Supreme Court Decisions 2013 Trivia Quiz

Answer: DOMA was unconstitutional, as it discriminated against same-gender couples.

Plaintiff Edith Windsor had indeed suffered substantial harm, because she had to pay $363,053 in federal estate taxes, due to the failure of the federal government to recognize her (same-sex) marriage. By a 5-4 vote, the Court held that DOMA was unconstitutional as a violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Prior to the oral argument, the Obama Administration announced that it agreed with Ms. Windsor's position, and would not be defending DOMA. The majority felt that it could go ahead and consider the case anyway, as the House of Representatives had taken up the cause of defending DOMA in the Supreme Court.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Scalia castigated the majority for its finding that jurisdiction existed, since the parties to the lawsuit were in agreement with each other, and hence there was no true controversy, as required by Article 3 of the Constitution. Scalia went on to argue that even if jurisdiction existed, DOMA was constitutional, because "the Constitution does not guarantee the right to enter into a same-sex marriage".

Bill Clinton, the president who signed DOMA into law in 1996, later asserted that approving this law was a big mistake on his part, and that he supported the Supreme Court in striking it down.

Answer: The car search was legal, while the house search was not.

In the case of the search of a car, Florida v. Harris, the Court held unanimously that the search was legal, as the reliability of the drug-sniffing dog was unquestioned, and the police had the right to stop the vehicle based on a traffic violation. However, the house situation presented in Florida v. Jardines was different.

Here, the Court held 5-4 that the police officers who took a dog onto the front porch of a citizen's house had no right to be there, so the subsequent search of the house, based upon the dog's detection of drugs, had to be thrown out.

Answer: The petitioners lacked standing to pursue the issue.

Following a decision by the California Supreme Court that the failure to recognize same-sex marriage violated the state's constitution, California voters passed Proposition 8, amending the state constitution so as to overturn this decision. When several same-gender couples sued in federal court, state officials refused to defend the law, and the court then allowed the ballot initiative's main proponents to intervene and pursue the case. The Supreme Court held that these intervenors lacked standing to pursue the case, so the court refused to consider the merits of the case.

Four justices dissented, feeling that standing did exist. It should be noted that neither the majority nor the dissent expressed an opinion on the merits of the underlying issue, i.e., the constitutionality of the ban on same-sex marriage.

Answer: yes

The majority stressed that conditions had changed since 1965, and "preclearance", in which states with a history of discrimination are required to obtain federal approval in advance for any changes in voting laws, is no longer needed. The four liberals on the court dissented, pointing out that when Congress reauthorized the Voting rights Act in 2006, it did so based upon a voluminous record showing that the Act was still needed.

Answer: Because of the ex post facto problem, defendant had to be resentenced by the trial court.

This was a 5-4 decision in which the liberal and conservative wings broke predictably, with Justice Kennedy in the middle casting the deciding vote with the liberals. The dissent argued that the guidelines were only advisory and not mandatory, and, since the sentence given was within the trial court's discretion under either set of guidelines, it should not be disturbed on appeal.

Answer: Plaintiffs lacked standing to raise this issue, as there was no evidence any of their communications had been intercepted.

The plaintiffs were various professionals in the USA who found it necessary to communicate with clients and colleagues in other countries. The problem with their case was that they filed it on the same day that the new law took effect, and hence they had no evidence that they had suffered any damages from the law.

The four liberals dissented, stating that there was a "very high likelihood" that some of the plaintiffs' communications would be intercepted under the FISA law. The dissenters went to point out that "certainty is not, and never has been, the touchstone of standing".

Answer: No

Seven justices felt that Arizona's law was in conflict with federal law, and under the doctrine of pre-emption the state's law must give way. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented, feeling that Arizona was well within its rights to impose this requirement for voting.

Answer: It is impermissible to do it in every case; rather, each case must be analyzed separately to determine whether the required "exigent circumstances" exist.

There has long been an "exigent circumstances" exception to the fourth Amendment requirement to obtain a warrant prior to a search. This case was litigated on the state's theory that the required exigent circumstances are present in every DUI case, since the evidence disappears from the human body over time.

The main opinion in the case disagreed with the state's position, saying each case has to be looked at on its own facts to determine whether it was reasonable under the existing circumstances to forego the normal warrant requirement. Justice Roberts' concurring opinion thought that exigent circumstances do always exist in any DUI case, and it then becomes a matter of determining whether there is time to obtain a warrant. Justice Thomas was the sole dissenter, saying he supported the state's position in this case.

Answer: No

This was a 5-4 split, with the four liberals holding that it was a violation, and the four conservatives, joined by Justice Kennedy, holding that it was not a violation because the defendant did not invoke his right to remain silent. The lesson here is that rights have to be asserted to be effective, otherwise they are considered to be waived.

Answer: yes

This case was the subject of a surprisingly heated disagreement among the justices. The five-person majority stressed that the DNA sample was not much more intrusive than the fingerprinting and photograph that are part of normal booking procedures. The majority stressed that DNA was part of the identification process, just as the photograph and fingerprint are.

Justice Scalia's dissent poked fun at the majority's "identification" theory, pointing out that the Maryland law in question, as well as the procedures implementing the law, clearly showed that identification was not the law's purpose. Rather, its purpose is to make what Scalia called a "suspicionless search", something which is improper under the Fourth Amendment.

The defendant King had been charged with an unrelated crime, based on the DNA sample obtained from him. Scalia asserted that this is the real purpose behind the law, to help law enforcement solve other crimes in which DNA had been obtained but not yet matched up to any perpetrator. It is interesting that the arch-conservative Scalia was joined in his dissent by the three most liberal members of the court.