Supreme Court Case Brief: Washington V. Glucksberg

In the Baxter v. Montana case, the Plaintiffs ' statement was that the right to assisted death is based on three of the explicit rights in the Montana Constitution; equal protection, personal dignity, and individual privacy. The right to privacy and equal protection are also in the U.S. Constitution, therefore, Mr. Baxter should be able to do as he pleases in the privacy of his own home. The state denying Baxter these natural rights, brings up more issues besides the right to die. More importantly, it was also clear that throughout the case Mr. Baxter was diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia and was terminally ill. The District Court of the First Judicial District agreed and held that a competent, terminally ill patient has a right to die with dignity and appealed the case.

Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, a student attending University of Washington, was found guilty of infringing a curfew and relocation command. Issue: Did the President’s orders and the power given to the military authorities differentiate against Americans and residing Japanese ancestry violate the 5th Amendment of no individual should be deprived of liberty without due process? Holding: no.

A writ of coram nobis allows a court to correct the error of fact in an original judgment. This eradicated Korematsu’s previous conviction. Judge Marilyn Patel concluded that the writ was granted on the grounds that “there was substantial support in the record that the government deliberately omitted relevant information and provided misleading information in papers before the court”. (Ducat, 204). Judge Patel overturned the Korematsu’s prior conviction on factual error on any error of law in the 1944 ruling.

Dr. Timothy Quill and three other terminally ill patients filed a case against the Attorney General of New York State claiming violation of the Equal Protection Clauses. The New York State law allowed discontinuation of life-saving treatment for a competent person who was terminally ill, however, it imposed a ban on physician assisted suicide. The district court did not agree but the Court of Appeals reversed stating that they were moreover similar things and the ban was an unequal treatment. The Supreme Court granted a certiorari. Issue: There is a clear distinction between refusing a life-saving treatment and physician assisted suicide, does the terminally ill patients vies this distinction as an operating violation of Equal Protection Clause?

Simmons tried many times to appeal his case and avoid being executed. His appeal was granted after the supreme court made a decision regarding the case Atkins v. Virginia. The case Atkins v. Virginia stated that the execution of people who suffer from mental retardation is not only a violation of the 8th and 14th amendments but is also unconstitutional. The Supreme

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia stated that it was unconstitutional to execute defendants with “mental retardation.” However, legal questions surrounding this issue remain unresolved. The Court in Atkins left the definition and method of determining intellectual disability up to individual states. It has been said that 46 known “mentally retarded” persons have been executed since 1976. Of these 46, two occurred after Atkins v. Virginia was decided. Controversy exists because Atkins v. Virginia did not provide a definition of intellectually disabled.

Texas in 2003 where Scalia dissented on a rule of 6-3 where made gay sex a crime in the state of Texas. On this case it was strike down. Also in the case of Hill v. Colorado in the year if 2000 with the same rule of 6-3 decision “upholding a law limit protests near abortion clinics” (Liptak). In the year of 1999 another case was at the Supreme Court where Antonin Scalia dissented again. This case was United States v. Virginia, where the case was that the Virginia Military Institute should admit women and it was decided by 7 to 1.

An example of this branch checking another branch June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that section three of the “Defense of Marriage Act" is unconstitutional and that the government can’t discriminate against married L/G couples in deciding federal protection or benefits. The Judicial Branch rightfully checked this Congress law in an attempt to stop governmental prejudice. An instance of the Judicial Branch being checked is 1805 Associate Justice Samuel Chase was impeached due to expressing his strict federalist ideas in the court and the idea of Judges serving for life irritating Thomas Jefferson; The House of Reps passed the articles of impeachment, and then was acquitted by the Senate. This shows that the other branches have the right (with the right resources) to impeach Supreme Court justices if they step out of

The first of the two cases was originally filed on April 23, 1990. In Coleman v. Brown, a United States magistrate judge found that the CDCR did not provide adequate healthcare to their inmates and therefore was in violation of the United States’ Eighth Amendment (Harvard Law Review, 2010). The second case of Plata v. Brown was filed in 2001. This case followed the precedent set in the Coleman case. Plata v. Brown argued that the

Defendants take advantage of the plea bargain system in an intriguing manner - by challenging the effectiveness of their own attorneys. In Strickland v. Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court outlined a two-pronged test to describe what it means for counsel to be considered ineffective under the Sixth Amendment. First, the person seeking relief must be able to demonstrate that counsel’s performance was defective. Further, they must prove that the deficiency of counsel directly deprived the defendant of a fair trial (Strickland v. Washington, 1984). The United States Supreme Court addressed part of this issue with their decision of Missouri v. Frye.

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one” stated by Benjamin Franklin. Freedom of speech, freedom to express your thoughts and freedom to live the American lifestyle is now limited all because of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was passed by Congress on October 24, 2001 after the devastating terrorist attack on September 11, 2001; thousands of people lost their lives. The Patriot Act was created to find and prosecute terrorists operating in the United States of America ;the lesser known Military Commissions Act (MCA) was created to" give the President absolute power to designate enemy combatants, and to set his own definitions for torture." Nevertheless, with all of these laws and regulations

In the case of US cs. MedQuest Associates, the court held that MedQuest violated FCA though 1) use of non-Medicare approved physicians for contrast studies testing and 2) use of the physician’s number without reporting the change in ownership to Medicare. These two acts lead to hefty fines. However, the US Court of appeals found in favor of the defendants when they ruled that claimant 's use of non-approved supervising physicians for contrast procedures, and subsequent submission of claim for Medicare payment, did not constitute adequate basis for FCA claim under implied false certification theory; and claimant 's use of Medicare billing number belonging to physician 's practice that it controlled did not trigger hefty fines and penalties created

Ferguson, was the first case in the United States to rule that it was a violation of a Consumer Fraud Act to call homosexuality a mental illness or disorder. The plaintiffs, three gay men and two of their mothers, sued Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), a Jersey City, N.J., stating that it had made statements that were gross misrepresentations in the sale and advertisement of its program which constituted fraud, deception and unconscionable business practices. On Feb. 10, a Hudson County Assignment Judge Peter Bariso Jr. ruled it was a misrepresentation that violated New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act to advertise gay conversion therapy services by depicting homosexuality as abnormal or a mental illness because this is contrary to the overwhelming weight of scientific authority. He further ruled that as a matter of law that it is a misrepresentation in violation of the CFA "to use specific success statistics in advertising and selling of services when client outcomes are not tracked and records are not maintained." The defendants argued attempted to defend the suit on a Free Exercise grounds, however, Judge Bariso, stated "the free exercise clause does not limitlessly protect any act done in the name of religious practice".