Maine's Supreme Judicial Court and the U.s. Supreme Court: Two Decades of Review
| Publication year | 2000 |
| Pages | 140 |
| Citation | Vol. 04 No. 2000 Pg. 140 |
April 2000, pg. 140. Maine's Supreme Judicial Court and the U.S. Supreme Court: Two Decades of Review
April 2000
Kenneth T. Palmer
A critical aspect of American government is the relationship between the 50 state supreme courts and the United States Supreme Court. Through review of their decisions the Court determines the consistency of state policies with the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes, and generally establishes the national guidelines state and local officials are expected to follow. This article is concerned with Supreme Court review of Maine cases and the analysis of patterns revealed by that activity.
The recent interest the Court has shown in federalism questions has called new attention to its work in relation to state governments. For many years Maine had relatively little involvement in this process. During the chief justiceships of Fred Vinson (1946-53) and Earl Warren (1953-69), the U.S. Supreme Court did not review in full opinion any case appealed from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.(Fn1) On the other hand, since 1980 the Court has examined eight cases from Maine's highest court, several of which have raised issues of national constitutional significance. We describe those eight cases, and suggest the quality of the Maine Court's work is revealed in the difficulty the Supreme Court had in resolving them. We are also interested in how Maine in the current period compares with other states in conducting business with the nation's highest court.
The Cases
The first case in the period, Maine v. Thiboutot (1980), was unusually important in its impact on both state and local governments. The case concerned a claim for assistance under the federal Aid for Dependent Children program. In 1975, the Maine Department of Human Services (MDHS) notified Lionel and Joline Thiboutot that it was reducing its benefit payments to their family of eight children based on its interpretation of certain new federal regulations. The Thiboutots contested the MDHS's decision, winning a settlement against the state in Superior Court to have their benefits restored. However, the court denied their motion to make the state pay their attorney's fees. The Thiboutots appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which sustained the appeal over the objection of the state attorney general.(Fn2) The state then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The central question was whether the language in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1871 (revised in 1874) stating that "every person who...subjects...any citizen of the United States...to the deprivation of any rights...secured by the Constitution and laws shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law...," applied to the Social Security Act. The issue turned on the phrase "and laws." Did the language refer to all laws or only to certain ones? The state argued that the phrase applied only to civil rights matters. Affirming the Maine Court, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the "plain language" indicated that Congress had intended to include all statutes.(Fn3) Three dissenting justices warned that the Court here had "dramatically expanded the liability of state and local officials."
An interesting consequence of the Thiboutot decision was the way states and localities now seek to present collateral support for their cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. When Maine appeared before the Court in Thiboutot, the state of Pennsylvania filed a brief of amicus curiae supporting Maine's position in which six other states, mostly in New England, joined. However, other regions in the country were not represented even though the case had major ramifications for state and local governments everywhere. Soon after the decision, groups of state and local officials such as the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Governors Association and the National League of Cities decided to consolidate their presentations on important cases. Five such organizations formed the State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) in Washington, D.C., which now regularly files amicus curiae briefs in those U.S. Supreme Court cases involving state and local governmental authority. In 1982, in a related effort, the National...
To continue reading
Request your trial