Pronouncements of the U.s. Supreme Court Relating to the Criminal Law Field: 1981-1982
| Publication year | 1982 |
| Pages | 2327 |
1982, September, Pg. 2327. Pronouncements of the U.S. Supreme Court Relating to the Criminal Law Field: 1981-1982
The ever-expanding caseload of the United States Supreme Court was reflected in a torrent of last-minute decisions released during the final weeks of the 1981-82 term. The Court was presented with 5,178 cases for review during its nine month term; the Court heard arguments in 184 cases, and a record 143 full decisions were announced. In the last three weeks of the term, the Court issued 58 decisions --- a full 40 percent of those released during the term. As in past years, the stampede to adjournment before the July 4th weekend reflected a number of divided decisions that were released only after a myriad of dissents and special concurrences were written to establish the individual position of a Justice on a particular issue.
Many of the Court's most important rulings this year seemed to be characterized more by the product of fragile and shifting coalitions among the Justices than by any overriding vision of the law or the United States Constitution. Among the numerous 5-4 decisions during the 1981-82 term relating to the criminal law field were two decisions concerning the constitutionality of the death penalty under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. In Eddings v. California, ___U.S. ___, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982), the Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional for a juvenile murderer who had not been allowed to offer mitigating evidence relating to his deprived background at trial. And in Enmunds v. Florida, 50 U.S.L.W. 5087 (June 29, 1982), a bare majority of the Court declared that the death penalty was unconstitutionally imposed on an accomplice to a robbery in which a murder took place because the accomplice neither committed the murder nor intended death to result from the robbery. The decision in Enmunds invalidated the laws of Florida and eight other states --- California, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming --- that have permitted the death penalty for a participant in a felony murder who neither committed the actual murder nor had a culpable mental state for murder.
In addition, the Court rendered a 5-4 decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, ___U.S. ___, 102 S.Ct. 2690, ___L.Ed.2d ___(1982), where the President of the United States was held to be absolutely immune from civil suit for illegal or unconstitutional acts taken during his term. In an opinion by Justice Lewis F. Powell, the Court overturned a lower court ruling in a suit against former President Richard M. Nixon, declaring that "absolute Presidential immunity" is a "functionally mandated incident of the President's unique office, rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history." In a companion case, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, ___U.S. ___, 102 S.Ct. 2727, ___L.Ed.2d ___(1982), the Court refused to accord the same absolute immunity to top Presidential advisors. But, in Harlow, the Justices effectively rewrote the law of "qualified immunity" that applies to most federal and state officials, making it substantially more likely that courts will dismiss suits against such officials before trial.
In another significant 5-4 decision, the Court determined in Taylor v. Alabama, ___U.S. ___, 102 S.Ct. 2664, ___L.Ed.2d ___(1982), that a confession obtained after an illegal arrest may not be used as evidence even though the suspect received a Miranda warning before he signed the written confession. In Taylor, the majority opinion pointedly rejected the opportunity to allow a "good-faith" exception to the controversial exclusionary rule, stating that the case was "a virtual replica" of prior Supreme Court decisions in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200 (1979), and Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975). Noting that the State of Alabama had suggested a good-faith exception in Taylor, Justice Marshall wrote for the majority: "To date, we have not recognized such an exception, and we decline to do so here."
Perhaps the only significant decision this term in the criminal law field which showed a rare semblance of unanimity was New York v. Ferber, 50 U.S.L.W. 5077 (July 2, 1982), where the Court upheld a New York law prohibiting the manufacture or distribution of child pornography, regardless of whether the material is actually obscene under First Amendment standards. In reversing the decision of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, the Supreme Court held that child pornography was a "category of material outside the protection of the First Amendment" and could therefore be regulated regardless of whether it was obscene. Although all nine Justices joined in the Court's judgment, only Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justices Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist joined Justice Byron R. White's opinion in full without writing a separate opinion. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joined Justice White's opinion but wrote...
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