Live blog of opinions | June 21, 2019
We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released opinions in four argued cases: Flowers v. Mississippi, North Carolina Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, Rehaif v. United States and Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania. SCOTUSblog is sponsored by Casetext: A more intelligent way to search the law.
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The opinion in Knick v. Scott is available at this link. Miriam Seifter will have our analysis:
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The Court holds that the government violates the Takings Clause when it takes property without compensation, and a property owner may bring a lawsuit to challenge the taking under Section 1983 at that time. The property owner does not need to go to state court first.
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Justice Alito's dissent in Rehaif questions why the Court even granted certiorari to begin with - "Indeed, there was no good reason for us to take this case in the first place. No conflict existed in the decisions of the lower courts, and there is no evidence that the established interpretation of section 922(g) had worked any serious injustice."
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The Court overrules its earlier decision in Williamson County v. Hamilton Bank, which imposed the requirement of going to state court first. Roberts says that the Williamson County decision "was not just wrong," but its "reasoning was exceptionally ill founded and conflicted with much of our takings jurisprudence."
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There were four opinions:1. In Flowers v. Mississippi, by Justice Kavanaugh, the court overturned a Mississippi inmate's death sentence because of racial discrimination in jury selection.2. In NC Department of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, by Justice Sotomayor, the court ruled that North Carolina cannot tax the income from a trust just because the beneficiaries of a trust live in the state, when the beneficiaries do not receive income from the trust, have no right to demand it, and are uncertain to receive it.3. In Rehaif v. US, by Justice Breyer, the court ruled that the government must show that an undocumented immigrant knew both that he was in the country illegally and had a gun to prosecute him under a federal law barring undocumented immigrants from knowingly having a handgun.4. And in Knick v. Township of Scott, by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled that a property owner can file a takings claim in federal court as soon as the property is taken by the government; the owner does not have to pursue state remedies first.
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Under Williamson, federal courts in jurisdictions where the state provided an adequate remedy could essentially never hear a takings claim. Plaintiffs were required to exhaust their state remedies first. But then, once exhausted, plaintiffs were precluded from bringing the same claim in federal court. It seems like the upshot of the Court's decision in Knick is that plaintiffs now have a choice of whether to bring their claim in state or federal court.
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Hi all, thank you for joining us this morning. We are going to shut the live blog down for today -- will be back Monday! Before then we've got a lot of content coming: coverage of today's four opinions, as well as more going back to yesterday. Thank you and have a great weekend!
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And one more thing: for more dialogue and discussion of these and more cases, consider our webinar next week with Tom Goldstein and Sarah Harrington. https://info.casetext.com/supreme-court-review-registration/
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