Tests of restraint

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 20th of January.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It: Supreme Court decisions. Later this morning, we are anticipating the court will announce other rulings, so we’ll catch you up on what we have to this point.

REICHARD: First, a unanimous decision that police officers may enter a home without a warrant. What the Court requires though is an objectively reasonable basis to think someone inside faces imminent threat or is seriously injured.

In Case v Montana, police received reports that William Case had threatened to kill himself. Police entered the home without a warrant, Case pulled a gun, police shot him; but Case was convicted of assault of an officer.

His argument was that the warrantless entry was unconstitutional, but lower courts upheld the conviction under the “emergency aid” exception.

EICHER: The Supreme Court unanimously held that officers do not need the traditional criminal sense of probable cause. But they must have specific facts to support a reasonable belief that immediate entry is needed, specifically to protect life or prevent serious injury.

You can hear the eventual ruling in this comment from Justice Samuel Alito during oral argument back in October:

ALITO: He was screaming on the phone, he didn’t answer….they go to the house…They try knocking on the door and yelling, they get no response. They spoke to a neighbor…they shone a flashlight through the window. They saw his keys on the table alongside an empty holster and an apparent suicide note. I mean, what more do they need? …They need to be able to look through the window and see him with a gun pointed to his head?

The Court emphasized that this exception remains narrow, and cannot be used as a pretext for investigation.

And so the case returns to lower court. The judge will now use the newly clarified “objectively reasonable basis” rule to review what happened and decide whether the entry was legal.

REICHARD: Alright, second of our three cases, Barrett v US. It's another unanimous decision dealing with overlapping federal gun laws.

It’s a win for Dwayne Barrett, who participated in several robberies. In one of them, a man was shot and killed. Prosecutors charged Barrett under two federal firearms provisions based on the same conduct: one for using or carrying a gun during a violent crime, and also for a firearm offense that resulted in death.

EICHER: He argued that amounted to double jeopardy, and the Fifth Amendment should protect him against that.

The Court did agree with him in that it concluded Congress did not clearly authorize stacking punishments in this scenario, so only one of the convictions may stand.

The case goes back for the lower courts to vacate one of the convictions.

REICHARD: Number three, our last ruling this morning, Bost v Illinois State Board of Elections. This one says a political candidate has standing to sue over state rules that govern how votes are counted in elections.

Representative Michael Bost sued over the rule in Illinois that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to two weeks after Election Day, so long as they’re postmarked by that day. He argued that conflicts with federal laws establishing a uniform federal election day.

EICHER: Lower courts dismissed the case saying he had no Article III standing because he’d shown no concrete, personal injury.

His lawyer, Paul Clement, had the winning argument that there was multiple harm:

CLEMENT: Illinois is counting unlawful ballots. Those unlawful ballots could cost Congressman Bost the election or at least reduce his margin of victory, and he has to pay his campaign staff for two extra weeks. All of that means that Congressman Bost has standing three times over.

REICHARD: Reversed and remanded in a 7-2 ruling in judgment. The Supreme Court sent the case back to lower court. 

Now that Bost is allowed to bring the lawsuit, the court must decide the main issue. That is, whether the extra time Illinois allows to count ballots breaks federal Election Day law.

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