In United States constitutional law, the political question doctrine holds that a constitutional dispute that requires knowledge of a non-legal character or the use of techniques not suitable for a court or explicitly assigned by the Constitution to the U.S. Congress, or the President of the United States, lies within the political, rather than the legal, realm to solve, and judges customarily refuse to address such matters. The idea of a political question is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has the authority to hear and decide a legal question, not a political one. Legal questions are deemed to be justiciable, while political questions are nonjusticiable. One scholar explained:
The political question doctrine holds that some questions, in their nature, are fundamentally political, and not legal, and if a question is fundamentally political ... then the court will refuse to hear that case. It will claim that it doesn't have jurisdiction. And it will leave that question to some other aspect of the political process to settle out.
Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that districts in the United States House of Representatives must be approximately equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus enabling federal courts to hear Fourteenth Amendment-based redistricting cases. The court summarized its Baker holding in a later decision as follows: "the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the authority of a State Legislature in designing the geographical districts from which representatives are chosen either for the State Legislature or for the Federal House of Representatives.". The court had previously held in Gomillion v. Lightfoot that districting claims over racial discrimination could be brought under the Fifteenth Amendment.
Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court decision affecting educational case law involving tenure and due process.
The Wichita Massacre, also known as the Wichita Horror, was a week-long series of random brutal crimes perpetrated by brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr in the city of Wichita, Kansas between December 8 and 15, 2000. Five people were killed, and two people, a man and a woman, were severely wounded. The brothers were arrested and convicted of multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, robbery, and rape. They were both sentenced to death in October 2002. Their vicious crimes created panic in the Wichita area resulting in an increase in the sales of guns, locks, and home security systems.
The Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution empowers the President of the United States to nominate and, with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the United States Senate, appoint public officials. Although the Senate must confirm certain principal officers, Congress may by law invest the appointment of "inferior" officers to the President alone, or to courts of law or heads of departments.
The Attorney General of Georgia is the attorney and legal advisor for the Executive Branch of the U.S. state of Georgia. They are responsible for providing opinions on legal questions concerning the state, prosecuting public corruption cases, overseeing contracts on behalf of the state, as well as representing the state in all civil cases, in all capital felony appeals, and in all cases appearing before the Supreme Court of the United States. They may also initiate civil or criminal actions on behalf of the State of Georgia when requested to do so by the Governor.
Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for determining the patent eligibility of a process, but rather "a useful and important clue, an investigative tool, for determining whether some claimed inventions are processes under § 101." In so doing, the Supreme Court affirmed the rejection of an application for a patent on a method of hedging losses in one segment of the energy industry by making investments in other segments of that industry, on the basis that the abstract investment strategy set forth in the application was not patentable subject matter.
Sheridan v. United States, 487 U.S. 392 (1988), was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning what constitutes a claim "arising out of" an assault or battery within the meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The Supreme Court held that the FTCA's intentional tort exception did not apply.
Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified several procedures for sentencing defendants in capital cases. Specifically, the Court held that judges are not required to affirmatively instruct juries about the burden of proof for establishing mitigating evidence, and that joint trials of capital defendants "are often preferable when the joined defendants’ criminal conduct arises out of a single chain of events". This case included the last majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia before his death in February 2016.
Elizabeth "Britt" Cagle Grant is an American attorney and judge who is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
Joseph Francis McLaughlin was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii in the Territory of Hawaii.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020 and concluded October 3, 2021.
Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the imposition of life sentences for juveniles. The Supreme Court had previously ruled in Miller v. Alabama in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders was considered cruel and unusual punishment outside of extreme cases of permanent incorrigibility, and made this decision retroactive in Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016. In Jones, a juvenile offender who was 15 at the time of his offense, challenged his life sentence following Montgomery but was denied by the state. In a 6–3 decision with all six conservative justices upholding the life sentence without parole for Jones, the Court ruled that the states have discretionary ability to hold juvenile offenders to life sentences without parole without having to make a separate assessment of their incorrigibility.
Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the Court's prior decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), which had ruled that jury verdicts in criminal trials must be unanimous under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Ramos did not apply retroactively to earlier cases prior to their verdict in Ramos.
BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a case in the United States Supreme Court dealing with matters of jurisdiction of various climate change lawsuits in the United States judicial system.
Guam v. United States, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with a dispute on fiscal responsibility for environmental and hazardous cleanup of the Ordot Dump created by the United States Navy on the island of Guam in the 1940s, which Guam then ran after becoming a territory in 1950 until the landfill's closure in 2011. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, Guam had filed its lawsuit to recover a portion of cleanup costs for the landfill from the United States government in a timely manner, allowing their case to proceed.
Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the ability for immigrants legally residing under temporary protected status to apply for permanent resident status through a green card. In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled in June 2021 that for immigrants who had entered the U.S. unlawfully, simply having temporary protected status did not make them eligible to apply for permanent resident status.
Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 593 U. S. ___ (2021), is a United States Supreme Court decision regarding the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which provides federal courts jurisdiction over claims brought by foreign nationals for violations of international law. Consolidated with Cargill, Inc. v. Doe, the case concerned a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé USA and Cargill for aiding and abetting child slavery in Côte d’Ivoire by purchasing from cocoa producers that utilize child slave labor from Mali. The plaintiffs, who were former slave laborers in the cocoa farms, brought their claim in U.S. district court under the ATS.
