercise of the commerce power, but that it was nevertheless a constitutional exercise of Congress’s tax power. That the Court also ruled the payment not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act puzzled many, not least the dissenting justices.

Voting Rights

In Shelby County v. Holder (2013) the Court revisited the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that its Section 4 preclearance requirements were no longer applicable to changed circumstances in the modern South. The ruling did not go to the constitutionality of preclearance itself but left it up to Congress to enact new preclearance criteria.

Marriage Equality and the Court

The constitutionality of federal and state measures banning same-sex marriage has arguably been the most polarizing issue before the Roberts Court. The Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of a California measure prohibiting same-sex marriages in Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013) on the ground that the parties lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to bring the appeal. The dismissal left standing a federal district court ruling that the state ban violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in United States v. Windsor (2013), the Court overturned a federal measure limiting federal marital benefits to unions between opposite-sex couples as unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment. The ruling left the legal status of same-sex marriages entirely up to the states.