I have previously flagged In Justice Today, a publication of Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project, for its copious coverage of a range of criminal justice issues. Today, I am flagging this extraordinary lengthy In Justice Today accounting of cert petitions to watch as the Supreme Court gets back in action with this "long conference" this week. Here is the start and just a small part of this very helpful (and link-filled) review of criminal cases that could make their way to the SCOTUS merits docket:
Starting on Monday, the Court has dozens of criminal justice related certiorari petitions to consider. Here are the ten petitions we’re following closely, which cover issues including civil commitment, sex offender registries, non-unanimous jury verdicts, death in prison sentences for juveniles, the death penalty, prosecutorial misconduct, Double Jeopardy protections, and solitary confinement...
Karsjens v. Piper. On September 25, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a class challenge to Minnesota's controversial civil commitment regime, the Minnesota Sex Offender Program....
Snyder v. Doe. Over the past decade, Michigan has created one of the most punitive registry schemes in America.... The State of Michigan filed a petition seeking review of the Sixth Circuit’s legal determination that the retroactive application of the sex offender registration laws constituted ex post facto punishment.
Lambert v. Louisiana. In 48 states, juries in criminal cases must return unanimous verdicts. Louisiana and Oregon are the only exceptions; both states permit convictions when only 10 of 12 jurors find the defendant guilty.... Even though the non-unanimity approach only prevails in two jurisdictions, the case arrives at the Court with significant momentum....
Johnson v. Idaho. This term, the Court will have the opportunity to address the question left open in Miller: whether “the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles.” 567 U.S. at 469. In Johnson v. Idaho, the petitioner, Sarah Johnson, challenges the constitutionality of juvenile life-without-parole (JLWOP)....
Ohio v. Moore. In Ohio v. Moore, the State of Ohio is challenging the Ohio Supreme Court’s conclusion that Graham’s prohibition on life-without-parole sentences for juveniles who commit non-homicide offenses also forecloses a term-of-years prison sentence, imposed for multiple non-homicide crimes, that exceeds the juvenile’s life expectancy....
Three other pending petitions — Willbanks v. Missouri Department of Corrections, Garza v. Nebraska, and Castaneda v. Nebraska — present essentially the same question, albeit from the opposite posture. In each, the petitioner challenged the constitutionality of his lengthy aggregate term-of-years sentence, imposed consecutively for several different felony offenses....
Hidalgo v. Arizona. Abel Daniel Hidalgo has asked the Court to consider the constitutionality of Arizona’s death penalty scheme, both in light of its failure to meaningfully narrow the class of murders that are death-eligible and because evolving standards of decency show that, as a categorical matter, the death penalty is unconstitutional....
Farnan v. Walker asks the Court to resolve questions about qualified immunity in the context of prison officials making determinations that a prisoner should be placed in solitary confinement....
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