SCOTUS limits reach of Mandatory Victims Restitution Act in Lagos ... and talks about Fourth Amendment
The US Supreme Court handed down two opinions and a dismissal this morning, all from the criminal side of its docket. The one sentencing decision came in Lagos v. United States, No. 16-1519 (S. Ct. May 29, 2018) (available here). Here is hope the unanimous opinion by Justice Breyer gets started:
The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 requires defendants convicted of a listed range of offenses to
“reimburse the victim for lost income and necessary child care, transportation, and other expenses incurred during participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense.” 18 U.S.C. §3663A(b)(4) (emphasis added).We must decide whether the words “investigation” and “proceedings” are limited to government investigations and criminal proceedings, or whether they include private investigations and civil proceedings. In our view, they are limited to government investigations and criminal proceedings.
Got that? The short Lagos opinion goes on to provide a mini-primer on federal restitution statutes, but both the issue and the opinion here ensures this ruling will not be too long remembered.
Also not to be too long remembered is a DIG (dismissed as improvidently granted) from SCOTUS today in City of Hays, Kansas v. Vogt, No. 16-1495. The only SCOTUS decision today likely to get any real attention is a Fourth Amendment ruling in Collins v. Virginia, No. 16-1027 (S. Ct. May 29, 2018) (available here). Justice Sotomayor starts the opinion for the Court off succintly: "This case presents the question whether the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter the curtilage of a home in order to search a vehicle parked therein. It does not." Justice Alito dissents alone, starting this way: "The Fourth Amendment prohibits 'unreasonable' searches. What the police did in this case was entirely reasonable. The Court’s decision is not."
The merits aside, the Collins decision will really garner attention because of a lengthy concurrence by Justice Thomas. Writing alone, he urges the Court to reconsider the reach of the exclusionary rule. Here is how his opinion starts and ends:
I join the Court’s opinion because it correctly resolves the Fourth Amendment question in this case. Notably, the only reason that Collins asked us to review this question is because, if he can prove a violation of the Fourth Amendment, our precedents require the Virginia courts to apply the exclusionary rule and potentially suppress the incriminating evidence against him. I write separately because I have serious doubts about this Court’s authority to impose that rule on the States. The assumption that state courts must apply the federal exclusionary rule is legally dubious, and many jurists have complained that it encourages “distort[ions]” in substantive Fourth Amendment law, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 157 (1978) (White, J., dissenting)....
In sum, I am skeptical of this Court’s authority to impose the exclusionary rule on the States. We have not yet revisited that question in light of our modern precedents, which reject Mapp’s essential premise that the exclusionary rule is required by the Constitution. We should do so.
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