Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Supreme Court
The outcome of the Supreme Court’s 2011-2012 term, which ended Thursday, was largely favorable when it came to the justices’ Wired-worthy opinions surrounding surveillance, the First Amendment, intellectual property and even profanity.
But the term’s overall outcome was mixed at best.
That’s because the court, without comment, let stand rulings upholding torture, a $675,000 verdict for file-sharing 30 music tracks, and, among other things, skirted educators’ demands that it clarify on what grounds public schools may punish students for their off-campus, online speech.
Next term, however, the justices have a chance to redeem themselves. They agreed to review important cases in their new term beginning this fall.
One case among them asks whether judges may issue search warrants for private residences when a drug-sniffing dog outside the home reacts as if it smells drugs inside. Another seeks to dismiss a lawsuit challenging legislation allowing the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant. The Supreme Court will also decide the global reach of U.S. copyright law – whether an overseas purchaser of a copyrighted work may resell it in the United States without the copyright holder’s permission.
Here is a summary of key decisions from the court’s 2011-2012 term:
United States v. Jones
In one of the biggest Fourth Amendment cases blending technology and privacy in a decade, the justices ruled unanimously in January that the authorities need a warrant to affix a GPS device to a vehicle to track its every move. The decision, in a case brought by a convicted drug dealer whose life sentence was overturned, was a blow to the Obama administration, which had argued that Americans have no expectation of privacy in their public movements.
While the decision was unanimous, the five justices who controlled the decision, led by Justin Antonin Scalia, said the mere act of affixing the device to the car amounted to a search and demanded a probable-cause warrant. The Justice Department has disabled as many as 3,000 GPS trackers in the decision’s aftermath.
Golan v. Holder
In its biggest copyright decision of the term, the justices ruled 6-2 in January that Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again.
The top court was ruling on a petition by a group of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, publishers and film archivists who urged the justices to reverse an appellate court that sided against the group. The group’s members have relied on artistic works in the public domain for their livelihoods and claimed that re-copyrighting public works would breach the speech rights of those who are now using those works without needing a license. There are millions of decades-old works at issue. Some of the well-known ones include H.G. Wells’ Things to Come; Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the musical compositions of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky.
The court, although ruling against the group, was sympathetic to their argument. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said (.pdf) “some restriction on expression is the inherent and intended effect of every grant of copyright.” But the top court, with Justice Elena Kagan recused, said Congress’ move to re-copyright the works to comport with an international treaty was more important.
For a variety of reasons, the works at issue, which are foreign and produced decades ago, became part of the public domain in the United States but were still copyrighted overseas. In 1994, Congress adopted legislation to move the works back into copyright, so U.S. policy would comport with an international copyright treaty known as the Berne Convention.
Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations
The justices last week set aside (.pdf) indecency rulings against Fox and ABC for airing fleeting expletives and nudity on the public airwaves, but declined to rule on the constitutionality of decency standards for broadcast television and radio.
The case was being closely watched because the high court was in a position to decide whether decency standards for broadcast television and radio breached the First Amendment. Opponents argued the rules are unnecessary because of the ubiquity of cable and satellite programming not covered by the standards. But the justices punted on that hot-button constitutional issue and instead ruled on narrow, procedural grounds in an 8-0 decision with Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused.
The dispute concerned Federal Communications Commission rulings that “fleeting expletives” uttered during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards were indecent for public broadcasting. First Cher, then Nicole Richie cursed during the shows aired on Fox. In the other dispute, the FCC said ABC violated decency standards when the network aired a brief nude shot of Charlotte Ross’ buttocks and breast in a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue.
The justices said that FCC broadcast guidelines, which are enforced for radio and television during the day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., were too broad and vague to give broadcasters adequate notice of what the indecency standards actually were.
United States v. Alvarez
The justices ruled (.pdf) 6-3 Thursday that a 2006 law making it a federal criminal offense to lie about being decorated for military service was an unconstitutional breach of the First Amendment.
The Stolen Valor Act makes it unlawful for someone to falsely represent, verbally or in writing, that they were “awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States.” The measure imposes penalties of up to a year in prison.
The decision concerned defendant Xavier Alvarez who, in 2007, claimed falsely that as a Marine, he had won the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration. He made that public statement during a local Los Angeles suburban water board meeting, in which he had just won a seat on its board of directors. Alvarez was the first person ever charged and convicted under the act — though dozens more have been charged. Alvarez pleaded guilty, was fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 416 hours of community service.
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